Friday, August 29, 2014
The Ice Bucket Challenge is a charitable drive in which people pour a bucket of ice water on themselves and share the video clips on the internet.
It was meant to be a movement to raise public awareness of Lou Gehrig's disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Obviously, famous ALS patients, such as legendary physicist Stephen Hawking, could not achieve what social media have done to advance the cause by leveraging the power of the masses.
But the movement has turned into an opportunity for celebrities and politicians to make a statement about themselves.
Very recently, there were parents pouring ice water on their crying infants who could not even speak. The outrage over these irresponsible parents has already prompted police investigations.
I hope society is also aware that there is another group of adults not only acting irresponsibly against our future generations, but doing so for their own benefit.
The Ponzi scheme that is called "universal pension" is not only fashionable, it is an inter-generation wealth transfer from the young to the old.
Please forgive me for pointing out the outright stupidity of the idea how can one ask those who can't even afford a mortgage to support the generations who enjoyed the unprecedented post-war economic growth?
Let me make it clear. I am not against targeted welfare to those who missed the golden economic age back in the 1960s to '90s.
I cannot understand why we need a Ponzi scheme that is destined to
I can understand why socialists want to make welfare a right, rather than a privilege. By making handouts universal they think they are on higher moral ground.
No, they are not. Welfare is a negative-sum game whereby politicians and bureaucrats take their unjust share of benefits and redistribute the value created by others.
Rights are a positive-sum game where everyone has something to gain when the rights of others are ensured.
Welfare is not a right. If you love your kids and cherish our tradition, please say no to the stupid idea of asking our kids to bear our burden. Amen. Simon Lee is a business consultant
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=15&art_id=148900&sid=42681600&con_type=3
