Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 8, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba A Winnipeg free press u january editorials editor John 6977044 an Eye on Mexico the economic signals from Mexico do not quite add up to a coherent policy that the watching world can count but harsh reality is slowly driving presi Dent Ernesto Zedillo and his government into a posture they can the 30percent devaluation of the peso Over three weeks is a blow to National Pride and a catastrophe for businesses such As importers and some investors who have peso revenues and Dollar it will also produce a surge of inflation through the mexican Economy As retail ers do their Best to Jack up peso prices for imported for Mexico Large informal the Market in goods and services that nobody re counts or the currency fluctuation will make very Little Dif the devaluation will be a shot in the Arm for those with peso costs and Dollar the tourist Export agriculture and the rapidly growing subcontract manufacturing plants concentrated along the Border that do highly specialized Assembly work for companies and Export Back to the consumer Mexico has Hung out a sign begging for foreign invest ment it has offered its railways and airports for Privati Cut labor costs by the amount of the negotiated a wage and Price restraint agreement with the National business and labor bodies and jacked the Short term interest rate up to about 24 per such High inter est rates would produce a recession in a closed Economy by shutting Down but Mexico rapid growth in the Early 1990s was fuelled by foreign High interest rates May discourage local entrepreneurs but will not impede those who raise their funds the inflation and the discouragement to local entrepreneurs will be difficult for mexicans to the National policy of deregulation and free markets has delivered several years of rising living this policy is already under Challenge from the political left and from the Zap Atista rebel army in Chiapas the sudden de valuation and emergency economic measures have left the impression that president Zedillo and his for All their University degrees in Are not As smart As they thought they the government could ease its problems by improving its gathering of economic statistics to Cut Down on the Nasty surprises and by appealing to patient Domestic and who Are in for the Long haul and not too Quick to pull their Money out when they scent costlier drugs the Liberal party had a Tough in its first year in sticking to its principles on drug but the multinational drug firms Are charging such High prices for new drugs they introduce in Canada that the party May yet be forced to do what it once believed in the liberals opposed the Patent Protection Law introduced by the former Mulroney government at the request of the multinational drug in return for a Price control system on existing the mul Roney Law prohibits generic copies of a new drug for up to 20 the drug innovators contend they need Many years of monopoly with a successful product to cover the costs of inventing and promoting new the patented Medicine prices review Board warned a year ago that new drugs were coming to Market in can Ada at much higher prices than in other it pro posed tougher a report from the nonprofit Green shield health insurance company on its 1993 drug claims shows that rapid adoption of new drugs by Cana Dian doctors and High prices charged for those drugs have driven drug spending upward at per cent per year since the Mulroney governments first round of drug Patent Law changes in consumer prices in Canada Over the same period Rose at per cent per provincial governments Are laying off Hospital employees and cutting Down medical school enrolments in order to reduce the costs of their health the drug Industry is taking up the by rapidly increasing sales of pharmaceutical the net result will be continued escalation in health costs and a health sys tem that is More chemical and less the health policy and evaluation research Centre at Manitoba medical school has already proven its astute Ness in framing useful questions and gathering relevant data to study the effects of Hospital bed the same constructive approach should be applied to the shift away from people and into pills in the Canadian health care is this a better Way to spend our health care funds is this system making us healthier or is it just Mak ing us More dependent on drugs the liberals defend monopoly rights for drug inventors because drug firms concentrated in Montreal have won wide support for their position but the National pol icy on drug pricing should rest on All the results of drug not just on the political Impact in one Winnipeg free press Winnipeg few press esl 1872 Winnipeg Tribune 1880 Rudy Duncan Mcmonagle executive editor John Dafoe editorial Page editor directors John Bardawil marketing Stephan Majorki operations Perry Glenn 91995 Winnipeg free of Owen of Povl sign of Thomson newspapers company limited published seven Days 9 week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm a member of the press Council Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion m Equality of Clatt rights now youre probably wondering Why 1 called you All together two peas in a pricey pod when municipal corporations and life insurance companies Are in they look like very different animals the tax supported civic departments on this Side and the profit driven entrepreneurs on the once they Are they look remark ably Orange an enormous municipal corporation covering a Large and mainly wealthy Region near los Ange is bankrupt because the county supervisors thought they could make a killing playing the Bond Market with borrowed they operated a Pool to which local town school boards and Public Utility corporations within the county contributed funds and for a while they produced astonish ing returns by borrowing lending Lon term and playing com plex Bon Market late in the credit markets moved against the county supervisors strategy and they were caught deep in the their investment House called its Loans and the county fell into court supervised the county supervisors have suffered distress and but they have not lost a cent on the the remedy they Are now studying is massive Lay offs of county employees to reduce wage reach a settlement with creditors and return to Terence Moore a few months before the roof caved in on Orange Canadas superintendent of financial institutions at last pulled the plug on confederation which had gambled policyholders funds in the real estate Market with the same kind