From the Files of "Dumb and Dumber"

Beyond Credulity

At times peculiar things happen which leave us aghast at the folly of mankind.  Either that, or we find ourselves weakened by laughter.  We are reminded of Mr Bennet's sarcastic riposte: “'For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?'”  

Finland has entered into a noble experiment.  A select group of unemployed citizens was provided a basic income from the state (that is, from other citizens) to test whether it would have any good or bad effects upon them.  Some very astute gnomes have been arguing that the provision of a basic income would have no effect on the alacrity and diligence with which the recipients would look for jobs.

An experiment where unemployed Finns were given a basic income failed to encourage them to find work, researchers have found.  “The basic income experiment did not increase the employment of participants during the first trial year,” Kela, the Finnish government agency in charge of benefits, said in a statement on the project’s preliminary findings on Friday.

Kela, in conjunction with the Finnish Centre for Economic Research and other partners including the universities of Turku and Helsinki, began a two-year experiment in January 2017 where 2,000 randomly-selected unemployed people were given a monthly basic income of €560 (£490/$634) regardless of any other income they may have or if they were actively seeking employment. (Breitbart News)

You can just imagine the reaction of the 2,000 recipients of "money for jam" experiment.
   Since they have been recipients of other people's money, naturally they would be motivated above and beyond non-recipients to go out and get a job.  Now, if that makes any kind of sense to you, dear reader, do we have a deal for you, located somewhere around the Brooklyn Bridge!

But it is not all stupidity and waste.

 Researchers found that while the free money had neither negative nor positive impact on the participants gaining employment, “those who received the basic income felt better at the end of the experiment than those in the control group.”  Kela researcher Miska Simanainen told the BBC that the experiment was undertaken to see if there was a way to reform the country’s social security system.  Mr Simanainen told the broadcaster that despite the results, he does not believe the trial had “failed,” rather that it “[gives us] new information that we did not have before this experiment.”

Well, good luck with that "new information".  What was learned we wonder?  Well, at least the OECD is learning.  It did some numbers on Finland's noble experiment.

However, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) assessed that income taxes would have to increase to cover the cost of UBI, with Finland having to increase theirs by 30 percent if it rolled out the wealth distribution scheme across the country.  The OECD also warned that UBI could, in fact, raise Finland’s poverty rate from 11.4 percent to 14.1 percent.

Inexplicably Finland is terminating the experiment.  One cannot imagine why.  One can but hope that the staff at Kela responsible for the noble experiment will be made redundant.   Ah, but they have made some small contribution to general well being.  They have "made sport" of themselves for the entertainment of us all.