“The world is filled with willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.”
Widely attributed to Robert Frost online, but I haven’t seen any actual specific place he supposedly said or wrote it
“human behaviour ultimately derives from human volition – tastes, attitudes, values, and so on – and these aspects of volition in turn are either formed entirely by choices or are the product of biological or social processes that we cannot or will not change.... The one thing we cannot easily do, if we can do it at all, is change, by plan and systematically, the minds of men.”
James Q. Wilson Thinking About Crime
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say our political classes are reacting to inflation like a bird to a snake, paralyzed by approaching danger.
“More than seven decades after being founded based on socialist ideals, an Israeli kibbutz is producing the most capitalist of foods. Caviar fetching $4000 for a two-pound jar is being shipped more than 5,600 miles away to be served at some of New York's finest restaurants…. Yigal Ben Zvi is a member of Kibbutz Dan who decided to take matters into his own hands. With the help of eight workers, he now produces some of the best farmed caviar in the world…. However, Ben Zvi can’t speak from personal experience. Kibbutz members can’t enjoy the caviar because it's not kosher.”
NBC August 10 2012 (I think - my notes indicate the story might have been from a few days earlier)
“The NDP Boxing Day sale ends in just a few hours. But you must act now. Donate to Canada’s New Democrats before midnight tonight – and get up to 75% back on your 2011 taxes.”
Email from the federal NDP December 31, 2011. (The point being that even they know incentives matter... except when designing policy proposals.)
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the Ontario NDP proposal to bring all mental health care into our crumbling public system reflects a broad, nonpartisan, goofy belief that government is the main and best creator of wealth in a society.
“Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
Thomas Edison’s “much quoted statement” quoted by his son Charles in William Bennett The Book of Virtues
In my latest National Post column I say that given how horrified we are at the foolish things politicians do, including on defence procurement, we should pay more attention to the foolish way they think.