of reckless greed that the Orange county supervisors used in playing the Bond the Federal regulator tried to get other insurance companies to take Over confederation or parts of but they looked it Over and preferred not to get the regulator put the huge firm and its related Trust company in the hands of liquidators peat Marwick Thorne in As in Orange the people in charge have not been held Adam formerly chairman of the confederation life continues to sit on the boards of a Blu ribbon list of companies including Macmillan Maple Leaf Noranda the Toronto Dominion Bank and economic investment his entry in the latest financial Post directory of directors makes no mention of his former chairmanship of confederation John who was chairman of the confederation life boards executive continues his distinguished career As chairman of the Board of the investment House Midland Walwyn and director of other equally important unlike Zim he still acknowledges in his directory of directors entry his former involvement with confederation the difference Between con federation lifes assets and its i once that is deter will be made up by some combi nation of the policyholders and the employees mainly the folks at the Bottom of the in Orange county treasurer Robert who actually ran the disastrous investment is pre paring his defence against eventual court at has lost his the question now is whether the county that May sue him will also pay for his defence through its Legal Aid the elected county supervisors who were his masters continue to serve and to draw they were in formed this week that the county is million us in the Hole on 1994 operations and they Are working on the details of layoffs so that they can re sume payments to lenders and Rescue the county the colleagues of Zimmerman and Rhind on the confederation life Board similarly continue to play Large roles in Canadas corporate John Allan continues to serve on the boards of Moore Rockwell inter Ste co and the Toronto do minion Irving Gerstein helps out at economic investment an Thony Griffiths is chairman of Meridian technologies Slater Indus tries and Vitrano and director of a Long list of George Edward Mara is still Vic chairman of Jan Nock Robert Martin is still chairman of the Canadian Imperial Bank of ism Canada and Noranda continue to Benefit from the skills and knowledge of Andre to by Canadian business ethics and business that is As it should Why should highly educated business leaders who lend their names and their services to great corporations Bear responsibility for the catastrophes Over which they preside Why should they not be in the same position As the Orange county super i Able to keep inflicting on others the results of their own misjudgments who cares How the dinosaurs died by Leonard Larsen Scripps Howard news service in Box for scientific explanations of what killed the dinosaurs is filling up again with theories bumping into each other like freight cars on a closed some urgency in the dead Dinosaur department maybe interest in Jurassic Park seems to Spur More research in which an army of scientists is willing to publish rival findings and wild guesses for As Long As the Money holds the scientific Beauty of the research is that whatever it was that killed the dinosaurs happened 65 million years ago and nothing dug from the treasure trove of real and imaginary research can be proved absolutely or catching up with no Saurs theories of just the past we find much Learned conflicting published theories in a 12month Span hold that it was and it want and then again it was volcanic activity that spread lethal shaded the cooled the Earth and did the dinosaurs one disputing suggestion is that erupting volcanoes didst kill the Dino that the dinosaurs actually prospered in a tropical Shade and didst Start dying off until the Volca noes calmed Down and the shaded Plant life lowering the worlds oxygen there of still the theory that a monumental collision Between Earth and a huge asteroid started the demise of the but new arguments have erupted Over the exact cause of death whether it was Colli Sion debris and the shaded and cooled or a Haze of sul uric acid rising from the scene of the collision that killed rounding out the newest Batch of dead Dinosaur research is an attractive bbl enterprises illustration Small rained dinosaurs May have disappeared because they were too forgetful to new Kaboom scientific theory that declares that it was an asteroid collision it was also a volcanic eruption that killed the How can that be the Kaboom school holds that a 10milewide asteroid smashed into the Earth and Kaboom caused such vibrations that a Volcano erupted Clear around on the other Side of the and then Clouds of debris from both sources shaded the cooled the planet and killed the unless a hard pressed world econ omy dries up research its a fair bet that another year will produce another crop of dead Dinosaur Theo and nothing should be considered too How about the delicious Dinosaur egg theory that dinosaurs discovered that Dinosaur eggs their own and other dinosaurs were a lot tastier and easier to get at than underwater swamp grass or dinosaurs that didst want to be eaten or How about the theory that All at once the dinosaurs developed a taste for Dinosaur meat and the big ones ate the Little ones and then the big ones ate the not so big ones the big ones ate each other until there were Only two left and they were both females a promising entry among the still ripening theories of what killed the dinosaurs might be the theory of the forgetful it could be that dinosaurs they Only had Little bitty brains began to forget important like where it was they went to eat and what they ate when they got there and where they went after it was All hungry and anxious without knowing maybe they began to forget what was supposed to happen i during Dinosaur mating when a lot of Jungle was torn up in jousting be tween rival males before the serious Handshe Dinosaur business got in pretty More and More of the dinosaurs probably forgot All about the preliminary fighting for got what it was they were supposed to do after the and after a generation or the forgetful dinosaurs had forgotten what All the commotion had been about in the first the fighting among the males and the Dinosaur Loving that was supposed to and As the theory of the forgetful dinosaurs will some Day Tell by the time the asteroid hit the Earth or the volcanoes started spewing Ash around the planet or the asteroid started the Kaboom it didst make any it was All no More and 65 million years who cares ;