Quote of the Day: “Eventually, however, the fact that many once-poor places like Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore achieved prosperity through freer international trade and investment became so blatant and so widely known that, by the end of the twentieth century, the governments of many other countries began abandoning their zero-sum view of economic transactions. China and India have been striking examples of poor countries whose abandonment of severe international trade and investment restrictions led to dramatic increases in their economic growth rates, which in turn led to tens of millions of their citizens rising out of poverty.” Thomas Sowell
Cheyenne Bholla let’s us know on Page A3 today that the Green Party is promising to build 160,000 “affordable” housing units. This gem of an announcement came from Mike Schreiner, the Green Party leader if they are elected in the upcoming election. Now Bholla didn’t say give us a timeframe when whese 160,000 units will be built – which is kind of important. And of course, no estimate of the cost of these units or where they would be build or where the money would be coming from to build them. But it’s an election and if you have absolutely no hope of getting more than one seat in the legislature, then I guess you can promise anything you dream up. But a quick calc shows just how stupid this promise is. Let’s say that each unit costs $500,000 to build. This is not an unreasonable number since land costs alone are a huge part of building. (Oh, yea, he also promised not to build on farmland or wetlands, of course…) So, these 160,000 units would only cost $80 Billion (that’s Billion with a “B”). Yup – sounds just about right for this idiot. Even if each unit only(!) costs half of that, it’s still $40 Billion. Bholla tells us that Schreiner says that “(The) housing affordability crisis is the No. 1 issue facing Ontarians right now…”. Really, but what about climate change? Isn’t that the number one issue? Maybe there are a whole bunch of number one issues for the Greens? Of course, I think that a basic understanding economic principles would be the number one issue with the Greens.
Graeme MacKay sure knows where his paycheque comes from, doesn’t he??? After a few Editorials talking about the upcoming Dobbs decision, MacKay’s Editorial Cartoon today has five U.S. Supreme Count Justices pulling down the Statue of Liberty holding a copy of the Roe v Wade decision on a “Women’s Productive Rights” pedestal. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth regarding this cartoon. The Dobbs decision, if it stands as leaked, simply turns the Roe decision back to the States. The original Roe v Wade case has been criticized as just a bad decision – more based on political expedience than on Constitutional law. The upcoming Dobbs case simply acknowledges this error and turns this back to individuals states. This is by far a more democratic and effective outcome since each state can now decide on how to handle their abortion laws. Having a more democratic (state level) process is far better than a country wide federal statute. But hey, if it fits some TorStar editorial stance, then who cares if MacKay’s cartoon is completely wrong headed and baseless?