MY CUP OF LIBERTY

mobile and Internet access. India and Indonesia have lower access to LTE network, mobile phones, Internet access, etc. (see Table 2).

Reagan was right. Any serious, honest and successful welfare, anti-poverty programs by government should result in a decline in the number of the poor and state-dependent, subsidyseeking people.

What we often have are either dishonest, unsuccessful welfare and anti-poverty programs so that the current poverty incidence is similar to those three decades ago and will remain so two decades from now. Or the programs somehow were successful but implementers, lenders and consultants have invented new schemes so that revised definitions and measurements of poverty always lead to high poverty incidence.

Reagan was right. Any serious, honest and successful welfare, anti-poverty programs by government should result in a decline in the number of the poor and state-dependent, subsidy-seeking people.

So government invents new taxes and fees, or raise existing taxes and fees, to finance new programs and bureaucracies to “fight poverty” endlessly.

If there is more honesty in reducing poverty, the budget for welfarism, the number of

bureaucracies and politicians, the rates of taxes and fees, should flatline and even decline through time. This is hardly happening.

Here is an old anecdote about poverty:

Politician: Thank God for poverty, it provides my political platform.

Consultant: Thank God for poverty, my occupation is to study it.

ODA lender: Thank God for poverty, we endlessly lend money for it.

Poor: I feel so appreciated, thank God.

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