Letter to the editor

I am a fan of the Canadian magazine The Walrus. While there are certainly some editions that are less interesting to me than others, it is always well written. I look forward to it arriving. when the January/February issue arrived and I saw that it had an article of hitchhiking I was excited.

I should have known better. It was not well done at all. I think it miss the whole point about hitchhiking for pleasure. As it well known to those few who have read my blog - I think hitchhiking is an art form. The task is to leave the driver with more than they had before they let you in. When people who hitchhike don't understand that it is their job to make the driver want to pick up hitchhikers in the future- well it drives me crazy.

So for the first time I wrote a letter to the editor. I don't suspect that it will have any more effect on the magazine than do my letters to Stephen Harper, but it felt good to get my thoughts off my chest on onto someone's else's plate (is that a mix metaphor?).

At any rate, here is what I wrote. Maybe I should do an article for them?

Dear Sir    

As someone who, in the past fifteen or so years, has hitchhiked between Sudbury and Vancouver Island 10-12 times (along with assorted trips on the various west coast islands and one trip to Yellowknife), I found Kaell's short article on hitchhiking unrepresentative of my experiences. For example not once in the hundreds of vehicles that I have been in, have I ever seen the sign "ass or cash, nobody rides for free". Only two drivers in fifteen years have asked for help in paying for gas. Both times it was entirely voluntary on my part if I did. However, numerous truckers and other long distance drivers have told me that it is they who are asked for money from their passengers. It is, they tell me, one of the reasons why they don't pick up folks of the side of the road anymore.

The story misses the excitement one feels as a big rig (or any vehicle for that matter) stops, and the driver waves you in. It didn't capture the sense of intimacy one gets travelling in a vehicle through the wee hours of the morning when it feels as if there are only the two of you on the road, and you share stories of your life; and perhaps most importantly it didn't speak to the extraordinary generosity of those drivers who picked up Kaell, and who continue to stop for me and the hundreds of other folks who on occasion, travel the roads.

Some of those folks do it because it is all they can afford; other like me do it because it is the best way to travel, meet people and see the country.

For what it is worth, if one is ever "stuck" at the Flying J in Calgary for 10 hours, instead of disturbing the truckers who are probably sleeping, try crossing the street and catching a city bus. A bus will get you to just west of the Olympic Park Calgary. A short mile walk and there is a great place to stand with lots of rides

Economic Inequality # 2

A few days ago I wrote about the couple who did not know how they could manage to live on a combined income of $450,000 per year. Interestingly, the Globe had a follow up piece yesterday (I seem to have lost it) talking about the response the story got from readers. It appeared as if my comments were somewhat mild compared to others. The Globe went on to say that the problem really wasn't the fact that this family made so much - they had worked hard and deserved it, but rather that other people didn't have the same opportunities as them to get to that level of income. The Globe is partially right. It would be wonderful if everyone had access to every opportunity and the support required to get there. The fact is that many don't have access to either the supports or the opportunities. Wishing for it - just does not make it so. One wonders if the writers for the Globe and Mail others truly understand the national consequences for the ever increasing inequity.

Richard Wilkinson in a wonderful Ted Talk discusses the issues of income equality in industrialized nations. Through graphs and an impassioned voice he presents data that overwhelmingly must lead one to become convinced that income inequality is bad for our country. Wilkinson makes two critical points. One is that when comparing life expectancy and gross national incomes across a range of industrialized countries, there is no correlation between how rich a county is and how long people live. The people living in countries with the largest average income in the world (such as the USA and Norway) live about the same number of years as do people living in poorer countries.

Secondly however, if one looks within our national societies, there is a highly significant relationship between income and every type of social measurement. For example, for people who are financially better off than others in their country, their children are less likely to die in infancy and they themselves will live two-three years longer than will their poorer counterparts (Wilkins,  Berthelot and Ng. The consequences of income inequality affects virtually every part of life. According to Wilkinson, using data from the UN, in every industrialized and democratic country that has a large difference between the richest and the poorest such as the USA, that country struggles with mental illness, addictions, obesity, homicides, imprisonment, teenage pregnancies  and math and literacy. In countries that have a smaller degree of separation between the richest and the poorest citizen, such problems occur at a less frequency and with less severity.

Wilkinson by using data from UNICEF clearly demonstrates that by any measurement of child well being, children are doing worse in the countries where the difference between the richest and poorest citizens is the greatest. So if the symptoms of the problem (addictions, obesity, homicides and imprisonment are not the problem - they are symptoms of the problem) are so obvious - what is the solution?

Within the solution there lies what appears to be a paradox. If people who have large incomes pay more taxes, income equality would diminish proportionally. But that in itself does not solve the problem. The issue is not just money but rather equality of access to opportunities. No one (I hope) would suggest that the way to get to income equality is to reduce the income of all the people to the lowest common denominator. We need to increase opportunities and supports. The real question is what do we do with the money that is raised through taxes. The money from taxes must be used for the creation of  better schools, more playgrounds and after school recreation programs etc.  Children who have access to these types of supports will have more chance of success. Children who have an increase chance of success will be more likely to succeed. Young adults who succeed will need fewer supports and therefore the state will spend less money on social support programs. Taxes will go down for everyone.

It seems obvious to me - pay higher taxes now, make sure that money goes towards programs that are useful and needed, and later everyone pays fewer taxes. Lets do it!

Canada Post

There are time when the lives we lead, or at least the absurdity of the political, social and economic morasses we are forced to survive in are so kafkaesque that we have no choice but to cry or at the very least, scream in despair. But then there are other times when those exact same circumstances cause us to smile and rejoice in the absolute joy of meeting people who in spite of the ludicrousness of their bureaucratic life, find a way to make it all work.

