| eaching us a salutary lesson about the inflation threatening to destroy our western economic system. ~ A couple of months ago the yellow metal headed through the $700-an-ounce mark and crowds besieged the banks, desperate to buy a few wafers. The price has been dropping ever since. On Monday alone it plummeted $50 to around. $478 and a lot of latecomers stand to get badly burned. _ The New Year gold rush psychology was exactly the same psychology which con- tinues to fuel inflation generally. The ex- pectation that prices can only continue to rise becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Buy now, | the ar; , Don't werry about piling up debt because. the future dollars you repay will only cost you 50 cents by today’s reckoning. Demand ever higher wages and salaries to ensure that’s the way things work out. Unfortunately, that’s NOT the way things work out in the end. For centuries, the final collapse of every galloping inflation cycle in history has always hurt large numbers of people badly. Being relatively small, the highly volatile gold market lustrates this principle within quite short time spans. But the long-term principle is exactly the same. _ The only real wealth is not gold, silver or pieces of paper — it is what people PRODUCE. That’s the basis of our whole economic system. The news from the gold market is a further warning that, ultimately, you can't beat the system. Naked truth ? Ladies without their clothes are available for inspection nowadays on most newsstands and often at the neighborhood family movie theatre too. So the fuss raised by women employees at North Van City hall over local artist Dorothy Manning’s exhibition there, with its decidedly innocuous studies of the female form beautiful, is a little hard to follow. Would the municipal ladies have raised the same storm in a teacup, one wonders, had the artist chosen male models? sunday new: north shore news NEWS . 985-2131 1139 Lonsdale Ave . North Vancouver, B C V7M 2H4 (604) 985-2131 ADVERTISING CLASSIFIED CIRCULATION ‘980-0511 986-6222 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chief Advertising Director Robert Graham Noel Wright Eric Cardwell Ctassitied Manager & Office Administrator Berni Hillard Production Tim Francis Faye McCrae Managing Editor News Editor Andy Fraser Photography Chris Uoyd Elisworth Dickson Accounting Supervisor Barbara Keen North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent « ommurn ty newspaper and qualified under Schedule II Part I. Par agraph I of the Excise-Tax Act, ts published each Wednesday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid and distributed to every door on the North Shore Second Class Mail Registraton Number 3865 Subscriptions $20 per year Entire Contents — 1980 North Snore Free Presa Ltd All rights reserved No responsibility accepted for unsolited manuscripts and pictures which should be stamped addressed return envelope mailer ial Wire teachings AC COMpPaned ty oa soe70 49,013 @cNA SING Wednesday Sunday Me nape” THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE By ROGER WORTH , some television programs are scrapped after a 13-week run because audience ratings aren’t up to scratch. Many new products don’t hit the national or international market because surveys indicate consumer resistance, for whatever reason. Even do-or-die government decisions are Many times based on ran- dom samples of public Opinion. In fact, “sophisticated” ratings systems, market surveys, and public opinion polls that supposedly take the pulse of the nation have become -an_ important element in Canadian life. But are the results of such polls dependable? Do Canadians really want poll results to affect something as fundamental as who will govern the country? The question arises because of increasing public resistance to the rising number of polls taken during recent election campaigns. Gallup, as well as the major newspaper chains and television networks all play Of doctors and the one-upmanship game, endeavouring to upstage competitive media with poll results. The media nabobs call it freedom of the press. What's important is that voters can be influenced by poll results, particularly considering the inordinate amount of attention they receive. In fact, poll results, are given such a degree of credence and authenticity by the media that even an incorrect poll can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. An example of the inherent weakness in the system: two polls taken recently by Canada’s major television networks differed by 20 percentage points on the number of people who were “undecided” about how they would vote, to say nothing of estimated support for the various political parties. By overplaying poll results, Canada’s mayor media outlets are asking for trouble. Already election polls have been outlawed in British Columbia, and the There used to be a radio commercial for the Yellow Pages featuring a restaurant operator who advertised his specialty as liver and ice cream. “Not many people go for it,” he explained, “but those who do need to find it fast”. His logic has a certain