# **What are we talking about?**

*From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income):*

> Universal basic income (UBI) is a sociopolitical financial transfer policy proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a legally stipulated and equally set financial grant paid by the government without a means test

*If you prefer a video*, Kurzgesagt’s [Universal Basic Income Explained](https://youtube.com/watch?v=kl39KHS07Xc) explains it more in depth.

Basically, *if you feel like you don’t have enough time for yourself or for the activities and people you care about*, that your time at work is often wasted, if you struggle to make ends meet with the money you make or that 8 working hours per day are too much, *UBI could make our life easier and more enjoyable*.

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# Q&A

Q: **Where can I sign?** ✍️

A: *Link at the end of the post.*

Q: **What’s an ECI?**

A: It stands for European Citizen Initiative. In short, it’s an *official collection of signatures* that allows EU citizens to propose new laws to the European Commission.

Q: **How does it differ from sites like change.org?**

A: *It is an official and regulated mechanism* that can’t be ignored by the European Commission, unlike any other petitions site.

Q: **There’s no way we’ll reach the set goal in 3 weeks, why should I sign?**

A: Never say never; we’re posting in every European subreddit. *If you think UBI should be experimented but you won’t sign, how will people ever know?*

Q: **Why should I trust you?**

A: *Don’t.* Resources have been linked so you can inform yourselves and form your own opinion.

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## ➡️ ***[Sign here ✍️](https://cs.eci-ubi.eu/)*** ⬅️

18 comments

  1. The fact that countries that already had communism are mostly at bottom of results table should tell you everything you need to know about this initiative 😊

  3. So, country takes money from all of its citizens(taxes). And then they take some of that money and give it back to citizens(basic income). How does that make sense? Why not just reduce taxes and save state some money they would spend on this new system?

  4. I still believe communists should have been hanged on lamp posts after revolution to set an example…

  5. “Give me muh money for free, I do not want to live in my mom’s basement anymore” petition

  6. Resources have been linked? There is nothing on the website other than what is this specific petition/sign fields.

    Kurzgesagt and Wikipedia has basic concept description, but other important stuff are not there, like funding.

  7. UBI nepodporuju, eventuálně by se tam v budoucích masových hysteriích přidaly různé podmínky pro nárok na UBI jako podstoupení nějakého “dobrovolného” očkování, atd.

    Byl by to vlastně takový způsob zotročení, seberou nám skoro všechny peníze a vrátí nám je jen když budem lízat paty.

  11. Nice idea.

    We will take all the people that signed the petition and throw them into forced labour camps.

    And they will be creating money that we will be getting. You wanted socialism and communism so you can get first hand experience.

  14. UBI idea usually comes with the dismantling of the current social safety net system and using the money from it to fund UBI.

    To give a perspective on how much any of us would get these days, it would be about 4500 Kč a month. This, however, would mean the end of every directed social benefit like illness benefits (nemocenská), benefits for new parents (rodičovský příspěvek) and arguably most importantly pensions for seniors (starobní důchod).

    Average senior pension is around 15 000 Kč nowadays and 4500 Kč is approximately lowest senior pension possible.

    Now tell more than 20 % of our population to significantly reduce their income in favor of younger generations including the working and the rich.

    Edit: Looking at this [page](https://ubi-europe.net/ubi/unconditional-basic-income/), they state that “We emphasize that UBI should not replace the compensatory welfare state but rather complete and transform it into an emancipatory welfare system.”

    So how the heck do you expect us to finance that? Establishing UBI would mean at least doubling our welfare state expenses. That is additional 500 billions (miliard) deficit to our government budget, minimum.

    Maybe even much, much, much more considering the same page says:

    “High enough: The amount should provide for a decent standard of living, which meets society’s social and cultural standards in the country concerned. It should prevent material poverty and provide the opportunity to participate in society and to live in dignity.”

    We might very well be talking about additional 1500 or 2000 billions burden annually for our government budget!

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