6 — Wednesday, March 25, 1998 — North Shore News was just in December that West Vancouver Mayor Pat Boname id: “We can’t stop them from coming down the street.” The remark came just hours after a dump truck had roared down 21st Street and crashed into two vans. ‘West Vancouver has a long history of runaway truck accidents. Death, dam- age and injury have been the result. In May 1995, then-senior municipal engineer Gordon McKay called for a ban on southbound truck traffic on 15th, 21st and 22nd streets. Now, as of April 1, almost three years after McKay waved his red flag, we'll have a truck traffic ban in place on numerous streets. It’s a shame for the family of Bjorn Bjornson, who died in 1996 after he was hit by a runaway truck at the inter- section of 22nd Street and Marine north shore news VIEWPOINT Drive, that the political wheels of deci- sion-making didn’t turn faster. Last year we were told by councillors that the Ministry of Highways would- n’t support signage on the Upper Levels Highway indicating that trucks could not come down the hills. The finger-pointing continued with former Transportation and Highways minister Lois Boone who shot back and said that no official request for closing Upper Levels Highway off-ramps to truck traffic had ever been received by her min- istry from West Vancouver. West Van’s new regulations for heavy trucks are the result of a con- sultation process involving the municipality, the highways ministry, ICBC and the trucking industry. Good, braking news is long overdue on the North Shore. FLAG FLAP EXPLAINED: you SEE... IE WE OFFEND THE SEPARATISTS, THEY MAY WANT To LEAVE CANADA. mailbox Survey explained Dear Editor: ~ Re: Garden of Biases — Trevor Lautens: Mr. Lautens is quite clear about his hostility towards the lcCreary Centre Society’s most recent survey. In his rambling two-hour telephone interview with me he was equally clear about his opposition and his closed-mindcdness to any other point of view. Mr. Lautens discounts my answers by claiming they are vague and jargon-filled but he also confuses his oppo- sition to the survey with his questions abour what to do with the results of the survey. . The objective of our survey is not to propose solutions, conservative approaches or other, but to identify the things which are strong in the lives of our youth and their families and to highlight the problems that do exist. Mr. Lautens is incor- rect in stating that I reject conservative approaches. He would, ‘perhaps, have liked me to say that “just say no” works or, to - paraphrase him, “Take them out behind the barn and ...” but I believe ‘it is presumpruous of me and of the society which I represent to make any such recommendation. _ Asa clinician of some 30 years experience in working with adolescents, I have learned that human behavior is more com- plex chan Mr. Laittens’. simplistic perspective. “Changing adolescent behaviors requires more than one approach, By all means use “no” when it wii! work but let us promote a dialogue about including other approaches, ones that are respectful of youth and of families that like to solve their problems in other more positive ways. “In deciding whether or not to participate in our most " recent survey, students and their parents should be encouraged ‘to think about what they would like their school board to do about the results. ; Neither I nor Mr. Lautens should tell them how to approach the interpretation or respond to the data. We ar McCreary are prepared to help in that process. I wonder if Mr. Lautens will be. Roger Tonkin, MD Executive Director — The McCreary Centre Society {north shore. Worth Share News. founded in 1969 as an ‘ ‘Suburban newspaper and quaktied under Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday ty North Shore Free Press Lid. and drstributed to every door on the North ‘Shote. Canada Post Canxhan Pubicanons Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 0087238 Mating rates available on request. Distribution Manager 886-1337 (124) Creative Services Manager ‘985-2131 (627) 61.582 (average circutanon, Weanesttay, Friday & Sunday) The Worth Shore News is published by North Shore Free Press Ltd oireess In praise of negative thinking PESSIMISTS like me have one great advantage. Optimists suffer constant letdowns and disap- pointments. But for pessimists; life is just one happy surprise after another. That’s why I never take offence when they call me “Worst-Case- Scenario Wright.” Prepare for the biggest disaster that can possibly happen, and