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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1993-10-13, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1993. PAGE 5. In search of the perfect scapegoat The world has benefited greatly from the Hebrews. They gave us the Torah and Doctor Seuss. They also gave us Albert Einstein and Lenny Bruce; Yehudi Menhuin and Bob Dylan; bagels and lox. But I think the greatest gift the Hebrews bestowed upon us was the concept of the scapegoat. You can read about it in the Bible. It tells us that on the Hebrew's Day of Atonement, Aaron selected two goats. One was slaughtered ritually as a sacrifice to the Lord. Then Aaron turned to the other goat and said something like: "You! Look at you! You call yourself a goat? You're a joke! A disgrace to goatdom! Not only that but I hereby saddle you with all the sins and transgressions my people have committed in the past year. My people are now pure and innocent. You on the other hand are a mess. Now get outta here already!" And the goat was banished. Driven into the wilderness. Which personally I think is a helluva lot preferable to having your throat slit on an altar, but that's not the point. The point is: the Hebrew ritual gave the world the The black economy Over the years we have gone through a succession of cleaning ladies; I use the term "ladies" advisedly since the current cleaning of the Canon household is being done by two men. They are the first male hands (other than my own) to dispose of dust in our house and, while they are not the best, they are some of the better cleaning engineers to set foot in our premises. However, one paragraph and already I am coming close to digressing. What I wanted to say was a number of years ago we were approached by a Polish friend who wanted to know if we could use a cleaning lady. As we were between them at the time, my wife replied that she would be interested. It turned out that the friend's sister was visiting from Poland and wanted to pick up a bit of spending money. What better way to do that than to clean houses? My wife finally agreed and was informed that unfortunately the sister did not speak any English. What did she speak? Only Polish and Russian. "That's no problem," replied my wife, "my husband speaks Russian and I'll get him to tell her what to do when she comes." I was duly warned to be present on such and such a morning and when "Olga" arrived, I translated all the things that my wife wanted cleaned. At the end of the conversation my wife asked me to inquire how she wanted to be paid. "Kak yam zaplotyat?" I asked Olga. She replied immediately "Ya xachu cash." She did know one English word after all and she was going to make sure that I did not misunderstand. Cash was what she wanted and cash was what she was going to get. principle of the "scapegoat" — picking some poor shnook out of the crowd and blaming him, her or it for everything that's bad. Humankind has been using scapegoats ever since. The English treated the Highland Scots and Irish as scapegoats. The Nazis did the same to the Gypsies and the Jews. On a less bloodthirsty scale we all use scapegoats. The Newfie joke, the Mulroney dartboard, the Toronto Maple Leafs — all variations on the scapegoat theme. Trouble is, good scapegoats are getting hard to find. The Toronto Maple Leafs are beginning to play respectable hockey. Brian Mulroney is mercifully off the front pages and out of our lives. And Newfie jokes just ain't funny. It is no longer politically correct to wax lighthearted about ethnics, gays or women. Hell, you can get in trouble telling jokes about folks who are short or bal...00ps — I mean follically challenged. As a matter of fact there's a politician in Albany, New York who is trying to get a law passed "banning weight bigotry". If Assemblyman Daniel Feldman has his way, any employer who refuses to hire someone as...oh, say a ballerina or a fashion model or a trapeze artist just because said person weighs as much as and is built like a Dodge Minivan — well, that employer would be subject to prosecution. As I said, it's getting tough to find a decent I had a pretty good idea what she was going to do with it and just as good an idea that it was never going to end up on some income tax declaration in this country or any other. Her earnings were a part of what we know as the black economy, a term that has found frequent use in Canada of late as the tax level of the country's workers goes up and the social contract starts to take its, bite. In short, people are prepared to moonlight and be paid cash for what they do or sell, which will give them about twice as much buying power with the money than if they had put it in a tax declaration. You can probably guess- (and you would be right) that such a thing goes on not only in Canada but in any country with a high tax load. One can even make a general rule that the higher the level of taxation is and the more onerous the regulations are in the normal economy, the bigger the black or underground economy is likely to be. This is only an educated guess but at the present time this economy in Canada is running close to 10 per cent of the Gross Domestic Economy, the form of measurement we use to calculate spending in all segments. I won't bore you with a lot of figures but, if taxes were paid on all of these black earnings, we could remove with one stroke almost all of the federal deficit. Even at that, Canada is one of the least affected by such clandestine earnings. A few years ago when I looked at it, Spain and Italy were the leaders but they have been exceeded in the latest tally by Greece, where a good 30 per cent of all economic activity is under the table. One of the reasons for this is that the country has a high rate of self- employment which gives more scope for hiding income from the tax authorities. Spain, Portugal and Italy are still pretty close to the Greeks since conditions in these three countries are similar to those to be found in Greece. If you think about it, you can make quite a scapegoat these days. But I think I've managed to turn one up. A scapegoat, I mean. I