6- Wednesday, December 29, 1982 - North Shore News Hope in experts If 1982 has proved anything, it is the fallibility of experts — particularly in the economic and political fields. Never have more well-informed specialists stuck out their necks more often, only to wind up with egg all over their faces. They include the prophets who said Trudeau would retire and the recession would bottom out as Allan MacEachen's brave new world of six-and-five unfolded. On the brighter side they include the pessimists who insisted that interest rates would remain in the high teens. Closer-to home, in B.C., Premier Bill Bennett proudly unveiled a 12% restraint program which:had to be slashed downward before its details were even worked out. Finance Minister Hugh Curtis promised a balanced budget which shortly afterwards turned into a projected billion-dollar deficit. Forty thousand civil servants were poised for a lengthy and damaging strike that never happened. And MLAs gave up their summer vacations for a “certain” fall election that was never called. Internationally, there was no lack of military analysts who forecast a_ British defeat in the Falkland Islands. The experts are now on their annual New Year spree again and their crystal balls are showing uniformly gloomy pictures of the next 12 months — in many cases even gloomier than the past 12 months. That's excellent news. Given the expert's 1982 track record, their sombre messages this week practically guarantee that 1983 will be measurably brighter than its predecessor. No hang-ups chosen as Time’s 1982 “Man Of The Year” — beating out Menachim Begin, Margaret Thatcher, U.S. Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volker and even ’E.T. for the coveted honor — may.also be a good omen for 1983. Aside from an occasional’ blown fuse, computers at least have no power hang- ups to muddle their problem-solving. TPeh VOTER OF HONTH AND WERT VANCOUVER sunday news north shore news 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver,8 C V7M 2H4 Display Advertising Classified Advertising Newsroom Circulation 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Robert Garaham Editor-in-chief Nowl Wright Advertising Director Tim Francis Personnel Director Mrs Bern Hillard Circulation Director Brian A Elhs Production Director Chis Johason Office Manager Donna Grandy Photography Manager Terry Peters North Shore Nows. tounded in 18OU as an mdepEndonl GamMmunity newspaper aod quatitied under Schedule tl Pan th Paragraph Ul of the tacise Tan Act os puthshed ouch Wednesday and Sunday by North Snore Free Press tid and distubuted to every door da the North Shore Second (lags Mad Registation Number 1865 Entire contents 1982 North Shore Free Prosa ltd All rights reserved Subscriptions North and Wast Vancouver tates available on request $25 per your Mailing Neo esponsibility (ac caegtedt bor catia ate EAP TE 88 te gae Bares wih Bobvcratl tre on tetera envetope evveaterr sal tre Techy Seer ag sae dearcl ry oa st aeetaprerct VERIFIED CIRCULATION 64,643 Wednesday 64.093 Sunday Soy se G&G THIS PAPER 1S RECYCLABLE The news that the computer has been | Re ort care By RODGER W. WORTH Although the marks were mediocre, the note on the bottom of the report cards on Canada’s major banks, compiled from information provided by 10,000 people operating small businesses, is telling. That note: there’s i much room provement. for im- The message comes from the 64,000 members of the Canadian Federation of Independant Business. In a recently released com- prehensive study on small business banking in Canada, together with a membership New Year? Bah ... humbug! Scrooge was grossly unfair to pick on jolly old Santa Claus who at least brings lots of goodies and has never been known to harm a soul. If Scrooge had wanted a festival truly worthy of his scorn, he'd have waited a week. New Year’s Day is a non-event, 1 given to headaches. Its a non-event, to begin with, because there has been constant disagreement throughout history as to when New Year happens, let alone why. Ancient peoples mostly celebrated New Year ac cording to where the sun was — and how they felt about where the sun was. Some picked the first day of spring, others the first day of fall. those being the two equinox dates when day and might are the same length The former celebrants were presumably optimists, the latter very definitely pessimists However they both pet pass marks for dy thinking Other ancients plumped for the longest day or the shortest day, both of them good dates for a party -- either to mark the joys of summer or to cheer oneself up to) face the winter In the Middle Ages the New Year was traditionally celebrated on March 25 which gave it a chance to start