The Citizen, 1998-03-04, Page 5A Final Thought
In prosperity our friends know us. In
adversity, we know our friends. — John
Churion Collins
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1998. PAGE 5.
A town with no name
I don't know how Senor El Nino has
wormed his way into your life this winter,
but for me and my neighbours he has brought
rain. Rain, rain, rain and just when we
thought the heavens couldn't possibly
harbour another drop of moisture ... a little
more rain.
About two weeks ago I decided to run for
it. I wasn't asking for much. I just wanted to
go somewhere I didn't have to dodge puddles,
wear a raincoat or carry an umbrella.
So I caught a plane to Scottsdale, Arizona,
which, at first glance, seemed to be a huge
mistake, because I don't golf. Scottsdale, as
near as I can reckon, consists of 833 golf
courses surrounded by some really poor
farmland. Not golfing in Scottsdale is like
not shopping in the West Edmonton Mall or
moving to Regina to cure your agoraphobia.
You want to know how many tourists
visited Scottsdale, Arizona last year? Six
point four million.
It helps if you visualize that as 1.6 million
foursomes and a dangerously high
concentration of plaid pants.
So Scottsdale wasn't for me and it didn't
take me long to figure that out. Still, the sun
was shining, the weather was shirt-sleeve
warm and when I muttered the word
'umbrella' the natives looked at me like I was
speaking Ukrainian, so I knew heaven
couldn't be too far away. I rented a Ford
Capri, pointed the hood ornament away from
downtown Scottsdale and headed for the
desert.
Two hours later, I found myself in a rustic
old mining town, 2,000 feet up the side of a
mountain. The town is made up of rickety,
Dickensian-looking buildings and houses,
some of them on stilts. They line both sides
A domino effect
One of the first questions I was asked after
I got home came from a friend of mine who
was curious what was going on in southeast
Asia and whether it would have any effect on
his investments, the latter being mainly in the
form of stocks and bonds. He had, he said,
heard a number of explanations; he would
like to hear what I had to say on the matter.
My biggest problem in answering such a
question is how to condense it into
something that will fit into the normal length
of an article but here goes.
The trouble started last year in Thailand
and soon spread to neighbouring countries
such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the
Philippines with Hong Kong and Japan also
coming in for some buffeting. Only China,
Taiwan and Singapore seem, at least so far,
to have escaped the financial carnage.
What was the "trouble?" It appears to have
been building up for quite a period of time,
during which the banks and other financial
institutions handed out loans with the
knowledge that the government of the
country in question would guarantee the
loans.
When a banker has that sort of backing, he
gets a bit sloppy in finding worthwhile
projects. If a loan turned out to be
performing, i.e. the borrower paid principal
and interest according to an established
schedule, the bank would enjoy the profit. If
the loan turned out to be non-performing,
that is, the borrower paid neither the
of a switchback road that snakes-and-ladders
up the side of a steep slope.
Down below, the arid floor of Arizona
spreads out like a Navaho blanket. The only
sound you hear in the streets is a dog yapping
and the wind. It's like a ghost town.
Hard to believe that almost a century ago,
this town was the fifth largest city in the
whole state of Arizona, with churches,
schools, mansions, — even an opera house.
Copper was the reason and a Canuck was
the catalyst. James S. "Rawhide Jimmy"
Douglas cut his teeth on copper mining in
northern Ontario and made it to the Arizona
mountains in time to cash in on what became
known as "the billion dollar copper camp".
It was a rich town. A very rich town. In
1929, a year when the rest of the world was
staring bankruptcy in the face, $29 million
worth of ore came out of just one mine here.
In 1929, more than 15,000 people called
this place home. Today, it's fighting not to
become a ghost town. What happened? Two
things, both of them tough for any town to
overcome. First, the bottom fell out of the
copper market. And secondly, the town ran
out of copper.
A headline in a Phoenix newspaper of Jan.
30, 1953 said it all: END COMES TO
FAMED MINING CAMP — LAST ORE
DRAGGED FROM HOLES — One of
Arizona's great mining camps will die as a
mining town in about two months ..."
The newspaper story was accurate. The
town did die ... as a mining town. But
something, some lizard/cactus toughness in
its heart refused to let it die completely. The
population shrank steadily. Within 10 years
more than 10,000 people had left. By the end
of World War Two there wasn't a thousand
citizens who called it home. By 1953 fewer
than 100 people lived there full time.
But the town refused to roll over and die
outright. Or to even change very much.
principal nor the interest, the government
would guarantee the loan and take the loss.
Believe me, I learned all about the concept
of non-performing loans while I was in the
Czech Republic. Czech banks had piles of
them and thus the banking system in that
country is currently in a mess.
Needless to say, so are the systems in the
southeast Asian countries that I mentioned
above.
To make niatters worse, the borrower
would value his property which was being
used as collateral according to what revenue
it would produce under the most ideal of
conditions. Well, such conditions seldom exist
and thus far more money was lent out than
should have been under realistic conditions.
Thus, sooner or later, one or more banks
found they had so many of these non-
performing loans that they could not, in
effect, continue to do business unless, of
course, the government came through with
their guarantees. A few of these bail-outs got
the government to thinking that they might
not have enough cash to prop up all the
banks that were in bad shape.
To make matters worse, the low interest
rates that prevail in many countries,
including Canada, meant that southeastern
Asian banks could borrow large sums of
dollars, etc. on international capital markets.
