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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2000-05-31, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2000. PAGE 5. Other Views Lotteries - you’ve got a lotto lose Not long ago a Quebec woman wrote a book about becoming a multi­ millionaire. She was qualified - she picked the winning ticket in a provincial lottery and scooped up several million greenbacks. She reckons it was just about the worst thing that ever happened to her. Before the win, she was an average, middle­ class Quebecoise - she had a decent home, a husband, a job and lots of friends. She has none of those now. She quit her job of course - isn't that what all nouveau millionaires do, first thing? Next, she sold her dinky little house and bought a sprawling mansion more befitting to her millionaire status. Then the calls started coming in. Not just from relatives and neighbours - from folks she’d barely met and often hadn’t seen in decades. They all loved her dearly, of course. Had always admired her and delighted in her good fortune — and wondered if she could see her way clear to sharing a paltry few thousand from her huge winnings. She was besieged by hundreds of supplicants, all of whom adored her no end. Until she turned them down, and immediately became Madame Rich Bitch - too good for her former peers. But she had other problems by now. The new money had caused her husband to blossom into a Wall Street junkie. He appropriated huge chunks of the lottery money and shoveled it into the stock market. He lost it all, and burned up what was left of the marriage in the process. Swiftly, weasel ratbag lawyers sank their hollow fangs into the estate siphoning off what Things not quite what they seem The next time that somebody makes the proposal that we should lower the work week without lowering salaries, don’t be too quick to jump on the bandwagon. All you have to do is look at what has been happening in France recently since they were promised that very thing. This all started when the current French government, facing double digit levels of unemployment, decided that, if they lowered the work week from 39 to 35 hours, without lowering output, there would be a demand for extra labour and presto, tens of thousands of new jobs would be created for which the government, of course, could take credit. Perhaps the economist who thought that one up was into the Calvados when he formulated that proposal. It is admittedly possible if you manage to increase productivity and do away with one of the hallowed French practices, a two-hour lunch. But any number of people object to being asked to do the same amount of work in a shorter period of time which is exactly what French management asked the workers to do. The result? The country was forced to witness another of the great French traditions, a spontaneous strike. In short order Paris metro workers, postmen, health care employees, local tax officials, Air France ground staff and even the country’s labour exchange were out on the picket line protesting their government’s generosity. I watched all this on TV with considerable amusement since the pros and cons of a shorter week are a regular feature of my economics lectures when it comes to labour as a factor of production. Arthur Black was left of her windfall. She lost the mansion and now lives in a tiny walkup, hoping that her book sells enough copies to pay the rent. Her one piece of advice to any lottery winner? Leave home immediately for at least one year - no forwarding address. Winning the lottery can swiftly turn into a curse. A factory worker in Gateshead, England recently won more than $10 million in a lottery. He was very generous with his newfound loot. He bought seven grand houses on the same street in Gateshead and gave them all to family members so that they could all live next to one another. That was two years ago. All those houses are for sale now. The lottery winner and his family have moved to New Zealand. Why? Perhaps it was a result of that brand new Honda Accord being firebombed in his sister’s driveway. More likely it was a decision reached after persons unknown poured gasoline all over the porch of his brand new house and tried to set it alight. Who would do that — and why? Who knows? A neighbour says, “The attacks on the family are disgraceful. They are perfectly nice people. Someone must be jealous of their wealth.” I feel for them both - the English and the Quebec lottery winner. But to tell the truth, I also feel the teensiest bit smug. I know that I Raymond Canon The International Scene The argument in favour goes something like this: if employees work less, the corporations, encouraged by tax concessions, will hire more people. We even have a name for it - the “lump-of-labour” fallacy in that it assumes that labour markets are totally inflexible. In short, there is a fixed amount of work to be done in an economy and, if workers put in fewer hours, more will have to be hired to complete this set amount of work. The French labour unions wasted no time in pointing out that French firms, or even government organizations for that matter, did not seem to be in any big rush to hire extra workers. In addition to having the existing employees work harder, employers were more inclined to have them work overtime rather than take on additional workers. This should not surprise anybody since the same thing happens in Canada. Due to training and other costs when you hire additional labour, it is frequently cheaper to have your current workforce do more, even if you have to pay them overtime. In addition, while the French may turn up their noses at most Anglo-Saxon work practices such as downsizing, they, too, have started to realize that, if they are to remain competitive in a world market, they have to will never be in their