Taxpayer-Funded Paid Friends Program

(Melbourne, Australia) Deakin University psychology professor Bob Cummins has researched the well-being of 2,000 Australians by examining eight areas, including relationships, health, age, income and standard of living.

From the results, Professor Cummins has launched the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index (AUWI) based upon quantitative and qualitative criteria, ranking each individual's well-being from low to high.

With the AUWI, Professor Cummins categorizes people based on his assessment of their well-being with an eye towards improving the ranking of those individuals with low scores by buying them some friends. Yes, you read that right.

"We could think much more about how ... public policy can develop a system of paid friends whose professional role is to provide an intimate relationship, a sharing relationship with other people," Prof Cummins said. [ ... ]

Prof Cummins said the "paid friends" program could be supported by government, with the person receiving the service paying a nominal fee.

Frankly, I have no idea how something like paid friends could work but I do believe that it's a mistake to have the government involved in determining if and when you are happy and deciding who your friends should be. It also seems outrageous to have taxpayer dollars used to buy somebody a friend.

Furthermore, I'm unable to distinguish between Prof. Cummins paid friends program and NY Gov. Spitzer's paid friends program. You know, the one that cost Spitzer his job. As I recall, though, Gov. Spitzer used his own money to buy a friend. It wasn't part of a taxpayer-funded program like Prof. Cummins suggests.