Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1992-09-30, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30,1992. PAGE 5. Man of Steel headed for the slag heap Faster than a speeding bullet More powerful than a locomotive Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound It's a bird, it's a plane, it’s . . . All over folks. As of next month the guy in the blue leotards and flowing red cap is history. The Man of Steel is headed for the slag heap. Superman is about to die. My comic book spies tell me it will happen in DC Superman issue #75, which is scheduled to hit the streets about three weeks from today. In that issue, I am told, Superman runs afoul of an intergalactic maniac by the name of Doomsday, a chap who's on unsupervised leave from a cosmic lunatic asylum. Rumour has it that Mister Doomsday has huge muscles, magic powers and a bad attitude towards authority. Heck, that doesn't sound like anything the most famous son of Krypton couldn't handle. Over the years, he's put the boots to hundreds of terrorists, tyrants and thugs - home-grown and extraterrestrial. But not this time. The fellows with the - International Scene By Raymond Canon NAFTA — old soap in new bottles The famous philosopher, Bertrand Russell, once said the degree of one's emotions varied inversely with one's knowledge of the facts - the less you know, the hotter you get. This goes a long way, I would imagine, to explain the explosion of sentiments which greeted the news that the Canadians and the Americans had signed a free trade agreement. While most people never took the trouble to study the agreement, just about everybody looked at it as either the work of the devil or else something created in economic heaven. The truth, as in most other cases, lies somewhere in between and much closer to the centre than to the extremes. Well, we now have NAFTA, an agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico. It took 14 months of negotiations but it did not take too long before the likes of Bob White and his followers were playing the same broken record they used so frequently in the previous agreement. Mike Wilson, our Minister of International Trade, was telling any Canadian who would listen just how advantageous it would be for this country, but again what could you expect Mr. Wilson to say. He was the one who spent the 14 months at the bargaining table and is not about to throw out the baby with the bath water. Now that I have all that off my chest, let's take a look at NAFTA from as objective a viewpoint as possible. I have already written that, while I believe implicitly in trade liberalization, I was not really anxious to see \ flow charts at DC's executive offices have decreed that it is time for the caped crusader to take the one-way trip to Superhero Heaven. It's going to leave a big cavity in the fantasy world of comic lowers. Oh, there are still lots of superheros to choose from. They run the gamut from Spiderman and Captain Marvel to Electra and the Silver Surfer. But Superman was the original. He was the character that spawned the whole galaxy of flashy, overpowered imitators. Legend has it that Superman was bom on the dying planet Krypton, but that's not true. Superman was in fact, bom on the back of a piece of left-over wallpaper in an apartment in downtown Toronto. It happened in the depths of the Great Depression (no, Brian - the one before this one). Superman was the brainchild of a Toronto artist by the name of Joe Shuster. In 1938, Shuster doodled the first images of Superman, showed them to his pal, Jerry Seigel, and together they pitched DC Comics on the idea of a new comic book hero. The tycoons at DC liked the concept. They wined and dined the boys and then sweet- talked them into the biggest blunder of their lives. Joe Shuster and Jerry Seigel sold all the Superman rights to DC. For $180 U.S. Pretty soon, Superman was an inter­ national star and Jerry Joe were still grubbing along as graphic artists for DC. They sued the company for more money. the Mexicans involved at this time. Right now they are not in the same league as either the Americans or the Canadians and so it is not really a level playing field. Mexico had a lot more to gain than the other two and they seemed to have gained a considerable amount. For us and the Americans, the pay­ off will take considerably longer to ascertain. I really wish people would get away from using the expression “Free Trade.” It is a misnomer if I ever saw one. The correct word is “trade liberalization.” We do not have free trade with the United States and it will be a good many years, if ever, before we do. What we have done to date is liberalize our trade with each other - to a considerable degree with tariff barriers and to a far less degree with non-tariff barriers. You have only to look at how often the Americans have hammered us on one item or another to see how far we really are from all alleged free trade agreement. Let's start by using the correct expression and perhaps we will get a better picture of what is going on. Furthermore, I would suspect that the Canadian government went into the negotiations with Mexico and the U.S. since staying out would mean that we would not be in a position to protect what gains we had made under the 1989 agreement with the U.S. In short, our chief motive was a defensive one, but one that was important enough to justify our participation from Day One. From what I can see of the agreement just hammered out, we did not do too badly in defending our position vis a vis the Americans; we may have even strengthened it somewhat, especially the mechanism for settling disputes, a mechanism which, by the way, has benefitted us to date more than it has the Americans. As for what industries will benefit from the new agreement, one of them has to be telecommunications where we are very The company responded by firing them on the spot. Over the next 25 