The Citizen, 1990-12-18, Page 5Arthur Black
THE CITIZEN, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1990. PAGE 5.
Laughing
to the end
A laugh is the opposite of a breakdown.
It’s a breakup.
Bernard Slade
1 see from my newspaper that Sweden is
set to put its civil servants through an
improvement course.
They are going to be taught how to
laugh.
“A bureaucrat works a lot with laws and
contracts” says Ulla-Christin Svensson,
the woman in charge of the humour course.
‘‘That leaves him very much controlled and
stops him from really opening up.”
I think it’s a wonderful idea which can
only improve the average Swede’s lot.
Think of the merry peals of laughter
ringing out across the blue-grey snowscape
of that gloomy, introspective land.
‘‘We confront problems better by being
happy” Ms. Svensson says, and I know
she’s absolutely right.
Just imagine for a moment the merry
peals of laughter ringing out across the
blue-grey snowscape of oar gloomy, intro
spective land. Meech Lake, the GST, the
The International
Scene________
A bird’s eye view
of inflation
BY RAYMOND CANON
If it is one thing that people complain to
me about, it is inflation. I constantly hear
about prices that have gone up more
rapidly than incomes and I have the
suspicion that in the back of the complain-
er’s mind, he or she hopes that I will come
up with some solution that will make
everybody live happily ever after. If only it
were that easy!
Perhaps the lamentations have increased
because there is no doubt that inflation is
on the rise just about everywhere in the
industrialized nations. The lowest is in
Japan (2.3 per cent) and the highest is
Sweden (10.8 per cent) and all the others
are rather evenly spread between the two.
Canada with a current 4.1 per cent is at
about the half-way mark, and surprise of
surprises, Switzerland is a full two per cent
higher than that of Canada. I find that hard
to believe, given the discipline that the
Swiss show to economic matters but, as I
was there,a couple of times this summer, 1
can vouch for the fact that prices are rising.
Given that there is virtually a free
market in the flow of money, not to
mention the amount of foreign trade which
takes place, it is not surprising that the
major countries tend to move in unison
much of the time when it comes to
inflation. However, I don’t think that
people are too interested in that; what they
want to know is what causes price
increases and what can be done (painless
of course) to correct it. In the next few
lessons you are therefore, going to get a
crash course in the economics of inflation.
For centuries the main cause of inflation
has been the classic one of “too much
money chasing too few goods” or “de
mand runs ahead of supply.” In other
words the economy, be it Canadian,
German or British, cannot produce goods
quickly enough to meet the current
demand. Thus we have a situation where
people bid up the price of goods; one has
only to look at what happens periodically to
the housing market in Toronto to see the
truth of that statement.
If we had to pay cash for our goods, the
situation might not be so bad. However,
Quebec Sulk, the Leaf slump, - this
country could use a laugh.
There’s a reason a deep hearty belly
laugh feels so good and it’s not just
because it breaks the tension or relieves
the monotony. Laughter is therapeutic. It
really is good for a body (or a country).
There’s an old saw that goes: ‘‘he who
laughs last laughs best.” A wise physician
once amended that to: “he who laughs,
lasts.” It’s true. Laugh, and you’ll live
longer, not to mention better.
Well ... not always, I suppose.
Allen Ginsberg, the American poet,
claims he nearly died from an overdose of
nitrous oxide (laughing gas) -- but given
the benign nature of laughing gas, and the
poet’s penchant for high melodrama,
Ginsberg may have been pinching a little
poetic licence.
Then there’s the case of Zeuxis, a Greek
painter who lived back around 500 B.C.
Zeuxis was commissioned by a wealthy and
somewhat eccentric patron to paint a
portrait of a well-known local bag lady.
Zeuxis kept his part of the bargain. He
rendered a portrait so wickedly hilarious
that it made him -- the artist - smile. Then
snicker. As a matter of fact it made him
laugh out loud. Then he guffawed and
whooped and roared and gasped for breath
and looked at his portrait and roared some
more and ...