These dollar loans had gone a long way
toward keeping the exchange rate of the
countries at a high level and when western
banks started to be reluctant to lend any more
money, that was, to a considerable degree,
the straw that broke the camel's back.
It still had the hulks of its once-stately
mansions. It still had those wildly canted
streets and almost gothic wooden buildings
perched like swallows nests on the mountain
wall.
And it still had the remains of the once
thriving copper mines complete with steam
shovels, ingots, ore-wagons, rock drills,
muckers and slag heaps.
Kind of a ... living museum, if you like.
Which is pretty much what the town has
become. You can take walking tours or
driving tours. You can also shop in a dozen
or so tourist shops that offer higher-than-
average quality Arizona arts and crafts.
Which is what sets this town apart from
other places like Scottsdale and Phoenix and
even Sedona. It's not really on the way to
anyplace, so the tourists haven't really
discovered it yet.
The town is pretty much unspoiled.
Walking down its crooked streets at dusk you
get a pretty good idea of what life must have
been like in the Arizona mountains before
the Tilley-hatted, Nikon-necklaced hordes
arrived. The scenery is unlittered by Calvin
Klein billboards or large golden arches. And
as far as I can tell the spectacular sunset I
watched from a coffee shop in the centre of
town that evening wasn't sponsored by
anybody.
Warm in the daytime, chilly at night,
sunshine all day long, it was a nice break for
a winter-weary Canuck.
I don't know that I'll ever get back to that
town again, but I'd like to. And I'd like it
even better if I found it just the way I left it.
No tour buses. No Holiday Inns. No Taco
Bells.
Of course, it's not going to stay unspoiled
if idiots like me keep writing about it and
singing its praises.
Fortunately, I forgot to mention its name.
Currencies such as the Thai baht, the
Malaysian ringgit and the Indonesian rupiah
all started to take a nose-dive on currency
markets, to a degree far, far worse than what
has been happening to the Canadian dollar
early in 1998.
The countries in question -had to, among
other things, rein in their spending and to the
degree that this spending was for western
products and services, this will mean a drop
in the growth rates in western economies. At
the present time, this reduction is expected to
be in the vicinity of 1/4 - 1/2 per cent so
there is a certain domino effect.
This effect extends to the stock market,
that most neurotic of operations. At the time
of writing the stock markets in Canada, the
U.S. and elsewhere are extremely volatile and
what it looks like is that the returns which
you got last year on your RRSPs, or at least
many of them, will not be matched this year.
As for a stock market crash, this appears
hardly likely but it will depend on how
vigorously the various countries set about
correcting the flaws in their economic
system.
The data is not yet in sufficient quantity for
me to make a definitive statement but the
above one will do for the time being.
Needless to say, a lot of people are still
holding their breath.
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie GroPP
Put it all in perspective
During a recent conversation, the reality
that people seldom see their own failings as
clearly as others see them was mentioned. I
remarked that what I felt was one of my
greatest weaknesses was that as my own
worst critic, I am well aware of my flaws,
but too undisciplined to do anything about
them.
If I could muster the discipline, the
blemish I would most like to erase is
broodiness. I dwell on trivialities, letting
inconsequentials trouble me much more than
they warrant.
And as a self-professed control freak,
leaning a degree toward obsessive-
compulsion, I am faced almost daily with
matters to be broody about. Issues that
should be barely a whimper in my day,
scream for attention, drowning out the
common sense whispers about priorities.
And examples of the bigger picture are
always there to remind me of my
foolishness. This past weekend my family
and I went out of town to see friends. During
the course of our weekend, conversation
turned to this man's brother and his wife. A
wealthy couple with three successful,
picture-perfect children and grandchildren,
they were often envied by family and friends
for having it all.
That changed a few years ago when the
husband was diagnosed with amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as
Lou Gehrig's disease. Attacking the nerves
and muscles of its victims, it is terminal.
And nasty. As a child I watched a loved
one succumb to this illness and I remember
it as being not just demeaning as its victims
lose their ability to do anything
independently, but terrifying as well.
Sufferers usually die of suffocation or
choking.
My friend says his brother's strength came
from his loving spouse. Unfortunately,
however, late last year she was diagnosed
with cancer. She is being treated for what
they believe is the secondary one; they have
yet to locate the primary.
Do they brood over the fact that when they
need each other most, they are unable to
provide much support? It would be natural,
yet it is strength and calm rationale which
their family says has been present since this
trial began.
People accepting huge challenges with
grace never cease to amaze. Take the story
of Cindy Duehring of North Dakota, who
after being exposed to a heavy dose of
pesticides 12 years ago developed multiple
chemical sensitivity. So extreme is her case
that she is a prisoner in her own
hermetically-sealed home. Her only visitors
are her husband on weekends and her
parents twice a year.
So susceptible is she to outside influences
that now even the sound of her own voice
will send her into convulsions, so she neither
speaks nor laughs.
Nor broods. Easy as it may have been to
do so, she did not give up on living. Instead
she founded Environmental Access Reseach
Network, and has won international
recongition as a champion of people
suffering from chemical poisoning.
It all kind of made me wonder that perhaps
when I find myself brooding, marvelling at
such exceptional bravery would get things
into perspective.
Arthur Black
International Scene
By Raymond Canon