I read with interest Doug Collie's column suggesting that a guaranteed annual income may be the solution to declining employment in our society.
Sounds good if you say it real quickly. As they say, one of those cure-all panaceas the Left likes to throw about, with little thought about the means or the consequences.
There are several problems here, the least of these being, who is going to pay?
If predictions by a professor cited in Collie's column of 50 per cent unemployment were to come about, taxes on those fortunate enough to be employed would have to exceed 100 per cent, factoring in all those other things dear to our hearts, like roads, health care, policing and defence.
Our devil-may-care drive to Green energy isn't going to make life any cheaper for those in the future either. One only has to look at Ontario to see the future.
I would suggest if the unemployment scenario predicted in Collie's column were to come true, we would have major social unrest that our society would not survive.
Alberta's unemployment rate was 8.5 per cent at the time this letter was written and we are seeing crime rates rise.
Employment is not just about income, it's a social need for humans to develop. What we really need to do is create a climate where the economy grows and real jobs are created, not those that minimize human involvement. With still ever increasing populations, we can't ignore the fact that that need will only grow, something we have dreadfully failed at.
When it comes to the economy, till the late 1960s, engineers held sway over what was achievable. Since then, it has been humanists and environmentalists.
Technology for it's own sake is a dead end. The purpose of technology is to serve and benefit the human race, not the other way around, which is what it has become.
If we don't deal with the employment problem, president-elect Donald Trump is just the beginning and those who follow him won't be so benign. Hitler and Lenin came to power because of social disintegration due to problems rooted in high unemployment.
Hans Ullmann
Harmattan
