Wednesday Night #932
January 12, 2000
The agenda proposed for Wednesday Night was quickly modified by the welcome
participation of new guest, Eli Bitzer, Consul general for South Africa and the
unfortunate absence of David Rovig who discovered that it is not easy to get to
Montreal from Billings, Montana! Jacques Clément introduced Filomène Croce whose
field of expertise is computer education.
South Africa
Eli Bitzer reviewed the aftermath of Apartheid shortly after the election of
Nelson Mandela to the presidency of South Africa. At that time the miracle of
peaceful change was celebrated, but some doubt was expressed as to the ability
of the government to meet the expectations of the population. Today, President
Mandela having completed his mandate, there is great pride among South Africans
in having achieved their political utopia, with patient confidence that
although it may take many years or even several generations, their economic and
social agenda will be achieved as well.
Enormous social and economic problems exist, especially in the fields of
education, health, communications, and crime prevention. Aids, a disease
particularly prevalent in the southern hemisphere, is pervasive and the nation’s health budget cannot begin to
afford the necessary medication.
Recognition of the progress that South Africa has made has enabled it to
play a global role, active in all the United Nations agencies and spokesman for
the non-aligned nations of the south in many sectors including the Environment.
Health:
Aids remains a world problem, with over fifty million people infected
world-wide. Especially affected has been the sub-Sahara region which has seen
female life-expectancy which had climbed from forty-five to fifty-six years,
now decline to forty-four.
The flu is back. There are several strains of two types of influenza viruses namely Influenza A and Influenza B. Pharmaceutical manufacturers send
researchers to Australia during the Australian winter to determine the
prevalent strain, giving them a six month lead time to prepare the vaccine
most-probably effective here. Most likely to be infected are children between
the ages of five and sixteen. Most seriously at risk are older people more
susceptible to heart or lung disease, smokers. This latter group is at greater
risk of developing pneumonia of either bacterial or viral origin. Immunization
is now possible against bacterial pneumonia.
Much has been made of the waiting time in hospital emergency rooms during
the current flu season. The cause is probably less an increase in the incidence
of this disease and more attributable to the early retirement packages offered
to physicians by the provincial government in order to meet its zero budged
target.
Dr. Marc gave the chair a shot 'live on..'!
Politics:
Noble motives on the part of candidates for political office lead to
disillusionment, with the discovery that it is a long, difficult and
frustrating task to make a difference as an elected representative. The Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada is probably in a far better position to
influence society than is the elected Member of Parliament or of the National
Assembly.
The Canadian Economy
:
Unemployment figures in Canada are down, but still higher than in the United
States, which enjoys virtually full employment. There is some speculation on
the reason for this. Several hypotheses are proposed to explain this
difference.
The basic underlying employment rate in Canada is
due to our higher social safety net.
There are some differences in the way in which the
unemployment rate is calculated in the two countries.
Free Trade. You cannot run a welfare system in the
same system as a capitalist state without barriers. Counterbalancing this is
the appearance of signs that the United States has reached the end of the hard
line and as the pendulum swings back, the two countries may once again reach a
consensus.
The United States:
Alan Greenspan is generally acknowledged as the top central banker in the
world and is being given credit for nine consecutive year of growth in the U.S.
economy, as well as the rapidity of recovery of the Far East financial crisis.
With the United States virtually at full employment, core inflation can be
expected to move from the current 1.8% to the 2.5% band in the future. It is
widely expected that the Federal Reserve will announce a quarter percent
increase in interest rates on February first or second, rapidly followed by a
similar announcement in Canada.
A.O.L. - Time Warner Takeover:
There is some speculation that the merger is really an educated guess as to
what people want to see on television. Those who see it as vertical integration
view it very positively; others who see A.O.L.’s mission as a marketing, find
it incompatible with the unstated mission of the Internet, namely to create new
things and new ways of achieving them. To the latter, this merger may burst the
Internet stock bubble.
The C.R.T.C. - C.B.C. dispute:
The issue really is whether the government should be involved in culture.
Those who answer in the affirmative see the C.B.C. as one of the few remaining
barriers against the total Americanization of Canada and recommend the
licensing of television sets as was done with radio before World War II
Quotes of the Evening.
" At the federal level, the two main parties are central or
centre-right. If you want to be interested in influencing society, you would be
better off writing sitcoms than entering politics."
"As a matter of history, either free trade agreements break up or they
move to a common economy."
"The Dow is basically the Jurassic park of companies."
Notes by Herbert Bercovitz, Sculptor