in) reasonably decent weather. It wasn't uatil after 1582, when the modern Gregorian calendar came Into use, that some bureaucratic busybody ngors of bringing nothing but decreed New Year's should be put January 1. The New Year in other cultures 1s a movable feast in terms of the Gregorian calendar. Day back to For the Jews it falls on the first day of Tishn, which comes in late September or early October. Fveryone to his taste. The Chinese do their New Year thing between our January 10 and February 19. Don't ask me why. Moslems celebrate on the first day of Muharran, the first month of the Moslem year. Since the latter has only 354 358 days. 4t's constantly out of step wath the Gregorian calendar, Asa result, the Moslem New Year can happen at any ume and invariably does All this lack of accord about dates is quite cnough, in oWsell. to destroy the credibility of any New Year's Day — Chrisuan, Jewish, Chinese, Moslem = or you- name-it But an even worse thing about the whole New Year tdea is the opportunity tl gives so many people to make a nuisance of them selves allover again s out on, survey that for the first time rates the major lending institutions, the Federation is attempting to push the bankers into providing better service to the sector. Among the banks, the Royal topped the national list with a 76.9 per cent satisfaction rating from the 10,000 respondents, followed by the Commerce and Toronto-Dominion at 72 ‘per cent, the Bank of Nova Scotia at 70 per cent and the Bank of Montreal at 65 per cent. | Mainstream Canada But the real surprise was the overall winner: the entepreneurs operating small and medium-sized enterprises gave co- operatives and credit unions a massive 85 per cent satisfaction rating. “We have long believed that small business deserves a better break from our financial institutions, and the new information strongl supports this view,” say Federation president John Bulloch. Nevertheless, with a quarter of the small and medium-sized business expressing dissatisfaction % v e’s New Year focus Noel Wright a ] Like the people who send out) your Christmas _ bills. And the dog licence and water rate people And the ICBC people. And the in come tax people And the property tax people Not to mention heartless meter maids, mean land lords, punk mail advertsers. surly civil servants, bus drivers who leave you stranded and Pierre Elhott Trudeau, . How good it would have been [to see them = all disappear along with 1982! Alas, the only thing you can count on with = absolute certainty when January | arrives is that theyll all be back to bug you again in 1983 with the bankers, it is evident there is room for improvement in several areas. Clearly, one of these is loan officer and management training, or the lack of it. -“A great many bank loan officers have insufficient training in business finance, relative to the training received by lending officers in foreign © countries,” claimes “Federation Vice- President Patricia Johnston. “A lot of our bankers just don’t - understand the problems faced by their small business customers.” She points out that 40 per cent or. more of U.S. banks have at least one officer designated for small-business lending, and. in The Netherlands, the largest small: business bank keeps lending officers in the same branch for a minimum of four years to maintain links with small business clients. “These are the kind of things Canadian banks have been reluctant to in- troduce,” says Johnston. “It’s time they did.” (CFIB Feature Service) ; wish | I ask you: What's either happy or new about that? Good Resolutions are the other big New Year cop-out. Nice, ordinary folk ma thém in the hope that the New Year has some Good Resolutions of its own in exchange — namely, to be kinder to nice, ordinary folk than the Old Year. That's why they vow annually to stop smoking, starl jogging, cut down on carbohydrates and go easy on spouse- beating. For a few days they may actually keep it up. A couple of weeks later they realize the New Year intends to be just as rotten to them as its predecessor and life returns to normal Smart) folk. of course, make (and keep) only one resolution each year — to get still smarter Stnipped of all its non- #ense, the New Year has only two things going for it ~— and even these apply equally to any other date you care to name. Firstly, at's the excuse for a party Secondly, it’s going to run true to form by bringing the unexpected as well as the predictable. In fact, the New Year might just happen to produce more surprises than ho-hums. And, by the law of averages, some of those surprises are bound to be nice ones. So here's a New Year Scrooge’s toast to you, May you beat the averages throughout 1983. Hand- somcely'!