jadero

This is the closest thing to a solution they will find. It’s too late to switch leaders. That might have worked a few months after the last election, especially if it had been coupled with a bit quicker action on the expansion of Medicare.

Now it’s their turn to take one for the team. We’ve been voting liberal instead of our true preference in order to keep the Conservatives from destroying our country. Now they have to go hat in hand to the NDP and hammer out a different voting system and put it in place before the next election. If they don’t, the Conservatives will take power and it will be their fault.

I have always been suspicious of any “rights” movement among those with power. Whether it’s “White rights,” the “rights” of corporations, the rights of the property class and wealthy, or Men’s Rights. It is not that such rights do not exist or that there are no grievances deserving of redress, it’s that they too often are self-serving attempts to retain or increase power.

I am of the opinion that the vast majority of legitimate male grievance against society would be better addressed by bringing to heel the corporations, the wealthy, and those who seek political power for personal gain.

Ingesting gasoline is deadly in far smaller doses due to something called hydrocarbon pneumonia. My dad very nearly died as a result of having a tiny amount get past his throat while siphoning gas to a small engine’s tank.

If you must siphon gas, go buy a cheap “pump siphon” from Canadian Tire.

Okay, so I do less computer programming for money, but it’s still a hobby and I contribute to a few open source projects.

But here are a few things that wouldn’t get done if I were still employed:

• regular classes in internet security and privacy to help keep community members safe online.
• volunteering at the school to help teach students both new technologies (3D printing, robotics, environmental data collection and analysis) and old (boat building, sailing, winter survival in nature) plus tutoring in everything from music performance to math.
• serving with the emergency measures organization

That’s approximately where my list ends, but fellow retirees are helping less abled people stay in their homes and communities, showing up at social justice rallies, and a myriad of other things that are important both societally and economically. If it’s judged to be less important than employment, it’s also important to note that much of it wouldn’t be societally affordable without our free labour, yet has profound impacts on quality of life.

And I disagree that removing incentives leads to less being done. External incentives, like paycheques, are probably the least effective incentives there are. Most people are motivated by passion, desire, contribution, and satisfying results.

This may not apply everywhere, but around here (Saskatchewan), retirees are the lifeblood of service and community organizations. From the quilting club that generates revenue for brain injury research and food banks to the senior centre that helps people age in place, retirees are a critical component of the glue that holds us together.

Even if you have a fairly narrow economic view of what it means to contribute to society, there is no question that retirees are making those contributions. While actual money is required for most things, nothing happens without people putting in time and retirees have plenty of time and aren’t shy about using it.

This is something I became aware of as my older relatives retired. Now that I’m retired myself, I’m more active than ever in the community, despite having also retired from the volunteer fire and rescue service.

My concern with a universal income is that it discourages healthy people from working and thus contributing to our collective wellbeing.

Every study I’ve heard of shows that is not what happens except in very narrow situations. For example, the study run in Dauphin, MB found that teenagers were less likely to work or to work less, but that was because they were choosing to focus on their schooling and, in some cases, actually stay in school. IIRC, there were also people who chose to stay at home with young children or care for infirm relatives rather than find other care options so they could go to low wage, “low skill” jobs. Those outcomes seem positive given the results of other studies regarding education and family care.

There is a general problem in mass psychology where people sitting around a table or in their armchairs try to imagine the impact of a policy without conducting a study or looking at historical results.