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2 - Orono Weekly Times Wednesday, March 10, 2004 Subscriptions $29.91 + $2.09 GST = $32.00 per year. Publications Mail Registration No. 09301 • Agreement No. 40012366 Publishing 48 issues annually at the office of publication. 'We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) toward our mailing costs." CanadS ORONO WEEKLY TIMES - 5310 Main St., P.O. Box 209, Orono, ON LOB 1M0 Email: oronotimes@speedline.ca or Phone/Fax 905-983-5301 Publisher/Editor Margaret Zwart Sports and Display Advertising - Lorraine Manfredo Front Office and Classified Advertising - Rosey Bateman Weekly Times Room for improvement We had the pleasure last week Friday afternoon to attend the Ontario Community Newspaper Association's annual convention. While the annual convention always brings with it the opportunity to connect with our peers, we faced this year's convention convention with mixed trepidation. When the call went out early in the new year for member newspapers to submit copies for a critique session by newspaper design guru Tony Sutton, we respectfully declined. When the call was re-issued a month later we decided they had a shortage of willing participants, so we succumbed. Of the ten papers critiqued critiqued in Friday afternoon's seminar, we were by far the smallest, but by no means were we the worst. In fact, when all was said and done, we didn't come off too badly at all. Our headlines can always be more imaginative, lead lines can be more enticing, and we can make the paper more reader friendly. We of course sent in two of our best editions for critique, none of those with glaring errors and the stories stories that didn't continue where they were supposed to. It was not all good though. Mr. Sutton said our name plate was 'really ugly'. The town hall image was too small and the price and dateline too big. Another thing we learned was the readers don't like drastic changes. We do of course strive to put out a good paper every week, but on the heels of the annual convention, convention, we are more inspired than usual. We will be making small changes in our design over the next few weeks, which we hope will be subtle subtle enough not to be disruptive, and as always we value input from our readers. Letters to the Editor I would like to add my letter letter of disgust to the many letters letters that have been sent to the "Editor." Our political leaders must hear the message that the taxpayers will not stand for this out-and-out display of greed when they raised wages at Regional Council. Our Clarington Mayor with Councillor Schell voted to increase their wages by $13,000. To Councillor Trim's credit, he voted against it [Regional wage increase]. These same two politicians with the help of the Mayor's campaign manager/relative voted themselves a 10% raise at the the first meeting of the new board at Veridian. When you are elected to local political political office, besides sitting on council, you can be appointed to other boards such as Regional Planning, Public Works, etc. The stipend received for this plus the increases they vote themselves makes being a local politician lucrative and rewarding. There must be a number of "The money has nothing to do with it" people out there wondering, "How can can I become part of this?" This system works for some--not all. You have to be elected. Then you must pick the right opportunity to vote yourself that large increase, this takes years of experience. You will become more proficient at it during your second or third term. Then try saying "OINK OINK." and cut a ribbon at the same time, "EUREKA"you have arrived. An asset to speed up your income progress is to have 'POINTY" elbows, this gives you more space at the public trough. Throughout your terms in office keep repeating to whoever whoever cares to listen--that you arc accountable only to the constituents/taxpayers and have their interests at heart. The money has nothing to do with it. Yours truly, George Van Dyk Bowmanville AS I S6e it... by Peter Jeworski Spontaneous order So why is it that centrally planned institutions do really poorly relative to ones that allow a significant amount of individual decision-making? Part of this reason is because knowledge is dispersed, and no group of experts could possibly possibly know as much as is needed. Like how to make a pencil, for instance. There is, however, at least one other significant reason why decentralized institutions do so well--spontaneous order. The notion of spontaneous order is at the heart of a robust and sensible approach to market market economics. That some kind of overall order can be the outcome, or result, of noncoord noncoord inated individual behaviour. behaviour. That is, without central direction or control, wc can have a fully functioning, ordered outcome. The father of economics - Adam Smith - referred to it in his 'The Wealth of Nations' as the invisible hand. According to Smith, each of us pursuing our own prudential interests results in the advancement of the general interest. That is, we are lead by something like an invisible hand to advance each others interests without actually looking to do so. According to him, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, dinner, but from their regard for their own interest." The butcher butcher is working to make money so that he can buy things he wants, he isn't doing his job so that you and 1 can get something something to eat. Similarly, neither does the baker bake for our pleasure, but because it is what helps him get the things he wants. And yet the consequence consequence of their individual behaviour is the promotion of the general intcrest-wc all benefit from their self-regarding self-regarding behaviour. An overall order, without it being designed that way. It just, well, happened. Part of this insight is a consequence consequence of a recognition of pur general ignorance. There are a host of things that we simply cannot hope to understand, understand, organize, or design. The price function of the market is a good example of this. So, too, however, is the notion of us conceiving of things like 'civilization' taken as a whole or, more commonly, systems like language, currency, or institutions like the family. We did not design language, language, we, each of us, made decisions about using words like "cat" to describe that there thing on the mat. Through socially emergent process, people in English-speaking countries remarkably agree on this convention. But it could have been otherwise. In France, for instance, the thing on the mat is a "chat," and not a "cat." Similarly, we did not design currency-but it sprung up and became popular JAWORSKI • *•# ptg§ 4