by Rick Lowe

Political or economic conversations often lead to the best way of helping the poor and my position is very much like Penn Jillette's (of Penn & Teller) in the following photo found at The Bastiat Institute's Facebook Page.

More recently, discussion has centred around the PLP's proposed mortgage plan of forcing changes to mortgage contracts between banks and borrowers which will increase the national debt with the portion of interest that the government will "subsidise".

I can't restate often enough how tough it must be for people to lose their homes but to throw reason out of the window in these discussions because my sister might lose her house for example, is whimsical at best.

If the proposal is such a great idea, let's go a step further and force housing developers to return their profit on houses sold to those borrowers in distress? Why not tax people that own their house and use that money to pay mortgage arrears?

This is in effect what is being proposed. The only difference is, the approach is more direct instead of adding it to the national debt and tax burden initially. I say initially because sooner or later the government will not be able to pay the debt and will have to raise taxes even higher.

So why not be honest about what is being proposed and go straight to everyone's pocketbook?

Yup, that's my point. The proposed mortgage plan is another reckless, politically motivated programme.