Died. Zeuxis laughed so hard he burst a
since credit (cards or otherwise) is so
accessible, we can add to our supply of
cash by borrowing and this makes a bad
situation worse. People, it seems, have to
have things right away and they don’t stop
to think what all this is doing to the price
level.
Another prime cause of inflation is what
we call “cost-push”. Let’s look at an
industry whose workers manage to negoti
ate a wage increase. Unless the same
industry is able to increase its efficiency or
productivity by about the same percentage
as the wage increase, this means that the
products will carry a new and higher price
tag. Try telling a union, for example, that
they are one of the causes of inflation. To
be honest, just about everybody contri
butes to it in some way.
Take a very topical product such as
petroleum. Because of the instability in the
Middle East, the price of crude oil starts to
climb. This increase fits into the cost-pushy
category outlined above and as a result
contributes to the general increase in
prices.
Now that you have a brief outline of the
causes, what can one do to bring those
increases back to more acceptable levels.
For openers we might try cutting back on
our purchases (demand). Either pay cash
for them or delay buying them until you
have a bigger percentage of the price in
cash. The government tries to help this
along by increasing interest rates and you
all know the screaming that results from a
move such as this. However, unless we
Mabel’s Grill
Continued from page 4
good after all.”
WEDNESDAY: Billie says he’s not sur
prised about the girls in the private school
in Toronto rebelling because they’ve been
told they have to wear skirts with their
uniforms when some of them want to wear
pants to keep warm in winter. “If I was a
woman about the first freedom I’d have
wanted was to wear something that would
keep my kneecaps from freezing,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be bad if it was only that,”
Julia said. “It’s amazing what we women
will do in the name of being fashionable. I
remember when we used to wear those
mini-skirts in Toronto winters and there’d
be this permanent strip of reddish-purple
skin from mid-calf to mid-thigh. It’s a
wonder we didn’t end up with long-term
frost bite.”
Tim says the girls at the school better
hope for a mild winter since the head
master has agreed they can change their
blood vessel in his head. He literally died
laughing.
I guess the bag lady had the last laugh
after all.
Which is one more reason to laugh every
chance you get - because you never know
which one’s going to be your last.
General John Sedgwick didn’t, when he
stuck his head over the parapet during the
Civil War, snorted at the rebel snipers and
scoffed: “Why, they couldn’t hit an
elephant at this dist__”
A few weeks later, in Washington,
another “last laugh” occurred during the
production of a play called “Our American
Cousin”. At one point in the play, the
heroine calls for a shawl to protect her from
the draft. The actor who was supposed to
fetch the shawl replied instead “You are
mistaken, Miss Mary, the draft has already
been stopped by order of the President.”
All very impromptu, all very clever,
because President Lincoln had, in fact
cancelled the draft of American soldiers
that week.
Theatre patrons craned to look at the
Presidential box. Yes, President Lincoln
was laughing appreciatively.
Unbeknownst to all, another actor was at
that moment, creeping towards the Presi
dent’s box, muzzle-loaded derringer in
hand.
John Wilkes Booth was about to insure
that President Lincoln had had his last
laugh.
curb our demand, raising interest rates is a
common mechanism.
We could also try being more productive
but again we run into the situation where
people want to earn more and do less. It is
really important that we address this
situation at the earliest possible moment.
One thing that Canadians like to
complain about are the high interest rates
which have been imposed on us in the fight
against inflation. We should not feel that
we are somehow alone in this respect. At
the present time the same high rates are to
be found in Britain, Australia, Spain and
Sweden, even Germany’s are for them
relatively high at the present time.
What we have to realize that, as long as
we are lukewarm in our support of the
reduction in the federal deficit, we don’t
leave Ottawa too much choice in the way
they go about fighting inflation. When we
borrow money (and lots of it) to pay for the
deficit, this increases the demand for
money and thus the price we have to pay
for such money.
While we are making up our mind about
that little matter, there are several things
we can do. .Use our utilities more
efficiently, drive the car less, cut down on
impulse and credit buying, in short, give
new meaning to the expression “living
within your means.” If you believe in the
old saying that misery loves company, you
can rest assured that you have plenty of
that in most industrialized countries.
