Somebody once said something to the effect that those who pay no attention to history are bound to repeat it.
It's happening as we speak. While American Carrie Nation, who took an axe to any bar that sold alcohol in any form in the first half of the 20th Century has long ago expired, her disciples in the form of Mothers Against Drunk Driving here in Canada are busily preaching doom in the early part of Century 21.
We all know how Nation's efforts brought about Prohibition, which brought about smuggling, bootlegging, fuelled the rise of countless mafias and other illegal enterprises, many of which are still in operation as underground economies.
While complicit politicians in the US made the sale of alcohol illegal, in no way did it curtail its use. It just went underground.
Publicity-hungry politicians in the early part of the 21st Century are once again giving in to the persistent campaigning of the MADD organizers, sneaking more oppression into the lives of Canadians. No prohibition yet, but already idle cops with no imagination are going about counting empties being delivered back to the liquor stores.
It happened in Streetsville, a community in Mississauga on the western end of Toronto's Golden Horseshoe. A retired postal worker was grabbed by a cop for returning to the local liquor store a couple of cases of beer bottles consumed over the Christmas holidays.
There was little trouble with alcohol in the horse and buggy days. If the driver paid too little attention to how much he drank in the course of an evening, the horse usually had enough sense to take him home with little prompting.
Cars were another matter. They required that the driver remain conscious of what was happening. That fact probably helped make Carrie Nation's actions seem sane in the early era of automobile travel.
Eighty years later, we're still wrestling with that one. We're still grumbling about alcohol even though technology and whacko tobacco have become more distracting and more dangerous than alcohol in the hands of suicidal drivers or semi-conscious pedestrians.
It is unlikely attitudes regarding the use of alcohol are about to change. Ethanol is too much a part of our existence. It's been with us from the beginning and is a vital part of our evolution.
Those who want to see how, can Google Marula Fruit, an African treat that all the animals love to eat, especially when it ripens and falls to the earth, where it begins to ferment. The animals--everything from baboons to elephants--love it, gorge on it, and stagger around drunkenly.
There can be no doubt at all that early humans were right in there munching on Marula Fruit right along with the monkeys and baboons.
And those humans who were forced to leave the Marula trees behind when they migrated to Europe and Asia found they can get hammered by fermenting other things, such as barley, wheat, grapes, sugar cane, potatoes, and even turnips.
While alcohol is probably not an essential component of successful human development, there is little doubt that it contributed.
How? Well, to begin with, it is a very effective truth serum. Many of our brightest artists, writers and decision makers were not shy about its use. For proof, all we need do is compare civilizations that are not stingy with their consumption of alcohol with those that forbid its use.
Think vodka, a favorite of the Russian cultures, scotch, a favorite of the Scots, beer of the Brits and Germans, bourbon of the Americans, wine of the French and Italians, and rye of the Canadians.
Did alcohol figure prominently in commercial deal making? It must have. Something special was at work when you compare cultures of technological and commercial success with those of third-world inertia.
We regard alcoholics with prominent blood vessels in their noses as hopeless addicts, without noticing that they also sport a luxuriant thatch that is about five times as dense as the hair follicles on individuals of equal age who do not imbibe. Is it due to the expanded circulation in the epidermis that discolors the skin of the schnozz?
Let us hope this discussion prompts no run on liquor stores by bald men determined to grow hair on their heads. Further, if the suppliers of alleged hair stimulants have not already figured a way to employ ethanol in their hair growth potions other than drinking it, I want a share of the action.
Monday 21 January 2019
Friday 11 January 2019
Union Posturing:
Auto industry union bosses are still rumbling and grumbling for the media about the GM decision to exit Oshawa. You'd almost be led to think they have the clout to actually do something about that.
Too late. GM has found a work site more suitable for assembling vehicles.
For years the unions have conditioned the assembly line workers to think that they owed their livelihood to the union's efforts to get them a square deal from those terrible money-grubbing industrialists.
And many of them actually got to believe that. They bought the story that they were working for the union instead of General Motors.
A century ago, when Colonel McLaughlin decided to add motors to his carriages, he made a deal with Buick of Detroit to produce the McLaughlin Buick. He needed all kinds of tradesmen to assemble the vehicles.
