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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1993-01-20, Page 5Arthur Black The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. They must be signed and should be accompanied by a telephone number should we need to clarify any information. The Citizen reserves the right to edit or not print letters. International Scene By Raymond Canoi THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1993. PAGE 5. Where were you in 1963? "Where were you in ..." That's the preamble to one of the more popular party games these days. It's kind of a variation on Trivial Pursuit — without the board. Somebody names a year and everybody takes turns recounting where they were and what they were doing and with whom at that particular point on the calendar. It's an amusing way to break the ice and get to know your fellow party-goers better. For instance, I could say "Where were you in '63?" and we could have a fine old time comparing notes. Everybody (well, every middle-aged body, anyway) remembers where they were at some time in 1963, because that's the year somebody shot John F. Kennedy. And everyone who's old enough knows exactly where they were when JFK was murdered. I know where I was. And I know where Anne Shapiro was, too. She was in her living room in Florida, watching television. Anne Shapiro was from Hamilton, Ont. She and her husband had moved to Florida in the early 60's after Mister Shapiro retired. Canada Meet the IMF The International Monetary Fund is not an organization whose activities are a topic of conversation at the supper table; nor for that matter are its activities well known among Canadians at general. Perhaps this will not be the case in the near future since Canada is attracting the attention of the IMF and, when that is the case, the news is not good. First, let's take a look at what the IMF does. The organization was set up in the years immediately following the end of World War II. Its basic role was to administer a fixed exchange rate interna- tional monetary system. Older readers will recall a time when Canada was on such a system, the last such occasion being in the 1960's when our dollar was pegged at 92.5 cents American. To maintain such a system a country must be able to use its supply of foreign currency to buy its own currency when there is a good chance that the money in- question is going to fall in value on the foreign currency markets. We are no longer on a fixed exchange rate in Canada but our currency has certainly been falling in value, with the main causes being our necessity of having to finance our national debt by selling bonds to foreign investors and our propensity for travelling to foreign (i.e. wanner) countries whenever we feel like it. You will have noticed that our currency has been falling of late and that, together with the fact that we have the worst current account deficit in the industrialized world, has brought us to the attention of the IMF. While everybody in this country, except possibly those who have invested in bonds, would like to see interest rates in Canada lower than they are, the fact remains that, in In the fall of 1963 she was watching I Love Lucy on TV to keep her mind off the Kennedy assassination. Right about the time Ricky was screaming at Lucy and Lucy was wailing at the camera, Anne Shapiro felt a small 'ping' behind her eyes. And that's when the lights went out. Anne Shapiro — just 49 years of age — had suffered a massive and utterly debilitating stroke. Anne Shapiro didn't die, but she could no longer speak, walk, even dress herself. She stayed that way for the next 30 years. Last November the comatose Shapiro was rushed to a hospital with chest pains. She was sedated and tucked into a hospital bed. When she came to, Anne Shapiro made her first sound in three decades. It was a high- pitched scream. Her eyes were locked on to a television set.- She was screaming because the picture was in colour something she'd never seen. She thought the TV wasn't working and might be about to explode. Anne Shapiro appears to be on her way to a complete recovery — insofar as a complete recovery is possible. The 49-year-old woman who had the stroke in 1963 is now nudging 80 and learning to cope with a barrage of Buck Rogersish phenomena never dreamt of in 1963 — everything from microwave ovens and Cabbage Patch dolls to space shuttles and cellular phones. Rip Van Winkle slept for 20 years. Anne Shapiro stayed out half again as long. When Anne Shapiro suffered her stroke order for us to finance our debt in other countries, we have to make interest rates here more attractive than they are elsewhere, otherwise people will refuse to buy our bonds and this will be translated into, among other things, a fall in the value of our currency. If this happens, the role of the IMF is to step in and lend us enough money to cover our current account deficit in the short term. There is, however, a very impOrtant condition to this sort of financing. The IMF requires that the borrowing country carry out economic policies which will stop the sort of outflow which has got us into the sort of trouble outlined above. What sort of conditions might these be? For openers, there will be a demand that we reduce our budgetary deficit at both the federal and the provincial level. This will mean cutbacks in governnient spending, the likes of which we have refused to take in the past and which we would not find very pleasant. Another might be the curb on he amount of money which we would be allowed to take out of the country. To give you one example, the government might decree that, while we could continue to go anywhere we wanted, we could not take more than $100 with us. Just imagine what sort of yelling and screaming that would bring about! The IMF has been criticized at times by the harshness of its remedies but it works on the assumption that the more quickly the corrections take place, the sooner the country will get the IMF off its back. Even countries such as Great Britain have had to call on the organization but the British have had trouble getting their act together ever since the end of World War II. Right now they are going through a recession that is every bit as bad as the one we have experienced in Canada, if not worse, but at least their