The Citizen, 2000-04-05, Page 5Arthur Black
Everybody lives
downstream
There’s a small, not too well known shell
beach near where I live that keeps me semi-
sane. It never changes. Forests can be clear
cut; subdivisions can spring forth like viral
infections blanketing whole hillsides;
meadows can be paved over; orchards can be
turned into parking lots, but the shell beach
endures.
The high water rearranges the driftwood
each day, but the rest doesn’t change. River
otters chug along the shoreline from time to
time. Gulls whine, and crows scold from the
treetops.
The tide goes in and the tide goes out.
It’s been the same for, well, ages, actually. If
you know where to look you can find the
'remains of an Indian midden at one end of it.
Every so often it kicks out a quartz
arrowhead or a shard of pottery - souvenirs
from the people who came to this beach
certainly hundreds and likely thousands of
years ago. Fished from it. Ate and made love
and slept on it. And didn’t change a thing.
Lucky beach.
Not all natural features get off so lightly.
Take the Cuyahoga River that corkscrews
through Ohio - cuyahoga is an Iroquoian word
meaning ‘crooked’ - for nearly 100 miles. Its
sinuous path takes it through the cities of
Cleveland and Akron, not to mention a host of
towns and villages.
International Scene
The good news and
the bad
The lot of an economist is not an easy one.
Ours is frequently called the dismal science
since it is we who come up with the unpleasant
details of what it takes to correct it.
Our task is made that much more difficult by
the politicians, many of whom like to avoid
any negative facts, even if it means being
somewhat less than honest in their rosy
interpretations of any given situation.
One of the things that constantly comes to
mind is that an economy never has enough
money to do all the things its people would like
to do.
Some time ago it was arbitrarily decided that
a nation should give about three-quarters of
one per cent of its gross domestic product (or
its national earnings) to foreign aid but the vast
majority of countries, including Canada, never
even come close to that.
The most generous countries are the
Scandinavian nations, with Norway leading
the way. Canada is somewhat better than the
U.S. but still far behind the desired percentage.
Judging from the letters to the editor, some
people resent any foreign charity at all.
When the famous English economist John
Maynard Keynes found a way to cure the great
depression of the 1930s, good news when it
was needed, a lot of governments looked at his
recommendation that countries could deficit
finance during periods of recession and took to
it like a drowning man to a life raft. In so doing
they ignored the rest of what he had to say on
the matter and thus the great mystique of
Unlucky river.
Back around the time the Fathers of
Confederation were in Charlottetown
bickering over what to call their new country,
you could cup your hand and drink the water
straight out of the Cuyahoga. Civilization put
an end to that.
Oh, the white settlers liked the Cuyahoga
well enough at first. It carried the rafts and
boats that brought them to their homesteads. It
provided fish and wild fowl, not to mention
drinking water.
But then in the 1850s the railroads came to
town and people turned their backs on the
Cuyahoga. Factories sprang up along its banks
- and used the Cuyahoga as a convenient waste
disposal facility. Cities and towns did the same.
Wasn’t long before you wouldn’t put your bare
foot in the Cuyahoga, much less drink water
from it.
But the degradation of the Cuyahoga wasn’t
complete. Soon it was an open sewer and in
1969 it became notorious world-wide. A spark
from a welder’s torch fell on the surface of the
barely moving Cuyahoga - and the river burst
into flame.
A river so polluted it actually ignited. They
had to call the Cleveland Fire Department to
put the river out. The networks dispatched TV
crews to the banks of the Cuyahoga. The fire
was quenched, but TV newscasts around the
world carried footage of dubious flotsam and
jetsam floating on the slick of smoking oily
goo the Cuyahoga had become.
Randy Newman wrote an acidulous song
By Raymond Canon
deficit financing was bom.
Why wait for something if you could have it
today? Nations fell to spending money they
didn't have for instant gratification. (Doesn’t
that sound familiar to many consumers, old
and young?)
In spite of the economists’ warnings, little
thought was given to actually paying it back
and so counties such as Italy and Belgium are
financial messes today while Canada isn’t
much better. We owe about $750 billion in
bonds, about one quarter of which is held by
foreign bondholders, and so over $50 billion of
our tax money has to go each year just to
service this debt (i.e. pay the interest) before
we can even think of paying any of it back.
Let’s say about $15 billion flows out to
people in other countries who have no desire or
inclination to spend it in Canada. Can you
imagine what that sum of money would do to
our health care systems? When we bring up
things like that, no wonder we are called the
dismal science.
It might be considered good news that the
chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of the
United States, Alan Greenspan, is doing
something about cooling off the U.S. economy
before inflation gets up too much steam. He
also wanted to cool off the stock market which
is making a lot of people nervous.
At any rate Greenspan recently raised
interest rates (as did our central bank) and what
happened? The following day the New York
stock exchange shot up 227 points while the
Toronto exchange hit an all-time high.
