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The Times Advocate, 2004-01-28, Page 5Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Exeter Times -Advocate Editorial Opinion ROSS HAUGH BACK IN TIME I OYEARS AGO January 27, 1994 - A total of 19 new residents were welcomed to the Blue Water Rest Home in Zurich during the year 1993. Steve DuBarry, a native of Huron Park and a former mem- ber of the St. Marys Lincolns is now playing his hockey with the Colgate University Red Raiders of Hamilton, New York. Last year with the Lincolns, DuBarry had 33 goals and 36 assists in 49 games. Not one, but two. Bob Hamather has been blessed with two champions this year and both look like they have outstanding futures in the harness racing business. Hamather's three-year old super star Staying Together has been named the 1993 Harness Horse of the Year and he also owns Freedom's Friend, selected as the two-year-old filly of the year. Mike McGregor, formerly of Kippen is now working in automotive design for Nissan in Munich, Germany. Home for the holidays, McGregor says in a job market with great competition and few jobs, car design is a very difficult field to get into. His final school project was for the 2010 Corvette. 20YEARS AGO January 28, 1984 - The 1983 Exeter Fall Fair was one of the most successful in many years and plans are underway to put the 1984 event in the same category. At Friday's annual meeting the bank balance was listed at $3,606.08. That's $2,700 more than a year ago. Gordon Jones is this year's president and Shirley Prance is the ladies' president. 35YEARS AGO January 26, 1969 - For the first time in history, an Exeter curling club rink has reached the Southern Ontario ladies final. Members of the rink are Helen Burton, Pauline Simmons, Lois Learn and Ellen Knight. 40YEARS AGO January 27, 1964 - Syd Sanders, his son Aljoe, Herb Ford and his son Irwin have served on Exeter's volunteer fire brigade for almost a century and a half in terms of actual years of service. 45YEARS AGO January 28, 1959 - Peter McNaughton, a native of Hibbert township will take over his new duties as clerk of the village of Hensall on February 2. Dr. Walter Johns, a native of Usborne township and graduate of area schools has been appointed president of the University of Alberta by Premier E.C. Manning. 55YEARS AGO January 28, 1949 - Over $18,760 is on hand in the building fund for a proposed community hall and memorial arena for Lucan with the site proper- ty purchased. H.R. Sherwood has purchased from Lorne Johnston two lots of land just off Main street and intends on erecting an up-to-date showroom for his Massey -Harris implements. 60YEARS AGO January 27, 1944 - The Exeter branch of Canada Packers shipped a carload of Grade A eggs this week to the Special Products Board in Toronto. This train used to be known as the Butter and Egg Special, but this is the first time that it can be learned that a car load of eggs has been shipped from the Exeter station. Stephen township tax collector G.E. Faist reports tax arrears for 1943 at $2,360.29. Some of the Stephen salaries for 1944 are road superintendent George Eilber 45 cents an hour, general work man and team 60 cents per hour and man alone 35 cents and man and team for snow removal 50 cents an hour. I I OYEARS AGO January 26, 1894 - A total of 81 money orders were issued last week at the Exeter post office. This is the largest number of such orders issued in one week at this office since the money order system was established. The safe at the Exeter railway station was blown open by burglars Friday night, but there was no money in it. Captain J.W. Handford has his proposed electri- cal system before town council. Undoubtedly he has the best power for operating a system of electric lighting and we hope within a year Exeter will be on equal footing with other towns of even less pre- tentious. School closures too common Dear Editor I am sure the hundreds of parents of Exeter Public School students are wondering if they are ever going to be able to send their children to school for a full week. Last Tuesday's unnecessary closing (when the weather was excellent) was the fifth time students were denied access to their school. Working parents depend on the school being open as it is sometimes difficult to make day care arrangements. Also, even though school officials have had five days off, with pay, they do not have to make up this time...in other words they're getting a paid holiday. Many other employers whose workers do not get to work because of weather conditions do not have the luxury of getting paid. Many parents will remember when Jim Chapman was principal, the school was never closed because of weather conditions. Yours truly RON COTTRELL Seniors' Perspective By Jim Perspective ADULT ACTIVITIES CO-ORDINATOR Coming Events: • Reminder of Euchreama at the Exeter Legion THURSDAY January 29 10:00 a.m. $5.00 includes 18 games of euchre and lunch. • Paul Steckle MP vows to bring packers before Parliamentary Committee: He also wants the federal competition bureau to investigate the beef industry bidding practices. Steckle says Ontario's packing industry made a cash grab of producers money when Ottawa's financial aid package to beef producers was intro- duced. "The week that the government program came out the price to the farmers, paid by the packers dropped," The competition bureau needs to investigate, Steckle will bring those people to that table (to the committee). He will subpoena them. He has to but can't make that case unless the public can help him. To support Paul Steckle M.P. write to Paul Steckle M.P. 30 Victoria Street North, Goderich ON N7A 2R6 (no postage required) 1-800-465- 1726 Tel: (519) 524-6938 Fax: (519) 524-9374 e- mail steclp0@parl.gc.ca Info from Ontario Farmer Ah! Lovely Snow! Dec 8: 6.00 PM. It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our coffee and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love the snow! Dec 9- We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the Whole Wide World? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shovelled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveways and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and closed in the drive- way, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life! Dec 12 — The sun has melted all our lovely snow, such a disappointment. My neighbour tells me, "not to worry, we'll definitely have a White Christmas". No snow on Christmas would be awful! Herbie Blue says we'll have so much snow by the end of the winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that is possible. Herbie and his wife Betty, are such a fine couple. I am glad they are my neighbours. Dec 14 — Snow, lovely snow! 8" last night. The temperature dropped to —20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away but I warmed up by shovelling the driveways and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do so much shovelling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so. Dec 15 — 20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer, bought snow tires for the See PERSPECTIVE page 6 Jim Bearss The Turner Report THE BIG DILEMMA: STO KS OR BONDS It's a rare year, indeed, when both the stock mar- ket and the real estate market rise in tandem. But that's exactly what took place in 2003. Even more remarkable, this is a phenomenon which looks like it will be repeated in '04. Last year the Toronto stock mar- ket gained more than 20% in value and 97% of all Canadian mutual funds made money. But at the same time, the average house price rose by 10%, to hit the highest level in history, while the number of sales in major cities was at a GARTH record level. In fact, in Toronto, TURNER Vancouver and Montreal, more THETURNER houses sold in a single year than REPORT ever before. Why did both stocks and houses attract such a whack of investors' money? Well, the equity mar- kets simply had to recover at some point, after three years of being mauled by the bears of Nine Eleven, war, corporate scandal and fear. Those bears, of course, had also driven a lot of cash into perceived safe assets like real estate, forcing prices higher. But there is one other factor both markets fed on last year, and that is the ridiculously low cost of money. Interest rates sitting at 50 -year lows have severely influenced human behaviour. For example, when GICs are returning just 3% - or 0% after inflation and taxes - what's the point of saving your money? That thought encouraged lots of people to spend all they had buying things - like real estate when stock markets were down, and shares and mutual fund units when markets recovered. Secondly, with near - cash investments giving virtually no yield, the smart money migrates into growth investments which his- tory shows us have a much better track record. Thirdly, cheap money breeds debt. When you can rent, say, $200,000 for less than $600 a month, why wouldn't you? That kind of thinking has encouraged Canadians to get into more mortgage debt than ever before in history. It led one banker friend of mine to muse the other day over a smoked salmon sandwich that his million -dollar mortgage costs him "a measly 40 grand a year." So, today's mortgage rates have masked the rise hi real estate values, because houses remain incredibly affordable. It now costs so much less to buy the average home (running at $222,702), than to rent the average three-bedroom apartment ($1,500 a month, and up, in major centers), that the vacancy rate is shooting skyward. Tenants are turning into owners. The major lenders are offering no -money - down mortgages. Banks will give self-employed peo- ple lots of money to buy a house without a proper credit check. Mortgages are now widely approved in less than one minute. The world's spinning out of control. But, wait. It gets better. Long-term mortgage rates have dropped again this week, taking them well into the 5% range and the Bank of Canada has reached the inevitable conclusion that money should cost even less than it does. And that's a reasonable view right now, with a too -strong dollar, virtually no infla- tion and slowing economic growth. It makes sense to lower rates in a bid to keep alive the borrowing/spending orgy that has carried our econ- omy along for the last three years. This means that variable-rate, below -prime mort- gages (which all sensible borrowers should have) are going to be around for some period of time at 4% or less. Heck, you can even find lots of crazed mortgage brokers and cheeky credit unions who will shower you with money at just a 3% annual cost. This will ensure houses stay affordable, even as prices rise. The Canadian Real Estate Association is predicting homes will climb in value by another 3% to 5% in 2004, and demand stay brisk - a forecast that seems perfectly reasonable to me. But at the same time, lots of new money will also find its way into the equity market, where rising values will be the result of enhanced corporate profitability, eco- nomic expansion south of the border and very stim- ulative fiscal policy by giddy central bankers in both Canada and the States. So, what should a body do? If you are a renter, then become an owner because real estate equity is still a wonderful cornerstone to build wealth upon. If you are a homeowner with a mortgage the size of Alberta, then concentrate in paying it down as quickly as possible with a weekly -pay mortgage, lump sum payments or accelerated payments.