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The Citizen, 1996-07-17, Page 5Arthur Black International Scene By Raymond Canon THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1996 PAGE 5. Drug guru in the rainforest ...and deer will graze on Charing Cross road. Timothy Leary, the old acid rat, said that many years ago. I don't even remember the context but it's stuck in my mind, the image of a herd of skittish whitetails placidly munching grass from between the cobbles of one of London's busiest, least-deer-friendly thoroughfares. Leary's been dead for a while now. The high priest of therapeutic LSD expired from inoperable prostate cancer back in June. He expired in vintage Leary fashion, tapping away on his Leary Website, chatting about his plans to "have a nice death". At one point he had plans to film his demise - to die "live, on videotape". He also toyed with the idea of having his head cut off after death and frozen cryogenically, to be 'revived' when science was sufficiently advanced to be up to the task. He went out, characteristically enough, with a bang, not a whimper, surrounded by his entourage, puffing away on Marlboros. I've been thinking of him, off and on, ever since. Cheap and expensive countries Once a year, thanks to some economic calculations based on the Big Mac, I bring you an update of what is called the purchasing power parity, a list of the countries which are going to be expensive for Canadian travellers and those that are going to be relatively cheap. For those readers who may be wondering just what the Big Mac has to do with all this, let me explain. This well known hamburger was used in a light-hearted way to determine purchasing power parity. It was assumed that, all other things being equal (a favourite expression of economists) a Big Mac was the same in all countries. All that had to be done was to take the current rate of exchange and compare the prices in a variety of countries. After this had been done for several years it was discovered that the accuracy was just about the same as other much more sophisticated methods. I should point out that, since I did the last report, an Australian graduate student in Economics did a PhD thesis on the index and came to the conclusion that the Big Mac index was "surprisingly accurate in tracking exchange rates over the longer term." Well, what does the index have to say? Most people would understandably like to hear about prices in the U.S. since we are far more likely to go there than any other country. Well, according to the MacIndex the Canadian dollar is undervalued by 11 per Leary was several light years shy of being a universal folk hero, but he was an interesting cuss. Always thinking and yakking, always pushing the envelope. For me, Leary was the quintessential '60s icon - mostly because, unlike all the other '60s icons, Leary never changed, never deviated much from the loopy professor who got fired 40 years ago from Harvard for experimenting with LSD. That was the era of political radicals like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, of black activist Eldridge Cleaver and a hard-edged Bob Dylan crucifying warmongers and racists with no more than a guitar, a harmonica and a voice that sounded like a bullfrog flossing with barbed wire. Those were heady times: All things were possible. A lot of us believed - actually believed - that all that wild and flaky energy could be harnessed to change the direction the world had been heading ever since Cain wasted Abel. A lot of us - hippies and suits alike - believed that. Not all of us. I had a friend - a hard-drinking, deeply cynical advertising copywriter who viewed the Learys and the Rubins and the Dylans with a bemused eye. I confronted him once. Didn't he see the New Dawn? Couldn't he feel the wind shift? Didn't he realize that, as Dylan sang, the times, they were a-changin? He sipped his scotch and smirked. "Never fear, dear boy. Your 'movement' will simply cent. This means that the true exchange rate, if there was purchasing power parity between the two currencies should be 81.5 cents instead of the 73.4 that it is now. In terms that all consumers can understand, this means that Canada is a cheap place for Americans to shop while the States is rather expensive for us. I think that most people would agree with this assessment. I am over in the States on the average of once every two weeks and there are few items that I care to buy outside of gasoline and perhaps dairy products. Now I have other ways to calculate purchasing power parity and, just before I knew that the Big Max index would be made available, I carried out my own calculations. Would you believe that they turned out to show at an exchange rate at just slightly over 80 cents. In short, the Big Mac index did a pretty good job of establishing parity. If Canada finds the U.S. rather cheap, what country would it find expensive? I hate to tell you this but Switzerland comes out on top with its currency being about 110 per cent overvalued. A Swiss friend of mine recently returned home for a visit. I warned him before he left to be prepared for a shock. He reported when he got back that he had a whole series of shocks. When I was there last fall I paid about $90 - $100 for a hotel room. The same room I can get in Toronto for about half that. I had one Big Mac - in Bern; it cost me an equivalent of $6.50. No wonder I only had one! Denmark is not far behind. Its currency is 90 per cent overvalued. France is 50 per cent, Germany, 45 per