Juha Jarvinen doesn't just play these shaman drums, he makes them.
How much would you charge for this one, say, then?
Not in Finland, but, internationally?
*both laugh*
That's not the only business he's got going.
There's filmmaking, and an artist version of Air B&B. All this while helping bring up six
kids. Sort of.
All three kids sleep in this, these bunks?
They're sleeping on the trampoline?!
Are you a bit anarchist?
Are you an anarchist dad?
Had you swung by last year, things wouldn't have been half
so jolly.
Back then jobless Juha was on dole money which comes with such
tight restrictions he wasn't able to pursue any of his business ideas.
But since January he's been getting six hundred and sixty dollars a month,
no strings attached.
"What has a basic income made possible for you then?"
You get paid about $600 a month
What does that enable you to do? Is that a lot of money for you?
His apparently idealic lifestyle forms part
of one of the biggest economic experiments of our time.
Universal basic income has rocketed in popularity since the banking crash.
Bernie Sanders backs it, so does tech Titan Elon Musk. Now Finland is hosting the first big
trial in Europe. This isn't the purest form of UBI, which would be handed out to
everyone, even billionaires.
Instead it focuses only on the unemployed.
Still, there's a big jump between pilot and policy, and ministers know it.
What's the politics of actually giving people who are unemployed money just to sit at home?
Just as UBI freed Juha from being trapped on welfare
it could do the same for many others around the world.
The link between work and
wages is at the heart of capitalism, breaking it is opposed by some very
powerful groups.
In Finland that includes the finance ministry and the country's
largest trade union.
You are saying it's unaffordable, how unaffordable is it? What kind of impact
would it have on the economy?
What happens if we just give everyone money for nothing?
Where's all the tax going to come from to pay for it?