found it in the pages of Harpers Magazine. It was an ad for a new book by one June Stephenson. The ad copy says "Why do so many boys grow up to be criminals? Whether it's murder, rape or the S & L scandal, crime costs $300 billion a year. Prison inmates are 94 per cent male. Why is crime essentially a male pursuit? Read MEN ARE NOT COST EFFECTIVE: Male Crime In America." There you have it kiddies. The perfect patsy. No question of race or religion, or custom or belief or short or tall or fat or skinny. Just...man, the fall guy. Half the human race ready, waiting and practically crying out to be pronounced Guilty As Charged. Hey, don't laugh. It's already happening. The Lingo Police are out there as I write, scouring the English tongue to eradicate every filthy foxhole of male-tainted language. We've got personhole covers in the streets now. We've got chairpersons and fisherpersons and if you think I exaggerate, go look it up. In your Herstory book. Man. The ultimate scapegoat. I'd whine some more but I've gotta go. I promised I'd meet my buddies out in the Wilderness for a couple of beers. list of clandestine activities. High on any list would, of course, be prostitution but there is a lot of tax-free baby-sitting and cleaning done all over. Tradesmen are coming in for a generous supply of extra income while bartering gets into the act where you do something for somebody else in return for some work done for you. Nor would any list be complete without the usual cigarettes and alcohol. It is a little hard to get a handle on the black economy during the normal business cycle. One indicator that should lead to an increase in underground activity would be unemployment but as the joblessness increases, the number of households that would normally hire someone to paint their house, cut their grass, do all kinds of repair work actually decreases due to the shortage of money for such purposes. My own findings are that, while there may be fluctuations in the Gross Deceptive Product, over the long run it hasn't changed too much. I have told you about the countries with a high rate of illegal activity. What about the ones with the lowest rate? You may be interested to note that, according to recent figures, the two lowest are Japan and Switzerland with less than five per cent. The next lowest country, the United States, has almost double that. If you have read this article carefully, you should be able to figure out why. Letter to the editor Continued from page 4 some research and read the scientific evidence into the "crimes" he speaks of, it may be found they are directly linked to the attitudes and beliefs derived from the teachings of his religion deeply imbedded into the fabric of our society. After all, we do use scientific material, evidence, or the end result of that research six days a week and for some reason regress on the seventh. Perhaps that is worth some investigation also. D. Trollope. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Something to believe in Driving to work on Monday morning was a special experience. You couldn't help but be thankful looking at autumn's collage of colour sparkling under a brilliant azure sky. Even the future seemed bright. Then the radio DJ reminded us that it was two weeks until election day, a comment that cast some cloud over the lustre, especially as I'm still uncertain what my vote will be. I've heard all the arguments about my civic duty, so I know I must make an appearance Oct. 25 or keep quiet about the eventual outcome, but I just wish I had some direction. In my family before me it has always been easy. I remember asking my mother following the last provincial election how she voted. "Well, you know what Grandma always said, 'If you don't vote Liberal you might as well not vote,"' she replied. I wish my convictions to a specific party could be that strong; it would make things a lot easier. The problem is, I guess, that I really can't, or don't, believe in anyone anymore. Like so many of my generation, I am disillusioned, I have seen too many good intentions ignored, too many promises broken and the best laid plans buried under doo-doo. What's even worse is knowing that same generation is in a large part responsible for the morass soon to be left for others to untangle. The other evening I attended Madill's commencement. As I looked at the young people who worked so hard to achieve this milestone, it seemed a bittersweet occasion. Undaunted by the dismal predictions, they continue to plan and celebrate their future. The valedictory address was inspiringly optimistic in light of the employment uncertainty they face. If they are daunted, it didn't show that night as they accepted the recognition they deserved. Their faces made me almost believe it will be alright. My youngest child had that same effect on me recently as well. Having seen one of the federal candidates on the television, he expressed his dislike with the typical ingenuousness of a 10 year old. Curious, I asked him who he would vote for given the opportunity. His answer was immediate and based simply on a campaign slogan that to him inspired hope and a solution. At first I laughed at what I perceived to be his artlessness, his innocence. After all, a decision depends on much more than instinct, I rationalized. Then this morning after mulling it over I began to wonder "Or does it?". Certainly, it's wise to know what a party stands for, to understand its policies, but what does that ultimately accomplish? Not much if history is any judge. It seems they've all promised the Earth and given us dirt at some point. So maybe it might be a good idea to recapture some of my old idealism; not too much, I don't want to get silly, but just enough to dispel some of the disillusionment I harbour lately. Let's begin by assuming, easier with Mulroney gone, that the politicians really are on our side. So maybe a little stronger faith in one person's ideas, maybe a little less rationale and more instinct, will help make my choice clear. W need something to believe in so maybe by next Thanksgiving the future will be brighter. Arthur Black International Scene