If this interest rate hike was supposed to cool
off the markets, does this mean that the market
is so irrational that it goes up in response to
bad news (or down when there is good news)?
about the Cuyahoga, tongue firmly in cheek.
Ironically, the blaze turned out to be the best
thing that happened to the Cuyahoga this
century. Ohio was instantly world famous - but
it was a notoriety no one would wish for.
~ Ohioans were embarrassed and resolved to
do something about it. They set up pollution
control guidelines for all industries along the
banks- of the Cuyahoga. They outlawed the
dumping of raw sewage by all municipalities.
They began to give a damn.
That was more than 30 years ago. Today, the
water of the Cuyahoga is much cleaner. The
fish - real, healthy fish - are returning. The day
is in sight when Ohioans will be able to splash
and swim and - dare we say, even drink the
water that flows between the river’s banks.
The Cuyahoga’s got a ways to go before that
happens, but at least it’s now heading in the
right direction.
Odd. First Nation’s people managed to live
and drink and fish and paddle on the Cuyahoga
for millennia without leaving so much as a
footprint. The white folks come and turn it into
a fetid trench in less than a century.
Meanwhile Victoria, population 300,000,
and the capital of British Columbia, continues
to dump its raw sewage straight into the water.
The same water that laps at my shell beach.
Yeah, but hey - this is the Pacific Ocean,
right? It can handle a little, urn, poison.
That’s what they were saying about the
Cuyahoga back when Victoria was a logging
town. Took Ohioans a century to smarten up.
I wonder how long it will take us.
If this is the case, perhaps Greenspan should
have lowered the interest rate i.e. to induce
somebody to stop spending, lower the interest
rate on, say, credit cards.
I suspect that the truth is that central bank
interest changes no longer have the influence
they once did. If not, what do you use in its
place?
Put yourself in my place and teach this stuff
at the university level. Or even try to explain it
to your friends.
Letters
Letters to the editor are a forum for public
opinion and comment. The views expressed do
not necessarily reflect those of this
publication.
Port Credit School
plans reunion
.THE EDITOR,
We would like to extend an invitation to the
alumni of Port Credit High Secondary School.
On May 4, 5 and 6, we are celebrating our 80th
reunion. Many activities have been planned to
ensure that participants relive their wonderful
memories.
To receive your information package, please
contact our hotline at (905) 890-1010
Extension 3188 or our e-mail address at
mhgreenwood@aol.com.
Peter Toller
Co-Chair.
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2000. PAGE 5.
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
It could be
an interesting year
We are, I am forced to admit entering a new
phase in our household. Our second youngest,
now in her final year of high school is busily
preparing portfolios and running to interviews
for college admissions. It is, one has to
acknowledge a good deal of pressure to be
added on to an OAC school semester, but one
something many have done before her and
many will do after her.
For Mom, it's grudging acceptance once
again that our house is getting a little emptier,
that our baby, to pay tribute to a well-worn
metaphor, is spreading her wings and learning
to fly.
Or perhaps preparing to flee the nest would
be more apt. Having seen two older children
off to post-secondary education prior to this
one, I have noticed a pattern. At least in our
family, the final year of secondary school is
one of restlessness. Verging on adulthood,
ready to break from constrictions of home and
guidance, set to test life and make mistakes on
their own, kids by the time they reach their late
teens are eager for independence. Even for
those from the most permissive of families, the
idea of being out on their own, proving that
they can make it is an opportunity eagerly
anticipated.
And thus I have noticed, seduced by the
knowledge that those times are just months
away, my kids tend to exhibit this
aforementioned restlessness. It is a trait best
compared to a growing infant, excited by the
promising things he sees before him, yet
unable to grasp them.
For a parent it's bittersweet. If we are
successful in raising our chidren, they will
leave us to go on to successes of their own.
Seeing them experiencing the adventure of
post-secondary education or a new job,
meeting new people with shared interests,
living in new places and being on their own for
the first time lets us know that we at least did
some of the job right.
However, accustomed to their comings and
goings at home, their needs and their demands,
their departure definitely leaves a void. Life as
it was will never be again. It always surprised
me that when my oldest two returned home
after college they suddenly no longer fit. It was
like the rest of us had spread out to fill the
space they had left. It was an observation
which made me quite sad.
On the other hand, if 1 am to be honest, I
must admit that the restlessness alleviates
those feelings of melancholy somewhat. That
they so clearly are chaffing to experience new
things, to grow and leam is not something you
can deny them. Also, with restlessness comes a
level of irritabli Ity, which I hasten to add I can
most certainly live without.
Yet, nothing completely takes away from the
fact that I will so very much miss her face in
my house every day. And making this
particular case even harder from my
perspective is the fact that as she leaves this
September, our youngest enters his final year
at high school.
One now independent, another restless.
Looking at it that way, it could be an
interesting year.*