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Page THE HERALD OUTLOOK Saturday May 27 Backlash will come as the world turns OUTLOOK is published each Saturday by the ALTON HILLS HERALD Home Newspaper of Halton Hills A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited at Guclph Street Georgetown Ontario Second Class Mail Registered Number 8772201 8778822 PUBLISHER David A Beattie EDITOR Brian MacLeod AD MANAGER Dan Taylor Your Business Diane Matey Sank As the world turns were due for a backlash against business soothsayers say No book of straight talk from the likes of Lee Iacocca Chrysler chairman will soar to the top of this years bestseller list Indeed one recent bestseller was a weighty tome by a professor of political philosophy Allan Bloom decrying the state of higher educa tion This year the environment is the number one issue The greening of America does not augur well for business Who but business wrecks the environment Who is responsi ble for the chaos in Central America One could go on and on listing the evils of unbridled capitalism But none of this is new The real reason for the rising groundswell of anti business ment if indeed it exists is the tune As The Economist a British business magazine sees it the pendulum is simply swinging back from the phenomenon that dominated the 1970s and early 1980s The simplest reason for think ing that the probusiness tide will turn is that that is what do The Economist says For everything there is a season and a time its time to ask business how it plans to conduct itself in the com decade To explain the growing distrust of business The Economist points to Ivan and the Wall Street insidertrading scandal It points to Mike Milken the junk bond king who earned million last year Mr Milken too has been caught in the insidertrading net PREFERENCE SHIFTS Logically one would think Mr Milkens salary would lure bright young people into the investment banking business Not so After years of drawing the best graduates from U S business schools Wall Street has fallen out of favor The Economist notes This year graduates are careers in more productive fields There is something vaguely troubling about various members of the media deciding to adopt pro- business or business stances Editors talk about positive stones and negative ones Why not just tell the story as it is The Canadian people are too sen sible to be tricked into adopting unreasonable positions for or against business or individual business people Thats why Canadas business press is so em barrassing OVERSTATES CASE When a giant oil tanker owned by Exxort ran aground off the Alaskan coast dumping tons of oil into the ocean and killing countless thousands of birds animals and sea creatures Canadas national newspaper responded by decrying the business bashing that was bound to ensue Exxon itself would have been embarrassed by such thoughtlessness Perhaps the pendulum swings first in the media and the people react An unabashedly pro business media is bound to invite the very backlash business fears Business meanwhile may have been doing fine thank you without the coming to its defence Berrys World 3P03esviT by Inc dunno Ill have to study it STAFF WRITERS Ben Donna I SPORTS WRITER Paul Svoboda ACCOUNTING June Glendenning Joan Mam CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING Tammv Salt SN In Bruce ADVERTISING SALES Jeannine Valois Craig Teeter Stacie Roberts PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT Dave Hastings Supt Annie Susanne Wilson CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT Marie Shadbolt PRESSROOM FOREMAN Brian Aikman Chretien likes Mulroneys shots Ottawa Stewart MacLeod New Scivica Is that for security or does it take timelapse photographs to show that this line actually moves Federal deficit will drop to 15 billion by 1993 Ottawa j Heres a bright little item that might stop you temporarily from gnawing your knuckles over Marcel Masses coffee- table book or Bouchards office ftxup The federal deficit for will be a mere billion less than half what it is expected to be this year And get this On the basis of accounting standards used in preparation of budgets in the United Kingdom and the United States we would then have a balanced budget Huh How does a hole in the pocket become a breakeven situa tion The quote comes from a pam phlet called Budget In Brief Thats the pocketsized summary that Global TV journalist Doug Small waved about on camera the night of the budget leak Theres a little more information provided in The Fiscal Plan a 147- page budget document that spells out Ottawas financial situation in more detail It boils down to the fact that British and American bean counters calculate their deficits on the basis of financial re quirements This is the amount of money that a government must borrow when it goes to the open capital market which includes buyers of Canada Savings Bonds and treasury bills for cash to pay its expenses NEEDS MONEY Theres two things that might be said Firstly when comparisons are made between our deficit and that of the S the closest match identified by the Finance Depart ment is b tween Canadian finan cial requirements and the American unified budget deficit This year those two figures as a percentage of the na tional economy are virtually iden tical at 3 2 per cent for Canada and 1 per cent for the U S Next year while both are ex pected to fall the American figure will improve more Our financial requirements will be 2 per cent of the economy and their unified budget deficit will be 1 per cent Secondly using the financial re quirement gauge the federal government will have to borrow 5 billion this year from the pnvate sector Thats a tidy billion less than the deficit of 5 billion outlined by Finance Minister Michael Wilson By 199394 when the deficit is 15 billion the financial requirement will be a relatively modest billion On this basis The Fiscal Plan declares Canada would be close to a balanced budget position by the end of the fiscal planning penod Indeed in 199495 a Finance Department says there should be wait for it a surplus What accounts for this huge gap Agam it comes down to different ways of- figuring government assets and liabilities The deficit comes from the publicaccounts method of ting while the financial require ment figure closely parallels what is known as the national accounts Both methods are reported by the government in the budget documents When the 30 deficit for this year was calculated it took in to account all the governments budgetary and nonbudgetary spending and revenues That includes borrowing from the pension accounts of federal employees as well as from private- sector sources But when the financial re quirements are calculated money borrowed from the pension ac counts is not included This is the largest reason for the gap ASSETS TALLIED Another contributing factor is a difference in the way in which federal capital assets such as buildings machinery and equip- tallied v Ironic is it not that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney will have more influence in the selection of a new Liberal leader than John Turner And considering Mr Mulroneys addiction to partisan politics its a sure bet that he will exercise that influence Mr Turner has very limited clout when it comes to influencing the choice of his successor Of ficially he will remain neutral and while he can certainly let it be known who he favors his views wont carry a great deal of weight It would be different if he were a prime minister laying hands on a successor to carry on his good works The party faithful would want to know who in the retiring leaders opinion could best control the cabinet and government It would even make a difference if the party were in splendid shape its collective mind full of popular policies and its coffers full of cash Again the faithful would want to know who the retiring leader thinks would be best at keeping things on track But Mr Turner despite exag claims about the Liberals being on the way up is not leav ing a party that wants to stay on the same track What the Grits want is change a change that will bring them far more than the 83 seats they now occupy in the 295- seat House of Commons NO WEIGHT What the delegates be look ing for whenever the leadership convention is held is someone who can win And a retiring leader who lost two consecutive general elec tions will not be considered a great authority on the subject Anyway its widely assumed that Mr Turner now favors Paul Martin Jr as his successor and he has made a point of saying many nice things about the new MP At the same time he seems to be making a point of saying virtually nothing about Jean Chretien ex cept to refer to the hurt he felt when certain people refused to ac cept the result of the leader ship convention That was when Mr Turner defeated Mr Chretien But Mr Turners apparent sup port for Mr Martin doesnt appear to be having much effect Opinion polIsTwt Mr Chretien miles ahead of us nearest rival Ontario Premier David Peterson as the publics choice for the new leader But Prime Minister Mulroney Now thats a different kettle of fish Without even being a Liberal or without going close to the con vention site the prime minister can have an enormous impact on the outcome By merely trying to discredit one candidate and thus imply he would be afraid of that person the prime minister can turn an also- ran into a frontrunner ALREADY STARTED So far Mr Mulroney seems to be concentrating his firepower on Mr Chretien He hasnt called him by name mind you but there is little doubt whom he was referring to when he attacked the voices of the past