Think logically before making sweeping statements, reader writes

To the editor,

Re: 'Rich not paying fair share of taxes,' Letters.

The very contents of the letter by Kay Matthews argues against the case being made.

The letter mentions always hearing about the abuse of welfare cheques by the poor. The question is do all or even the majority of the poor abuse their welfare cheques? I do not have hard statistics to answer this accurately, but I am fairly sure the answer would be "no".

Again, she mentions the rich who bilked billions out of the system constantly. Do all the rich do this, and what exactly is the "system" being bilked?

The answer to the first part again is probably "no", and the "system" could not be the welfare or other government scheme, which demands income verification.

There are "...the huge tax breaks that corporations get in order to secure jobs for Canadians and then the corporations don't follow through...".

Again, how many corporations are guilty of this? Again, I would venture to guess only a small minority.

Finally, "...they don't pay back the money they received in tax rebates...".

A tax rebate is not a loan to be paid back. It is also not money received but the avoidance of payments.

The analysis by the letter takes the individual or specific case and irrationally and illogically extrapolates it to a general rule. This includes the abuse of the welfare system by the poor.

The two main points need to be considered:

1. Generalizations cannot be made from specific cases. A proper statistical analysis needs to be done on all cases before a "rule" can be established.

2. Good news do not sell newspapers or make the broadcast headlines. We shall continue to hear about the sensational one-of-a-kind cases, which shock everyone because this is what brings in the revenues for the newspaper or broadcaster. We have to be careful to apply rule 1. above when we hear the bad news.

By the way, I am not rich but a retired person trying to get by on a small-to-average pension, so I have no axe to grind here. I just like to think logically.

L. A. Phillips