Quote of the Day: “The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore, we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.” Thomas Sowell
“Region turns down donation of ‘World-Class’ sculpture” screams the headline on the Front Page. Wow. Someone at the Region has an IQ over 80. Amazing…
Another anti-Trump editorial. After 5 years of the same nonsense, week after week, it’s it just about time that the editors to give it up?
Very interesting op-ed on the Insight (Huh?) Page today. I’ve never heard of Rob Evans but he is a member of the committee for Basic Income Waterloo Region. This “somewhat” retired business person gives us his thoughts on COVID-19, poverty and basic income theory. He talks about a book he read by two Nobel Prize-winning MIT Economists, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo called: “Good Economics for Hard Times.” I’ve never heard of the book, but I’m definitely going to look it up. Now, this isn’t the first time that the Universal Basic Income (UBI) idea has graced the pages of our Favourite Family Journal. I believe it was John Milloy, a couple of years ago, also wrote about this concept. And it is a somewhat popular idea from both conservative and liberals. I remember (I’d look up the article at TheRecord, but we all know what the so-called search feature is like, now don’t we…) Milloy actually mentioned that Milton Friedman supported the idea of a UBI. There’s a great video on YouTube of Friedman explaining how – he calls it the “Guaranteed Income”, the UBI would work and Friedman’s idea of a Negative Income Tax. Worthwhile checking it out. However, every last article I have ever read on this subject – including Mr. Evan’s today, fails to mention the fact that whenever Friedman talks about the UBI, he always prefixed it by two things. He suggested that society has a duty to look after the less fortunate. But the multitude of programs always overlap and in most cases, have devastating unforeseen consequences. He was in favour of a UBI – but if and only if, all of the other programs that “help” the poor were abolished. And this is the problem. Not one single article ever mentions this fact. So, use the Negative Income Tax to give money to the less fortunate – and dump the hundreds of programs at a city, regional, provincial and federal level. That way, the only thing to argue about is the cost (or maybe the actual savings) of the program. This is why I’m in favour of dumping all of the Indigenous programs and simply giving each and every native person N dollars per year. If they want to take the money and live near the Arctic Circle, then so be it. If they want to live in downtown Toronto, great. But pay taxes and tuition and everything else that all other Canadians do.