current account is still in surplus. However, at the rate things are going, that, too, could change. We have heard a great deal about the Sonny Liston was the heavyweight champ, Christine Keeler was making things hot for British Parliamentarians, people were flocking to the movies to see the new hits Tom Jones and Cleopatra, and a fresh-faced comedian by the name of Johnny Carson was nervously taking over the reins from Tonight Show host Jack Paar. Martin Luther King and Governor George Wallace represented the opposite ends of the Evening News spectrum. A hundred dollars a week represented a darn good wage and with a five cent stamp you could mail a letter first class, anywhere in the country. And it would actually get there. How long ago was 1963? The Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup that year for crying out loud! Just think of all the things that Anne Shapiro slept through. Canada's Centennial ... Paul Henderson's goal ... all of Karen ICain's career. Vietnam ... Richard Nixon ... the Morton Downey Jr. show ... Dan Quayle ... a good half dozen of Liz Taylor's marriages ... all of John Turner and Joe Clark ... and most of Trudeau and Brian Mulroney. AIDS ... Jacques Parizeau ... the Constitutional Referendum ... Maybe Anne Shapiro wasn't screaming about her 1992 TV not working. Maybe she sensed it was working only too well. budgetary deficit in the United States; it is, in its own way, just as bad as the one in Canada. However, there is a big difference between the two countries in one important respect. The Americans are able, for the most part, to finance their debt internally; they do not resort to international money markets to anything approaching the same extent as we do. As a result their current account deficit is about one per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (the sum total of all their economic activity) while ours is 4.3 per cent which, as I said, is the worst in the industrialized world, worse than even that of the Greeks, Italians and Swedes, all of whom have been guilty of running less than efficient economies. To cite one other statistic, ours is twice as bad as it was only five years ago. You and I would never allow our finances to get in such bad shape; we would have been bankrupt long ago. What will it take to stop us from becoming a pariah among international bankers, above all the IMF? The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Maybe it's time to take back the TV Last week I began taking the lid off the proverbial can of worms by suggesting that today's society seems to be more aggressive, almost immune to violence. Well, this week I'm going to lift it right off. I sense an aggression, and a hostility today that needs to be capped. Attitudes and ideals have had me caught up in a great deal of thought, which might explain the headaches I've been getting lately, yet, I can't seem to reach any conclusions. I know I'm not alone in my views; I have talked to too many others who think there is a definite lack of respect, for property, others and human life, which causes a frightening edge, particularly in some of our young people. We either stand by appalled by another's actions or ignore them without wondering how things got to be this way. A colleague of mine recently showed me a feature in "The Toronto Star" regarding the link between television violence and viewer aggression. Okay, so maybe television isn't to blame for Saddam Hussein, but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to take a closer look at this. According to the article some of the findings are inconclusive and contradictory, but most psychologists agree a relationship exists. They contend that if someone, most particularly a child, is exposed regularly to long sessions of violent programming, that person is more likely to become de-sen- sitized to violence and ultimately to indulge in antisocial, violent or possibly even criminal behaviour. An associate professor of psychology at the University of Winnipeg said that no perfect study or no individual experiment exists which will provide the big picture, but there has been enough research to conclude the weight of that research favours the existence of a link between violence and aggressive behaviour. Frankly, people are going to believe what they want, but for my part I must admit it got me thinking, yet again. While raising my oldest two children little television was allowed, other than, of course, the old faithfuls like Sesame Street, Mr. Dressup and so on. However, as they grow older they've obviously been permitted to make their own choices and let's just say quality control has gone downhill quickly. With four supposed adults in the house now, it has become an unfortunate fact that the two youngest members of the family have not had the same restrictions as those their older sibs grew up with. Wrongly, we thought if things were not made a big deal of by us, they wouldn't be a big deal to the younger ones. However, while it's maybe coincidence or family placement or just surviving in this world, there is no doubt that the youngest son is most definitely a more aggressive child than the rest. And it's not just the violence. Kids know too little about too much. Visit any school playground and you'll quickly learn that. I believe when a child has a question it should be answered truthfully, even if Mom may blush a little. Believe me, in the last two months I have had to respond to two remarks that have turned this pale face scarlet. The most vulgar, a crude reference to oral sex, came literally out of the mouths of babes, two nine-year-old girls. Needless to say, when they repeated it the next day and were asked by my child if they knew what it meant, I was not surprised to discover they were ignorant of what they had really said. So why blame television? I'm not, I'm just questioning from where these things come. I don't believe Bugs Bunny warped Charles Manson nor would I suggest Jeffrey Dahmer watched too much Miami Vice. But I do think there is enough reason to question whether there is a negative influence. Personally, after reading both sides of the story, it has made me decide it won't hurt my kids if I take a tougher stand on what they watch, but it may if I don't. I think it's time I got back the remote and the quality control.