years the two originators sued again and again - and always lost. Finally, a few years back the papers got wind of the story. The public wasn't too pleased to hear about the chintzy treatment Superman's creators were receiving. Embarrassed, the company awarded Seigel and Shuster lifetime pensions of $20,000 apiece. Meanwhile, Superman had left his wallpaper origins far behind for the celluloid glory of Hollywood. The Superman films were box office smashes and brought in hundreds of millions each year for the company. In appreciation, the company moguls bumped the Seigel and Shuster pensions up another ten grand each. “Victory” was rather academic at this point for Joe Shuster. He was in his 70's, blind and unable to draw. Oh well, time eventually blindsides all of us - even the Man of Steel. Ironically it won't be Kryptonite or Lex Luther or any of the regular arch-fiends that do in Superman. It won't even really be Mister Doomsday. It'll be the bean-counters at DC. The bottom-line boys have decided that people aren't buying enough Superman comics any more. Ergo, cut your losses. Kill him off. At least they won't have to explain the decision to the man who gave us Superman in the first place. Joe Shuster died in Los Angeles on July 30. „ __ strong internationally. Another will be health care, oil technology, aircraft, fishing and project management. I doubt there will be any great migration to Mexico to take advantage of their low-cost labour; as I have already reported, some of the Canadian firms which went there have opted to close up shop and come back home. They may work more cheaply there; they certainly do not work as efficiently. When you are looking at any trade agreement such as the one we signed with the Americans in 1989 and the recent NAFTA settlement, you have to realize that the pros and cons do not come out immediately. For what it is worth, I would suggest that it will take the best part of a decade to get a handle on it. There is still a great deal of validity in the famous economic law, formulated by the English economist David Ricardo, called the law of comparative advantage which says in effect that each country concentrates on what it does relatively better; as a result both countries benefit in the long run. Certainly the history of international trade since the end of the World War II bears that out in no uncertain terms. Some people might even change their minds about the negative aspects of such agreements. Don't forget, when the Auto Pact was formulated in 1965, the unions were adamantly opposed to it. It was going to lead us to economic ruin. (How often have I heard that before!). Now the same unions don't want to touch it; it is, as they made it very plain during the negotiations with the Americans, fine as it is. If I had my druthers, I would rather see progress made with the GATT mechanism rather than have the world divide itself up trading blocks under the guise of free trade agreements. GATT is where we have made the most progress and there is no reason to believe that the situation has changed. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Birthdays — milk them to the max! I can talk about it now; it's over. It's not that I'm one of those people who for reasons of their own don't like to remember they're getting older. Quite frankly I love people making a big deal out of my birthday. As a matter of fact — ask my husband and kids — I insist. I frequently pass some not-so-subtle hints that they'd do well to heed, because forgetting my big day is tantamount to cutting out my heart. After all, you maybe can't live with birthdays, but you sure can't live without them either, so I give my big day all the attention I can. Usually with people who are not my intimates, I do try to keep it quiet, but being past now, I figure I can take this opportunity to discuss getting one year older. Age is a funny thing. Adorning the top of this 38-year-old body is a head that still thinks it's 15. The other day, my teenage daughter told me to act my age, which puts me in a bit of a bind, because I'm not really sure how to do that. After all I don't think there is a book outlining the various ages of our lives and exactly what kind of behaviour one can expect from a person nearing 40, however, going by her reaction dancing around the kitchen is obviously not for the over 30s. Acting one's age, when you think of it is a fairly vague thing. I have seen young people so serious they are older in mind than many of the next generation, and seniors with a zest for life that can't be rivalled by any youth. It's also transitory. Somedays I wake up and all is right with the world and with my degenerating anatomy. I know there is nothing I can't do. I feel vital enough to be a little carried away and silly enough to act it. Then the next day, I try to get out of bed only to discover that every bone in my body aches. There are bills to pay, demands to meet and I suddenly would be grateful to feel just 38. While my son may remind me that legs should be achy after walking around on them for almost four decades, I know a young mind and heart more than compensates for the nasty things time does to your physical being. Then I see a picture of Jane Fonda, further proving that age really has very little to do with the sort of person we are. That's why I enjoy birthdays so much. Though none of us like to think of time hastening past, I really seldom think of my birthday in that way. To me it's one day a year when every person has a chance to be guest of honour. Actually, don't you think it would be a great idea for every person working to get their birthday off? Though some may argue to the contrary, to me a person’s birthday is not just another day, it's a celebration of that person's life and should be an occasion. If it weren't for our birthday none of us would be here and I hopefully, will get to milk mine to the max for another 40 years.