That is how all those jobs were created. It was the need to produce this wonderful new means of transit that required workers. There were wages to be made by people who qualified for the jobs offered. The unions weren't there until someone borrowed, possibly from the Mafia, the concept of "protecting" the workers from those greedy employers. Naturally, the workers were required to pay for their protection.
While the alleged greed of the people who created the jobs eventually created the need for unions, let us not forget that it was car maker Henry Ford who was first to develop the assembly line for cars, who was also the first to recognize that if he paid his assembly line workers a fair wage, they, too, would be able to buy his cars.
It is unlikely that there were any politicians or union bosses involved in Ford's decision.
But getting back to Oshawa, the decision for GM to quit and move on was no doubt made by people who crunched the numbers and found an advantage in moving their operation somewhere else. They found a place where, after the vehicles were built and workers paid, there would be enough money left over for the people who bought GM shares.
That is how industry is able to survive to create more jobs. Job #1 is to make products of a quality and at a cost that will allow them to survive market place competition.
Job #2 is to hire people with enough skills and a work ethic to do the jobs properly.
Job #3 is to make sure the shareholders see enough profit in their shares to keep investing and stay in the game.
Those are the priorities. Anything else would result in the company going under sooner rather than later. And if the company goes under, all the jobs go with it.
It is entirely possible that far from being the assembly line workers' over-all great benefactor, the union actually contributed to the company's exit from Oshawa. It could be they bargained too hard, making it easy for the employer to leave and go where people want jobs with fewer strings attached.
The time for union posturing is over. When GM exits, there will be no more pay checks to deduct union fees from and no more taxes deducted at the source. Union leaders and politicians trying to make political hay on lost jobs will have to find something more productive to whine about.
Andrea Horwath will have to go back and re-focus her attention for the CTV and CBC cameras on that terrible Doug Ford.
Too late. GM has found a work site more suitable for assembling vehicles.
For years the unions have conditioned the assembly line workers to think that they owed their livelihood to the union's efforts to get them a square deal from those terrible money-grubbing industrialists.
And many of them actually got to believe that. They bought the story that they were working for the union instead of General Motors.
A century ago, when Colonel McLaughlin decided to add motors to his carriages, he made a deal with Buick of Detroit to produce the McLaughlin Buick. He needed all kinds of tradesmen to assemble the vehicles.
That is how all those jobs were created. It was the need to produce this wonderful new means of transit that required workers. There were wages to be made by people who qualified for the jobs offered. The unions weren't there until someone borrowed, possibly from the Mafia, the concept of "protecting" the workers from those greedy employers. Naturally, the workers were required to pay for their protection.
While the alleged greed of the people who created the jobs eventually created the need for unions, let us not forget that it was car maker Henry Ford who was first to develop the assembly line for cars, who was also the first to recognize that if he paid his assembly line workers a fair wage, they, too, would be able to buy his cars.
It is unlikely that there were any politicians or union bosses involved in Ford's decision.
But getting back to Oshawa, the decision for GM to quit and move on was no doubt made by people who crunched the numbers and found an advantage in moving their operation somewhere else. They found a place where, after the vehicles were built and workers paid, there would be enough money left over for the people who bought GM shares.
That is how industry is able to survive to create more jobs. Job #1 is to make products of a quality and at a cost that will allow them to survive market place competition.
Job #2 is to hire people with enough skills and a work ethic to do the jobs properly.
Job #3 is to make sure the shareholders see enough profit in their shares to keep investing and stay in the game.
Those are the priorities. Anything else would result in the company going under sooner rather than later. And if the company goes under, all the jobs go with it.
It is entirely possible that far from being the assembly line workers' over-all great benefactor, the union actually contributed to the company's exit from Oshawa. It could be they bargained too hard, making it easy for the employer to leave and go where people want jobs with fewer strings attached.
The time for union posturing is over. When GM exits, there will be no more pay checks to deduct union fees from and no more taxes deducted at the source. Union leaders and politicians trying to make political hay on lost jobs will have to find something more productive to whine about.
Andrea Horwath will have to go back and re-focus her attention for the CTV and CBC cameras on that terrible Doug Ford.
