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The Citizen, 1992-04-22, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22,1992. PAGE 5. The Lighten up Canada! Anyway you can The best political slogan I've read in years was on one of those mobile illuminated billboard things you often see in front of hardware stores and donut shops advertising “specials”. The one I saw was standing in a parking lot in front of a convenience store in the tiny southwestern Ontario town of Acton. The message on the billboard read: LIGHTEN UP CANADA! WEAR A RED NOSE! Indeed. I can think of no better doctor's prescription for this sad, confused and sullen country than to have each and every citizen don one of those red clown noses for a day. I'd love to turn on my TV and see Peter Mansbridge and Lloyd Robertson delivering the news from behind red clown noses. I want to see a clown nose on Karen Kain when she dances; on Wayne Gretzky when he scores; on k d lang when she sings and on Karen Lee-Gardner the next time she wins the World Downhill. I want to see Mulroney and Parizeau go clown-nose-to-clown-nose over Quebec International Scene Unravelling the mysteries of the exchange rate There never seems to be any great amount of time go by without somebody asking me to explain the mysteries of the exchange rate to them. Questions as to how it works, when is a good time to buy foreign currency, are thrown at me with monotonous regularity to the extent that I have promised one of my readers (well, actually two) to write about the subject so that they can cut it out and pin it up in the kitchen somewhere along with the other memorabilia which kitchens seem to catch. Well, are you ready? There are several theories that purport to explain the fluctuations of the Canadian dollar with the most acceptable one being that, at any given time, there is a demand for Canadian dollars on the part of foreigners so that they can do a large number of things. These include buying our products, paying their expenses while they are in Canada, purchasing Canadian stocks, bonds, T-Bills and the like, paying for services done by Canadian firms. They may also be due to Canadians working elsewhere who want to send money home. At the same time as there is this wide demand for Canadian dollars, there is a finite quantity of our dollars available for such purposes and the net result is a good example of the functioning of the law of supply and demand, which provides an equilibrium price for our currency. The value of our dollar may be expressed in two ways. It can either be in terms of another currency, i.e. the Canadian dollar is worth 83 cents U.S. or a U.S. dollar is worth 1.19 in terms of its Canadian counterpart. Depending on what currency you are involved with, you will find that our dollar may increase in value (it appreciates) or decrease in value (it depreciates) in sovereignty. And I’d pay big money to turn on 100 Huntley Street and catch David Manse pontificating piously behind a big red nose. It is, alas, not going to happen. Canada is a country that takes itself far too solemnly at the best of times. And these are far from the best of times. Instead of the marvellous cathartic purging of a coast to coast Wear a Red Nose Movement, we are doomed to be subjected to more yammering from Quebec, more stammering from Ottawa, more hammering from the GST, spruce budworm, chlorofluorocarbons, Preston Manning speeches and probably, the way our luck is running, a nation-wide epidemic of Jock Itch. And those of us who like to think we still possess a grain or two of sanity? What can we do to protect our meagre, dwindling cache of functioning brain cells? Go fishing, Canada. Get drunk. Make love. Go bowling. Buy yourself a sexy tank top. Dust off your guitar and write a love song. Tell your boss a joke. But mostly ... lighten up a little, any way you can. I already know what I'm going to do. I'm going to sit down and wait for my next edition of Prosebust. Prosebust is quarterly newsletter put out by B & B Editorial Consulting Limited. As a general rule, editorial consultants aren't known for their levity and wit, but they must be a rather By Raymond Canon connection with another currency. Such changes do not work in unison; our currency may be appreciating in terms of one currency and depreciating in terms of another. Since the vast majority of our business is done with the United States, the value of the Canadian dollar is normally expressed in terms of its American counterpart. However, if you are interested in the exchange rate of another currency, the rate will be found on the financial page of most daily newspapers. If not, call your friendly banker. The government agency responsible for our currency is the Bank of Canada, which is the monetary arm of the government. At certain times in our country's history, the dollar has been fixed at a specific level and it is up to the government to keep it at that level or very near to it. At other times, such as the present, the dollar is allowed to float in value and the Bank of Canada can enter the money market, if it so desires, to buy and sell the dollar in order to smooth out these fluctuations. This is precisely what is happening now and you may have noticed that over the past few months the governor of the Bank of Canada, John Crowe, has been letting the rate depreciate gradually in terms of the U.S. dollar, entering the market whenever necessary to smooth out the decline. As most people already realize, a decline in the value of our currency has a noticeable effect on a number of items. It makes our exports cheaper and consequently our imports (cross-border shoppers note) more expensive. It also makes foreign visits to the U.S. more expensive and cheaper for them to come here. By now I think you get the idea. The governor of the Bank of Canada can also influence the value of the Canadian dollar by changing the bank rate, that is the most important interest rate set every Thursday at a level one-quarter of a percent above the rate paid that week for 91-day special crew at B & B. Get a load of Prosebust's front-page “modest proposals for constitutional solutions”: ... Quebec shall have the right to leave Confederation as soon as it finds a suitable person to sublet to. Quebec will still have to come around every once in a while to pick up its mail. ... After Quebec