cent, Holland also 45 per cent, Italy, 25 per cent, Britain, 20 per be. co-opted. That's what we do wher anything threatens us. We co-opt it." I told him he was nuts. Yeah, well. Jerry Rubin went to Wall Street and Abbie Hoffman went to talk shows. Last I heard, Eldridge Cleaver was working on a cookbook, and Dylan...well, who knows what happened to Dylan? Only Leary stayed the course - erratic and meandering though that course was. Leary went on being Leary, no matter what the rest of the world thought of him. One consolation of Leary's passing - he didn't have to see what I saw in a video store this morning. It's a videocassette that shows two vapid, bunny-like Bimbos wearing Spandex bathing suits and artfully positioned palm fronds. The women are smiling. And flexing erotically. The videocassette is called SUPER MODELS IN THE RAIN FOREST. The advertising copy reads: The World's Top Models, The World's Hottest Recording Artists, the World's Most Important Cause! Saving the planet never looked - or sounded - so good! And under that, a red sticker that says A Special Gift For Father's Day! $19.95. Say what you will about Timothy Leary - he did a lot of drugs, broke a lot of laws and infuriated a lot of people. But he was never morally bankrupt enough to market a videocassette called Drug Guru In The Rainforest. cent, Belgium, 60 per cent and Sweden 75 per cent. Is there any country in Europe, then, that would be cheap for a Canadian? Try Eastern Europe! Poland's currency is about 40 per Cent under-valued compared to the Canadian dollar while Hungary is 45 per cent. You could also try China; for a Canadian it has the cheapest Big Mac in the world. Some readers may be a bit confused about what is meant by purchasing power parity. This means that there is an exchange rate at which a similar sum of money would buy the same amount of goods in two countries„, For example, you had $1,000 Canadian and bought a specific amount of goods in Canada with that money, if the PPP exchange rate were exactly 81.4 cents as that Big Mac Index says it is, then $814 American would buy the same amount of goods in the U.S. One thing to keep in mind. If the Canadian dollar is undervalued in comparison to the U.S. dollar, this should not be taken to mean that our dollar is steadily moving toward the proper exchange rate. A year ago the Canadian dollar was at exactly the same exchange rate as it is right now. At any rate, since the Canadian dollar is undervalued, it will be a real bargain for foreign tourists. If the word gets out, the Swiss should be over here in droves followed by copious amounts of Germans, French, Swedes, Dutch, Danes and Belgians. As for me, when I go to Switzerland this year, I may take a tent and a bicycle and encourage my family to send me food parcels while I am over there. A Big Mac at $6.50 is out of the question! The short of it By Bonnie Gropp Wise words Food for thought. Words to live by. A word to the wise. Life is a challenge, no doubt about it. Keeping a positive outlook isn't always an easy thing to do. Heavens, just finding something to laugh about some days can prove as elusive as Utopia. Fortunately, we adaptable humans have no dearth of clichés and words of wisdom to inspire us to plod onward with our chin thrust upward. The secret is to not just remember them, but practise them as well. A local secondary school graduation class was invited by the yearbook staff to impart wise thoughts as an accompaniment to their photo. Leafing through this book recently, while there were of course predictable ones, I was impressed with the optimistic objectivity I read in others. So much so that I decided I wanted to share them with you. Some make good sense, which it never hurts to hear. A few have poetry, which it's nice to remember exists in this often unrefined world. And others were just fun, which we can all use. Those who go through life watching their backs, are hit by a truck from the front. Don't smile on a Monday. It makes people wonder what you've been up to. You can't always get what you want, so stop your whining. Be yourself. Don't change to suit others. Success is getting up just one more lime than you fall down. Your imagination and your will are your greatest tools in life. Hold onto them. Never argue with me. You'd have better luck running from your shadow. Dream — it's your only escape. Penguins dream of flying all over the world. And they look intelligent. Never walk up stairs with a short skirt on. Relax. Let life come to you. Rules are not made to be broken, but rather bent. The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad. — Salvadore Dali If at first you don't succeed, it probably wasn't worth doing anyway. You have to believe to achieve. Have mercy on the person who doubts what they're sure of. If you want to make it anywere in life, leave your cowboy boots behind. Life isn't life without love. Smiling gets you places you never thought possible. Someone needs your kindness, someone needs your smile. Someone needs your cheery words to make their life worthwhile. Brighten the corner where you are. The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams There is a humourous side to each situation. The challenge is to find it. Listen to your heart and let your mind compliment it. .Little beats big when little is smart. First with head, then with heart. — The Poiver of One. Wisdom is but a song without a singer, so listen carefully. And my personal favourite — When arguing with a fool, make sure they aren't doing the same.