There is no, repeat no painless way to fight
inflation regardless of your nationality.
uniform to wear pants but not until the new
school term next September.
“I agree with him,” Ward says. “Wo
men learn soon enough to wear the pants in
the family so let them wait as long as
possible.”
FRIDAY: Hank was surprised to see that
when Ivana Trump finally got her divorce
from Donald it only made page 2 of the
Toronto Star. “I thought it would be a
banner across front page,” he said.
“Ah yes,” said Julia, “but wait till they
get through hashing out whether poor
Ivana gets stuck with only $25 million or
half of all he’s got.”
Tim said she’d better hurry if she’s
going to get half. They figure Donald’s lost
a billion since they first broke up and at the
rate he’s going her $25 million might look
good soon.
“You think Ivana can sue him for
mismanging her money?” Hank wonder
ed.
Letter
from the
editor
Sometimes we get
to fight back
BY KEITH ROULSTON
It’s not a time when it’s easy to feel good
about yourself if you happen to live in a
rural area. All the signs from government
and big business are telling you you don’t
really matter, that you’re an insignificant
remainder from another age and if they
can’t get rid of you, at least they can ignore
you.
Take your choice of who gives the
biggest insult, government or business.
Last week another local post office, in
Bluevale, was given its death sentence.
Those who still somehow think that post
offices in Blyth and Brussels and Wingham
and Clinton won’t find the same fate
probably also have their lists made out for
Santa and believed somehow the GST
wouldn’t go through. It’s going to happen
folks.
CN is trying to get rid of the rail line
through Brussels again. This time with the
economy in recession it’s going to be hard
for local firms to argue they can make the
rail line profitable at a time when they’re
worried about making themselves profi
table.
Petro Canada has declared it doesn’t
want to service dealers who pump less than
one million litres of gas in a year. That
means they will pretty well disappear from
small town Canada (and this is “your” gas
company).
The media has been full of opinion
pieces about how farmers are shafting the
consumer either through being so ineffi
cient they need subsidies or being so clever
they got supply management and because
they are selling milk and chickens and eggs
at a profit are costing consumers (who are
used to buying farm products that farmers
lose money producing) more than they
should rightfully pay.
It often seems that we in rural Canada
are just laying around to give the big and
powerful something to kick when they need
a little exercise. But it’s nice to think that
now and then we can kick back.
In a recent issue of “The Idler”
magazine, John Phillips suggests rural
Ontario did just that when it booted the
Liberal government of David Peterson out
of office last September. Phillips, Editor-
in-Chief of “Farm and Country” one of
Ontario’s largest farm publications, sug
gests that Mr. Peterson and his advisors
made a fatal mistake when they got caught
up in the importance of the trendy urban
vote and forgot their rural roots.
Mr. Phillips credits the Liberal victory in
the first place with the long, hard spade
work done in rural ridings by former
Huron-Bruce M.P.P. Murray Gaunt and
then by Jack Riddell, Huron M.P.P. That
victory wouldn’t have taken place, he said,
if the Progressive Conservatives hadn’t
forgotten their rural roots.
In the days of when John Roberts was
premier and the late Bill Stewart was
agriculture minister, the Tories had a
strangle-hold on rural Ontario and since
rural voters are less apt to switch
allegiances at the drop of an election
promise, they had a solid base of 43 rural
seats to protect themselves against the
fickleness of big-city voters.
But, Mr. Phillips says, Bill Davis when
he took over as leader of the Conservatives
in 1971, surrounded himself with city
technocrats who “saw the quasi-city-state
as the wave of the future”. Mr. Stewart
had to quit because of a heart attack and
without him nagging and smacking his fist
on the table to remind the government
about the people outside the big cities, the
Tory grip on the rural ridings lessened.
Mr. Gaunt and Bob Nixon, then Liberal
leader, took advantage of this weakness,
the author says. Mr. Gaunt helped Mr.
Riddell get elected in a 1971 by-election.
The two of them helped feret out top-notch
candidates in other rural ridings. By the
1975 election the once solid-Tory-blue quilt
across rural Ontario looked like a red and
b'ue patchwork. By the 1985 election there
Continued on page 6