leaves, the remaining provinces shall have a year to sleep around before they have to commit to any new relationships. ... The House of Commons shall be moved to Winnipeg and all deliberations shall take place in the winter at the comer of Portage and Main. This will speed up legislation tremendously. ... To cut translation costs, all government communications to the public shall be reduced to one of two statements: a) Give us money. b) Stop doing that. The Prosebust newsletter is only four pages long and it comes out of Ottawa. It's like a zephyr of fresh air in that boundless ocean of hot gas about constitutional reform, sovereignty referenda, senatorial asymmetry and all those other ‘issues’ Canadians have come to know and loathe. That's the good news. The bad news is that Prosebust is a quarterly. There won't be another edition for about three months. I'm already waiting. That's me sitting on the Post Office steps. Wearing a red nose. Treasury Bills. The latter is a form of short­ term government borrowing, and, if the bank rate is increased, this makes it more likely that foreign investors will put money in this country and thereby drive up marginally the rate of exchange of the Canadian dollar. This is what Mr. Crowe uses on a regular basis to influence the value of our currency. An exchange rate mechanism which is functioning well will result in what is called Purchasing Power Parity. This means that, if you take, say, 1,000 Canadian dollars and buy the quantity of U.S. dollars that are available at the current rate of exchange, you should be able to buy about the same amount of goods in services in Canada for $ 1,000 as you would in the U.S. for the American dollar equivalent. There is some evidence that the exchange rate that would permit this is about 78 to 80 cents U.S. Mr. Crowe may have decided that he is prepared to let our dollar fall to this level but, if he has, he isn't saying anything about it. I am frequently asked when is the best time to buy a foreign currency. Unless you are prepared to buy large quantities, I don't think there is a simple answer to that question. I do, however, have some recommendations. When you travel, get travellers cheques for safety. You can get about a day's expenses in cash which will give you time to look around for the best rate of exchange when yo.u arrive at your destination. My cardinal rule is never to exchange your money at border crossing points, international airports or hotels. They are far more likely to give you a less favourable rate of exchange. If there are exceptions to this rule, I would like to hear about them. One last thing. If you use your credit card in other countries, the exchange rate which is used is not the one on the day of purchase but the one on the day that the financial institution clears the purchase into Canadian dollars. Short of it ____By Bonnie Gropp____ Few guys want to see the world from spike heels I'm not a particularly avid TV watcher. I don't care for most sitcoms on today and an intense aversion to commercials keeps me from watching most televised movies or dramas. However, I do subscribe to First Choice and admittedly a good movie will turn me into a couch potato quite easily. This past Saturday evening, I curled up with some family members to watch Switch, a show about a male cad, who is killed by three of his ex-girlfriends. In order to gain entry into heaven he must return to earth and find one woman who likes him. The devil, however, sees an unfair advantage here, suggesting to God, who happens to be both male and female, that this loser will simply charm the next pretty young thing, thus depriving the devil of his due. So he sends him back - in a woman's body. The movie is funny, due in no small part to the wonderful acting of Ellen Barkin as the wolf in sheep's clothing. The reaction at discovering herself no longer a him is at first, quite obviously, shock, which quickly changes to admiration of the body he now possesses. Learning to walk in high heels, spending hours to dry his long golden tresses, fending off advances from other would-be lotharios and pregnancy are just some of the trials he faces, until he eventually begins to develop an empathy for women. Watching the show, I couldn't help wondering if a transition from female to male would be as hard to take as the one from male to female. While my peers are comfortable with their femininity, most have admitted that they wouldn't mind a walk through the masculine world. I have not, on the other hand, met a man, who would like to see how the world looks from a pair of spike heels. I guess, that's not quite true, but one could hardly categorize this guy in the feather boas I met a few years ago as a typical guy. Anyway, when you think about it, what man - in his right mind - would want to be a woman? Though the twain is definitely beginning to meet, there still seems to be some perks attached to being a man. For instance, how nice it must be to know that following a large family feast, you can immediatley retreat to the living room rather than the kitchen sink. How nice it must be to know that all of the items accumulating on the stairway are not your responsibility to carry upstairs. How nice to know that you can leave your clothes laying on the floor or on various pieces of furniture, because someone else will see that they get washed. If 1 were a man I would be able to operate any piece of machinery I wanted, could fix anything in the house, but wouldn't be able to figure out how to run the washing machine. I could claim a case of the vapours when the baby dirties his pants and an inability to master culinary skills. Not being a stupid woman, now might be a good time to point out that I am one of the fortunate women. My husband, like many others today, is not only an excellent cook, but he does the grocery shopping and is an obsessive vacuumer. On the macho side, he's a terrific handy-man to have around and pretty strong stuff to lean on. And that's where I'd fail as man. While considering myself to be a fairly liberated woman, I don't think I could handle the strong, silent persona well. I like to know that if I’m hurt I can show it. I like to know that I can show weakness if I want. I like to know that if I break something, someone else will fix it. Not that I couldn't learn, but as a woman do I really have to?