Thursday 3 January 2019
Smoke 'n Mirrors:
CBC quoted some Liberal commentator who said that PC leader Andrew Scheer's address regarding young Trudeau's carbon tax at a gathering in Alberta was just smoke and mirrors.
Scheer is quoted to have said if he is elected, Trudeau's punitive carbon tax would be toast.
Does that sound like smoke and mirrors? Not to me. Sounds like a statement of positive intent. And a welcome one. Someone has to end that ill-advised lunacy.
Scheer's speech included the idea that the PCs have a plan that will facilitate industry's efforts to reduce emissions. If historic records are accurate, all they need to do is tell the technical types what needs to be done, then shut up and get out of the way.
Industry has demonstrated its ability to curb emissions over the last century. Anybody over 30 years old will remember the stench of hydrocarbons in vehicle exhausts emitting a shimmering haze in the heat of city streets crowded with traffic.
Old guys like me remember the reek of horse emissions in country lanes and city roadways. Those emissions were covered up with the less pungent smell of cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars and less-frequent baths.
What emissions the Ottawa administration intends to cover with the stench of wacky tobaccy remains to be seen. Could be the smell of indiscriminate taxation.
Away back at the approach of the 20th Century, one New York politician is reported to have predicted that soon they will be unable to rid urban centres of dead horse carcasses. He calculated that by the turn of the century (the 20th) major US metropolitan centres will be at least 200 feet deep in horse dung.
It did not come to pass. That problem was solved not by politicians imposing more taxes, but by industry engineers. Most prominent among those were people like Henry Ford, who replaced horses with the Model T, an affordable automobile.
Ford was no saint. He did that because, unlike the Ottawa Liberals looking to squeeze more taxes out of the working poor, he was looking to make an honest buck by improving their life style.
He did that handily and, in doing so, helped create another type of emissions--hydrocarbons. Over time, engineers solved that one with more precise ignition control, fuel injection, closed loop fuel systems and catalytic converters.
Now, the new car motors are running so clean, their exhausts are probably cleaner than the air they suck in for combustion.
Hopefully, we will have to put up with young Trudeau's wild schemes to save the planet by merciless taxation of the working class only until next fall's election.
Scheer is quoted to have said if he is elected, Trudeau's punitive carbon tax would be toast.
Does that sound like smoke and mirrors? Not to me. Sounds like a statement of positive intent. And a welcome one. Someone has to end that ill-advised lunacy.
Scheer's speech included the idea that the PCs have a plan that will facilitate industry's efforts to reduce emissions. If historic records are accurate, all they need to do is tell the technical types what needs to be done, then shut up and get out of the way.
Industry has demonstrated its ability to curb emissions over the last century. Anybody over 30 years old will remember the stench of hydrocarbons in vehicle exhausts emitting a shimmering haze in the heat of city streets crowded with traffic.
Old guys like me remember the reek of horse emissions in country lanes and city roadways. Those emissions were covered up with the less pungent smell of cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars and less-frequent baths.
What emissions the Ottawa administration intends to cover with the stench of wacky tobaccy remains to be seen. Could be the smell of indiscriminate taxation.
Away back at the approach of the 20th Century, one New York politician is reported to have predicted that soon they will be unable to rid urban centres of dead horse carcasses. He calculated that by the turn of the century (the 20th) major US metropolitan centres will be at least 200 feet deep in horse dung.
It did not come to pass. That problem was solved not by politicians imposing more taxes, but by industry engineers. Most prominent among those were people like Henry Ford, who replaced horses with the Model T, an affordable automobile.
Ford was no saint. He did that because, unlike the Ottawa Liberals looking to squeeze more taxes out of the working poor, he was looking to make an honest buck by improving their life style.
He did that handily and, in doing so, helped create another type of emissions--hydrocarbons. Over time, engineers solved that one with more precise ignition control, fuel injection, closed loop fuel systems and catalytic converters.
Now, the new car motors are running so clean, their exhausts are probably cleaner than the air they suck in for combustion.
Hopefully, we will have to put up with young Trudeau's wild schemes to save the planet by merciless taxation of the working class only until next fall's election.
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