shoes because I will never win a lottery. I don't buy lottery tickets. One of the few truths 1 know about myself is that I definitely lack the character to be an instant millionaire. Call me unimaginative, but I actually need the pressure of mortgage payments, hydro bills and the hulking shadow of an insatiable Revenue Canada to keep me on the straight and narrow. Put a cheque for a million bucks in my hand and it would take about three nanoseconds to turn me into an instant libertine. Three thousand dollar hand-tailored suits. A stretch limo - three stretch limos - in the driveway. Oh yeah. I'd be phoning up Harrods for takeout fried hummingbird tongues with one hand and urinating on my boss’s desk with the other. And of course I’d blow it all. And cheese off all my buddies and loved ones into the bargain. I’m not strong enough to survive a lottery win. Not like Gerald Swan. Mister Swan, of Orton, Ontario, recently won the Heart and Stroke Foundation jackpot - one million bucks. His plans for the money? He’s going to give it away. All of it. “I’m quite comfortable the way I am,” he says. “I don’t need it. I bought the ticket because it’s a good cause. God gave me this gift; I should give it back.” And he has. Gerald Swan has handed over the money to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Canadian Cancer Society and a camp for children with kidney disease. Gerald Swan - a class act. He may not die with a lot of money in the bank, but I’m betting he dies with a smile on his face. keep labour costs from climbing too rapidly. When attempts to increase productivity have reached an end, one of the few things remaining is to rein in labour costs. Perhaps the French should cross the border and have a chat with their Swiss counterparts. Workers in that country are still quite prepared to work up to a 48-hour week if it means keeping bread on the table. In addition the French have more strikes, legal or otherwise, in one month that the Swiss do in a decade. The New Economy, which I have already described briefly, may be able to introduce increases in productivity which will permit a reduction of the work-week but that is still, as far as most nations, including France, at some point in the future. In the meantime the 35-hour work week is very much a mirage as far as benefits are concerned, something like our government’s election promise to remove the GST or the statement in 1917 that the imposition of income tax was a temporary one to be used only to pay for World War I. Dream on! Final Thought The whole difference between construc­ tion and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. - Gilbert Keith Chesterton Bonnie Gropp The short of it Don’t be the judge I am, I admit unabashedly, an avid reader of People magazine. In addition to its obvious people perspective, I enjoy what is for the most part, its frothy simplicity which I can absorb with little mental exertion, while noshing on ’breaky’ or blow drying my hair. But, there is one particular section that absolutely drives me crazy. And yet, with the curious morbidity of the ambulance chaser, I am drawn with fascination to that which repulses me. As I flip to the readers’ letters it is with apprehension. Some are positive in tone, uplifting in spirit. But also included will be at least one know-it-all who believes he or she has the answers, that voice of pomposity who knows exactly why a person's kids went wrong. Or why the wife had an affair. Or why every teenage mom is doomed to fail. They irritate me with the intensity of a bad dose of chicken pox. The most recent to raise my ire was with regards to England’s young princes, whom, as the writer presumes to know, have all but forgotten their mother. Believe me, I am nowhere even close to being a monarchist, but who does this person think she is? This writer talks about the type of person their father is, not because she has any personal knowledge, but based on what she has read. Then, of course, in typical ‘way-too-much-time-on- my-hands’ fashion tells them exactly how they should be living their life. It takes all my will to accept this as just one more human failing, to remember that there is some reason, some weak link in a particular life to make a person judgmental, ready to place blame, to cast stones. A difference of opinion is one thing, this is pomposity. As I’ve always told my kids when someone tries to bring them down, they do so because they can only feel big by making someone else feel small. When you are the target, however, it’s small comfort to know the problem is theirs not yours. Now all this is not to say that I’m not capable of pettiness. Actually, sorry to say, I can be quite good at it. But I hope that generally it takes but a moment before I regain perspective, so that if I were ever so sanctimonious as to write a letter belittling another human being, I would come to my senses before sending it. Perspective really is what it’s all about. What appears to be may be, but it also may not. Looking at a life on the surface can be misleading. A person may seem to live well, but who really knows what the debt load is. What goes on behind closed doors is often not the family scene played out in public. And what looks like a gravy job may simply look easy because it is being carried out efficiently. The lives we lead are far too complicated to be understood by ourselves let alone an outsider. Situations are impacted by personalities and lifestyles. What makes sense for one, isn’t necessarily the answer for another. So, when our dark side begins to cloud our good sense we would do well to remember that the intricacies of existence, the nuances of personality, the complexities of family and work make every situation different. And to paraphrase an old adage, unless you have walked in those shoes don’t presume to know how they fit.