you'll cope fine with whatever actu- ally does. Which brings us to “globalization” — the flavor-of-the- month answer to all humanity’s woes. That warm, fuzzy, reassuring picture of evervone from California to Kenya, from Cape Horn to Korea, happily making zil- lions of goods of every kind, selling them to each other duty-free via the Internet, and everyone involved enjoying a North American living standard as a result., At least, that’s what all the wise men assured us right up to the day late fast fall when all the Asia Pacific economic “little tigers” — from Korea to Indonesia — suddenly hit the wall and were reduced to pathetic pussycats mee-owing for $50 bil- lion bailouts from the International Monetary Fund. Nor were they decent enough to keep their misery to themselves. Within weeks, once robust economies around the world began to be infected and fall sick from this latest form of “Asian flu.” Yet it’s really a very simple bug. PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (101) 985-2131 (177) t 7 Ciassitied Manage Photography Manager st One ZI3H (60h 986-6222 (202) Set) 9 Foot Comptroller 985-2131 (133) Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All sights reserved. «, Publisher Peter Speck, from 1139 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver, B.C., V7M 204 Borrow too much money to produce more goods than you can self and you'll go broke. If too many people do the same, the banks — and eventually the country itself — go broke. That’s why Korean matrons today are handing over their jewelry to the state, along with the wad of greenbacks they'd stashed away for a now cancelled vaca- tion in Sun Valley. Meanwhile, the disease spreads rapidly. Bankrupting the banks sends foreign investors and their money Accing to safe havens (e.g., the U.S.) and Ieads to all kinds of other nasty happenings. The safe-haven currencies soar in value, while the delinquem: country’s nosedives. This makes the latter’s exports a lot cheaper on world markets than the former’s. . Moreover, the delinquent itself can no longer afford to buy the safe havens’ now overpriced exports. So the virtuous safe havens lose important-cxport income globally to the bankrupt delinquents now undercutting them. This lost income leads to growing job losses, followed by recession, in the safe- haven countries themselves. At the same time, booming low-priced exports allow the delinquent countries to steadily reduce the high unemployment that hit them at the time they went broke. So (we hear vou murmur) once the little tigers are back on their paws — with their world prices rising as their job- fess numbers go down — surely all will even out. After an unpleasant hiccup globalization will be back on track. Would that globalization were that simple! Thanks to galloping technology its basic flaw is precisely what landed Asia’s little tigers in the glue: producing, with wildly borrowed money, more goods than the market could absorb. . Futurist Jeremy Rifkin’s famous fore- cast that within a couple of decades or so . technology will enable a mere 20% of | - today’s work force to provide all the =. material needs of the human race may be off by the odd year or two. But it accu-"” ratcly pinpoints the globalization fallacy. =~ If eventually there’s no work for four *- out of five of us, where do we get the - .; moncy to buy all the things produced by... the lucky one in five? eae: In short, too many goods chasing too little money (the recipe of the Dirty’: Thirties) looms as the top economic co: cern of the new millennium. Like — - NAFTA — which has brought us only a: 68-cent dollar plus 9.5% unemployment and rising — globalization has the same" chance of making all Canadians richer and happier as a 6/49 lotto ticker. A professional pessimist’s view, of course. Just let's pray very hard this time - that ?’m wrong again! ; oO 900 MANY HAPPY returns of Saturday, March 28, to West Van Kiwanis birthday boy John Emerson. . O29 WRIGHT OR WRONG: When you’re flar on your back, there’s no way to look” $; LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must include your name, 980-0511 full address & telephone number. VIA e-mail: trenshaw @ direct.ca Managing Editor * 985-2131 1116) hes omen vixt Acs Display Manager Promotions Manager ‘960-0511 (166) 985-2131 (218) jgrava General Ottice Manager 985-2131 (105) intemet- http:/feww.nsnews.com 985-2131 986-1337 985-1435 985-2104 985-3227 Michael Becker - News Editor 985-2131 (114) , Andrew McCredie - Sports/Community Editor 985-2131 (147)