It is my habit when traveling to and from the west coast to send by mail some of my possessions. When I am hitchhiking this means that my pack is about 15 pounds lighter than it would have been if I didn't mail my stuff out. It also means that my pack looks smaller and I think that means that I get more rides. My most recent trip west by train required me to have a sleeping bag, boots and other cold weather gear that I normally would not need out west.  I was concerned that trying to get it all on the airplane for my flight east would require it to be checked. I didn't want the hassle, so I decided to mail back some of my stuff and just walk on with a small knapsack.

I had assumed that getting an empty box from one of the myriad of liquor stores in the area would not be a problem. I was wrong, it turns out that people drink a lot less than I thought in Duncan or at least they don't drink anything that comes in boxes. The best that I could find was a rather beaten up box that had once contained vodka. I took it home, stuffed it with all the bits and pieces of stuff that I didn't need for my trip home, sealed it with miles of packing tape and attached a large piece of paper with my address on it. The box was well addressed and well sealed. I anticipated no problem mailing it. It looked, I thought, like all of the other boxes I had mailed.

When I got to the postal outlet (London Drugs) I was informed that the package could not be accepted as it was in a box that was clearly labelled on the sides as containing liquor. Apparently Canada Post was concerned that as the old box had once contained alcohol, it automatically meant that that I would be shipping alcohol in the box. Perhaps not surprisingly it is against the law to ship alcohol using the postal system although I am not too sure if they (the postal authorities) are more concerned about the smell from all of the breakage or if they are protecting the health of the recipients. I mentioned to the kind lady that it was somewhat absurd to assume that just because the box had once contained booze that it still did and that further more no one in their right mind would consider shipping a bottle from BC to Ontario by mail. 

I was frustrated. It is hard to find strong boxes of the right size and I had done a good job in terms of sealing it and addressing it. The postal worker was pleasant and she agreed with me but said that she could not accept the box as it was. I could feel my blood pressure rising as I thought about having to go to have to go to the dollar store, buy brown paper, re-wrap the box and then get it all weight again etc. What a silly rule! The only strong boxes (for free) are liquor boxes, but you can't use them without wasting more paper. If I had had the time I would have staged a protest.

But then this kind lady said that she had some extra brown paper that someone had left behind at the back of the office. So after paying her, she got the brown paper and tape out and proceeded to wrap the sides to hide the labels. She didn't even want me to hang around while she did the work. What a delight!! She was forced to follow the bureaucratic, silly rules but she also had a solution. I was charmed.

When I paid for the box on the 14th of January, I was told that it would take eight to ten business days. It was delivered to my house yesterday, January 19th. That is six days including the weekend and the day I dropped it off and the day it was delivered. That is great service.

In these days of reduced government service and the sometimes almost overwhelming urge to complain, it is always worthwhile to celebrate the small victories that individuals have over the silly, intrusive and absurd rules that are imposed upon us.

Well done Canada Post!!

Economic inequality #1

 Most mornings, while eating breakfast, I peruse, on my tablet, the headlines of both the CBC and the Globe and Mail. Quite often the stories are the same in both media outlets. Usually most of the stories are not that interesting or at least they are not worth pursuing further. Every once in a while a story caches my eye and I do some further investigation. Sometimes I write about what I find. This morning I read two separate articles, one in each of my two mainstream media sites. Seldom have I read two articles, back to back that so clearly supported each other. Seldom do two stories prove that the other one is both pertinent and scary.

The CBC article reported on Oxfam's most recent report that said that by 2016, 50% of all the world's wealth will be controlled by the top 1%. This news, is of course, not a complete surprise. Many people, especially since the brief flash in the pan that was known as "Occupy Now" are aware that the world's wealth is unequally divided amongst the people.  What is surprising is that six years ago, the top one percent only control 44% of the world's wealth. That means, in spite of all the protests and all of the outraged editorials not only has nothing changed but in fact the inequality is getting worse. Another way, perhaps more graphic of stating the problem is: " The poorest 80 per cent own just 5.5 per cent of the world's wealth" (CBC).  How can this disparity in terms of income and therefore real control over one's life be getting worse?

The Globe and Mail had an answer. In an article labelled "Debt doubts cast shadow for professional couple with five kids", the Globe reported on a family with five children whose combined income is $360,000 and will be $450,000 when the female partner (who is a dentist) returns to work full time. The male partner is a doctor. He works part time in a clinic and makes $200,000 a year as well as teaches at a university one day a week for which he is paid $100,000 per year. They also expect that their living costs will increase as all five of their children will go to private school, and of course, they will need a full time, live-in nanny for the foreseeable future. This professional family's concern was that they would not have enough money to build their dream house. Their dream house, is to be built on a $1.1 million piece of property will cost an additional one million dollars.

It should be noted that they have been living rent free for the last year or so. They have no money put aside for emergencies or retirement. They also have no life insurance. I want to ask them what they have been doing with their money? But more importantly I want to ask how this family with all of their earning potential has the gall to suggest that they have any sort of financial problem. While the parents may not be close (yet) to being in the one percent club,  I suspect that attitudinally they would fit quite well into those who are attending the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland along with all of the other rich folks.

Perhaps if they spent a year living in the real world of families having a combined income of $93,700 (Stats Canada Average income after tax for family with two incomes), they would realize how skewed their view of life is. But I suspect not.  

If in fact the ever increasing income inequality is a problem (and I am not too sure that the above family would see it as a significant problem) they are certainly are not part of the solution. And that really is the problem.