HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1992-07-29, Page 5Arthur Black
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 29,1992. PAGE 5.
Ho hum
Another high
roller goes
off the rails
God shows his contempt for wealth by
the type of person he selects to receive
it.
Austin O'Malley
My nomination for quote of the month
goes to Donald “Busted Flush” Trump, the
New York ex-tycoon who is desperately
trying to resurrect his torpedoed financial
empire. Trump has spent the past year or so
panhandling on Wall Street, cozying up to
anybody with a bulge in their hip pocket.
Especially bankers. Earlier this month,
Trump told a reporter he’d be back on his
feet in no time. “The banks have worked
with me, and I’m really proud of that.”
Brilliant, Don. Of course the banks have
worked with him - Trump owes them
enough money to bail out the national debt
of most Third World countries. Surely he's
heard the old Wall Street saying - ‘If you
owe the bank ten thousand dollars, you've
International Scene
By Raymond Canon
Where is
Outer
Mongolia?
I have the suspicion that, if I were to stop
50 people on the street and ask them where
Outer Mongolia is, I would get little more
than puzzled stares followed by a few wild
guesses. Actually, if you want to get your
atlas out, you will fmd that it is located on
the northern border of China and what part
of its border that Mongolia does not share
with China, it shares with what used to be
the Soviet Union. My students, or at least
those who are listening to my version of
ultimate truth, know where it is, not to
mention the capital Ulan Bator, since I use it
frequently to illustrate a country which does
not share Most Favoured Nation status with
Canada. You don't know what that is either?
Don't worry; neither do most other people
but, since it really does not play a leading
role in the development of this article, you
will have to wait until I get around to
discussing it. That is, unless you want to
look it up.
Actually there is not much to say about
Mongolia in general except to point out that
it has been around for a long time. If you
learned anything about it in history classes,
it is probably its activities in the 13th
century, when the famous Ghengis Khan led
his people on one of their periodic raids
against the European people since about the
same time as the Roman Empire was pulling
in its horns. Ghengis, who has the reputation
of being about as far to the political right as
it is possible to be, conquered a large tract of
\
got a problem. If you owe the bank a million
dollars, the bank's got a problem.’
At last report, Trump was shopping
around for a $2 billion, as they say, “debt
restructuring”.
Not that the banks are likely to throw open
their vaults and see if Trump can lose it all
again. In typical Bankerese understatement,
a spokesman said that many in the financial
community “are not comfortable” about the
prospect of bankrolling Mister Trump.
Ho hum. Another high roller goes off the
rails.
It hasn't been a good decade for tycoons.
Robert Maxwell stepped off his yacht one
night last year in the middle of the Atlantic
Ocean - barely ahead, it turns out, of the
crash of his mighty empire. He was once one
of the richest men alive - on paper, anyway.
Now, his capitalist kingdom lies in shambles
and his two sons have been charged with
fraud and theft.
Canadian plutocrats haven't had a much
easier ride. Robert Campeau, the one-time
boy wonder from Sudbury, Ontario,
continues to hide out in his Austrian
mountain chateau - the last bauble
remaining from his crumbled commercial
empire. In Edmonton, Peter Pocklington
stickhandles his way gingerly through the
encroaching fiscal forest. I wonder if he's
still got any of the cash he got for Gretzky?
And Nelson Skalbania - whatever became
of Nelson? It wasn't so long ago that he was
land which included all of central Asia,
China and even down the Indian border.
Later on his grandson, Batu, who does not
seem to be remembered as faithfully in
history books as his grandfather, proved that
anything Ghengis did, he could do as well if
not better. He marched right into Russia,
conquered the whole country and even gave
the Germans a run for their money. The
Mongolians ruled Russia for about 300 years
and, while in the process of conquering, they
ran up a horrible amount of death and
destruction. Once they had conquered, they
left the people pretty well alone except when
it came to collecting taxes. That they did
with an iron hand.
However, like many another civilizations,
the Mongolians went downhill after the
Khans ran out of steam and today the main
wealth of the country is counted in yaks.
This may not be much to look at in western
eyes but to a Mongolian, the size of his herd
of yaks is what counts.
Not surprising, squeezed as it is between
Russia and China, the country had had a
communist government. However, the
Mongolians were not slow off the mark to
spot a trend and their insight led them to be
the first Asian country to throw off one-party
communist rule. It also discovered, as have a
great many former communist countries that,
while it is fine to get rid of Bolshevism,
what do you put in its place that will lead the
country away from an inefficient economic
system and into something that will
distribute wealth and consumer goods that
much more efficiently? Having been used to
a one-party system for so long, the
Mongolians, not to mention others, are
finding it extremely difficult to set up a
multi-party system. It recently had its first
real election and who got the lion's share of
the vote? The Mongolian People's
Revolutionary Party, which sounds
suspiciously like the former communist
party. You are right; it is but it turned out to
Canada's version of Diamond Jim Brady -
fast cars, silk suits, Lear-jetting his way to
one Glitz Gala after another. Then Nelson
took a short, sharp and exceedingly chilly
bath on the Stock Market and I haven't heard
of him since.
Then there's the Reichman Brothers. One
hesitates to say anything about the Reichman
boys. They have a tendency to unleash
platoons of lawyers bearing multi-million
dollar lawsuits every time their famous
surname appears in print. So let's just say
that the Reichman Brothers ... appear to be
having some difficulty renting all the office
space they've thrown up over there on
Canary Wharf in downtown London,
England.