bearing on the present pay hassle between B.C. doctors and the provincial health minister. The doctors — who currently earn an average of around $60,000 a year — want more money. A lot more. Between 1968 and 1978 they claim their in- crease in earings dropped behind those of industrial workers by 38 per cent. They are asking for some substantial proportion § of that 38 per cent slippage to be made good in next year's fee schedule, as well as a cutback in the number of patients each doctor treats. The doctors say their quality of life is going down the drain as a result of being forced to work 60 hours a week seeing more and more cases. They also claim to suffer guilt feelings over the consequent drop in health care standards CHARGEX? If they don't get satisfaction, they threaten to start billing patients directly Your B.C. Medical Plan number, the first thing their recepllomsts ask for, could start doing double duty as an invoice number You might even find yourself signing a Chargex voucher before departing to have 9 your prescnption filled One estimate puts the yearly cost of the doctors total catch up claim at an extra $582 million on top of the $345 milhon budgeted by the health ministry for 1980 That would) work out to about an additional $22 a month for every British Columbian or an increase of around $88 a month for a family of four. So much for the bad news. Having last visited a doctor six years ago (to have my ears syringed), I'm probably in as good a position as the next patient to take a dispassionate view of the matter. Other members of the family having been less fortunate, however, I’m convinced that the miserable $15 a month we pay to the B.C. Medical Pian is an absolute steal. Three of us can run up a bigger bill for a single visit to the White Spot. I spend almost as much each month on newspapers and the odd magazine. GRAVY THINNED Admittedly, $60,000 a year sounds al first lke pretty mice gravy but on closer examination it’s often nolas thick and rich as you'd expect To begin with, quite a number of doctors have to pay varying amounts of overhead — office rent, receptionist, Hydro, telephone, etc . or shares thereof — out of the fees they receive from Victona A few may actually met $60,000 or more. For others, overhead cats up quite a chunk nght off the top Doctors shorter also have a earning life than most oof us non medical totlers due to their lengthy penod oof training — The mayorty of them spend a good part of ther twenties in Quebec government is taking the same tack on the referendum. Freedom of the press is a fundamental Canada, but it carries with it the concomitant respon- sibility not to overemphasize such “news” as poll results for competitive reasons. The danger is that poll principle in results may influence voters to hop on a party bandwagon as they attempt to support a winner, rather than making a thoughtful decision on the basis of policy, leadership, and the issues of the day. Roger Worth is Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business. happy landings Noel Wright comparative penury — learning their antibiotic tables and how to make a clean job of an_=ap- pendectomy — while their contemporanses live it up on the proceeds of indexed union contracts. Moreover, most doctors have no contributory pension schemes. At 65. apart from the Canada Pension Plan, they're on their own. The real joker, however, is the 55 to 60-hour working week of the average con- scientious medico It means he puts in up to 5O per cent more time on the job than the average industrial employee, who now earns approximately $16,540 a year GAP SHRINKS If that same average tn dustnal employee worked 20 hours a week overtime — two thirds of at at Gime-and a half and one third at double time he would pull in around $29,500 annually. When you reduce the family doctor's $60,000 by such factors as overhead costs, a delayed earning start and the need to provide his Own pension, the gap bet- ween himself and Lunch Bucket Joe — in terms of true earnings over their working life — begins to shrink significantly. The rate for the job is another thing again. Here, the only comparable profession to the doctor is the jet airline pilot (who is paid roughly the same). Each can literally hold your life in his hands, and if he makes a blooper, it’s cur- tains. The captain of a 747, of course, is spurred on by the same selfish interest as yourself in landing safely. He also has better working conditions and _= shorter working hours than the average doctor. As far as this chicken 1s concerned, our jet pilot is welcome to every dollar he earns, so long as he makes no mistakes. The same goes for our family doctor when we want him in a hurry. To paraphrase the man with the’ liver-and-1ce-cream restaurant: when you really need a doctor you need him fast. And infinitely com- petent. At any hour of the day or night. If the charge has to be more than the $3 SO a week the family has been getting away with for years, so be it. Personally I’m much more interested in happy landings — whether on tarmac of & hospital bed Get a good thing going. Yourself.