Like Mister Trump, the Messrs. Reichman
have been spotted chatting with bankers
about ‘debt restructuring.’
Speaking as a chap who's never likely to
get a banker to buy him lunch, much less
float him a credit line, I can only say that I
find the prospect of tycoons in turmoil a
pleasant one. It's bracing to realize that the
Big Guys can slip on banana peels too.
Makes them appear to be “just folks”.
Ernest Hemingway said it best. He was
having drinks with F. Scott Fitzgerald one
day. The topic rolled around to wealth. “Of
course,” said F. Scott, “the rich are different
from you and me.”
“Yes.” said Hemingway, draining off the
last of his beer, “They have more money.”
be the only party on the slate that apparently
knew how to run an election campaign.
The MPRP got about three-quarters of the
votes cast by avoiding extreme policies. In
short it ran a campaign which we could call
centrist. Unfortunately the opposition parties
could not come up with any reforms that
caught the attention of the electorate. Yet
centrist policies are not ones that are needed
right now. The collapse of the Soviet Union
has taken away Mongolia's chief trading
partner; foreign aid has been slow in coming
and inflation is currently over 100 per cent.
Like many another countries Mongolia will
have to develop new markets, new policies
and obviously new political parties. No
economic version of Ghengis Khan or his
son Batu has appeared on the horizon.
Police seek help
In an effort to diminish the cultivation and
subsequent trafficking of marihuana in the
County of Huron, the police are seeking the
assistance of the public in locating illegally
grown marihuana.
You can aid the police in locating these
illegally grown plants by walking your own
fence line, checking unused lands bordering
your farm or just otherwise reporting any
suspicious activities you might observe, such
as persons entering wooded areas carrying
jugs of water or shovels, or leaving these
areas carrying plastic bags.
Points to remember are that the growing
season for marihuana is June to September,
with harvest taking place in early September.
Locally plants may obtain a height of 4-6
feet on an average or up to 8 feet if a supply
of water is close by. The plants have a stock
similar to that of com and usually bear an
odd number of leaves (five, seven or nine)
which have a jagged appearance. On some
species of the plant, late in the growing
season, a distinctive bud will be noted at the
end of the stem. At the height of the summer
the plan! can be distinguished from
surrounding foliage as being noticeably
brighter “bright green” almost fluorescent.
The
Short
of it
____By Bonnie Gropp____
Medical
profession ailing
I'm not that old, but I do remember when
a doctor was someone other than a person
who practices medicine. Their compassion
for their patients was real and they obviously
cared more for them then for the money they
received. Today bedside manner too often
takes a back seat to technical medicine as
doctors choose the profession because of
scientific intellect or for the considerable
income.
Granted the pressures and demands are
real and for that reason, I like many others,
don't like to bother them unless the matter
seems urgent. This past week a family
member had been suffering from a
debilitating cough for several days. The
hacking was reminiscent of croup, which
every mother will confirm is a terrifying
thing to listen to, especially in the middle of
the night. The ailing one called the clinic the
next morning and was told they were too
busy to see her. Taking into consideration
that this had already gone on far too long in
my opinion, meddlesome mom took the
aggressive stand that they would see her that
morning and decided to chat with them
myself. When I finally connected - it took
two hours - though the receptionist was
pleasant enough, I felt guilty that I should
take up their time when they were short
staffed. "Well... have her come in between
three and four (which meant she has to get
off work). We probably won't see her until
five or six but we'll fit her in when we can,"
she ended with a martyred sigh. My husband
found this rather amusing as it's typical of
any visit he has ever made there, even when
he's had an appointment.
Anyway, I didn't want to make this a
grievance column; I simply wanted to show
where it's coming from. What I want to do
more is pay tribute to the doctor I remember
when I was sick as a child.
The first thing that comes to mind when I
think about our family doctor is that a visit
from him always made me feel better. No
matter how sick I was his gentle assurance,
good humour and kind approach instilled
trust, and I believed instantly he would make
me better. When I was suffering from a
childhood ailment of some kind, he walked
in smiling and teasing and my symptoms
were lessened. His visits could be the best
cure in the world.
Small in stature, but big in heart, he was
the epitomy of the dying breed of doctors.
He made house calls in all hours of the night
and if today's doctors may sometimes feel
their time has been wasted in their office by
a trivial illness I can only imagine the
feelings he must have had at times. I recall
an incident when my big baby of a big
brother was experiencing abdominal pain. It
was the middle of the night but the doctor
arrived promptly. His diagnosis; indigestion.
His treatment; a smile and an antacid. His
advice; next time you eat 10 cobs of com,
try having something else with it
His retirement almost 20 years ago pretty
much meant the last of his breed in my town
as modem medicine moved in.
On the realistic side it's silly to think that
today’s busy medical practitioners should or
could revert to his methods, but idealistically
some of his examples should be followed.
Though there are doctors today with his
talent for caring, they are few and far
between. Modem doctors may know more,
but they are not necessarily wiser.
It's too bad that this generation has never
known the faith I had in our family doctor.
To them a visit to the doctor often means
being dragged out when you feel sick, sitting
in a crowded waiting room for what seems
an eternity, only to get a perfunctory
examination and a perscription slapped on
the desk with a "call me if there's no change
or the condition worsens".
It would be nice if something as simple
as that could heal an ailing medical
profession-