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With Philip Shaw

The Unknown Solider and Those External Economic Variables

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

In our economic world we sometimes get caught up with economic indicators like interest rates, currency values and such. Some economists are so confident in their prognostications they forget that sometimes the world goes awry. Sometimes as economists like to say, an "external variable" gets in the way.

What you say? Well just think. This week is remembrance week in Canada, with Friday being Remembrance Day. 66 years ago a lot of young Canadians had to drop everything and go to war. After years of depression in Canada, the war changed everything.

25 years before that the same sort of thing happened. This time Canada awoke to a mother country, which wanted resources for a war it had stumbled into. In small town Kent County at the time, nobody probably even knew Archduke Franz Ferdinand. However, when he was assassinated, places like Dresden and Eberts went to war. Go figure.

As a child I got to listen to stories from those days. My grandmother often told the story about how she heard about the start of World War 1. She told me she ran to the road to get the newspaper and there it was. Britain had declared war on Germany. Outside of Quebec, most Canadians felt a deep obligation to go to war.

In our modern economic world it is almost unfathomable to consider how the world could stop for a few years and beat up on each other. But that is exactly what happens when the world goes crazy. It is such a tragedy; so many young lives were lost.

In May of 2000 Canada took a step to recognize the heroes who didn't come home from overseas wars. In World War I, Canada automatically went to war when the United Kingdom went to war. And in that war, Canadian troops paid dearly in battles such as Paschendale, the Somme and Ypres. Kids who wanted a bit of adventure left places like Kent County and made their way to France. When they
fought in those battles, it was so terrible; it can only be described as walking straight into hell.

One of the most famous battles was Vimy Ridge in 1917. Some historians say the Canadian state was born on that battlefield. Victory there helped Canadians recognize themselves outside of the larger British Empire. In May of 2000, an unknown soldier who died on that ridge in 1917 was returned to Canada. He was buried at the National War Memorial with soil from every province and territory.
He is still only known to God, but many Canadian families moved toward some type of closure.

For me, those two events are a stark contrast to some of the new social and economic realities we find in our society today. In this column and in my other scribbling, I am often asked to comment on the latest new technology which will help us all make more money. With a cell phone and an iPod hanging off my pants and instant messaging the rage, it only stands to reason that I get caught up
with this stuff. And of course everybody wants to know whether the new economy will morph itself into something even more different.

In 2005 our economy is the old economy in overdrive. There have been massive strides in productiveness that companies both large and small have made. Companies are able to get more output from their workers while keeping costs in line, allowing them to hold off passing on higher costs to consumers in the form of price increases. They also have been able to boost profits by adopting new technology via the Internet and computerized accounting to make them more
efficient. When you add eBay, Amazon.com and Google to the mix, the new economy is increasingly hard to measure.

But all this new stuff could stop on a dime if the calamities, which were 1914 and 1939, visited us once more. You don't want to think it, but this world doesn't have the greatest track record. It leads me to think that my economist cousins should take time to reflect on what might be ahead. When the unknown soldier went over
the top at Vimy Ridge 88 years ago, you've got to wonder what he was thinking.



Philip Shaw, farms 830 acres near Dresden, Ontario. He holds a Masters of Agricultural Economics and Business Degree from the University of Guelph and is a well-known commentator on agricultural issues in print, on radio and over satellite in Canada and the United States. In the Chatham-Kent Times, Phil will use his frank and forthright writing style to address political and economic issues from the local to the international stage. He is a keen observer of political life at all levels, reads widely and has travelled the world to gather fodder for his column. See what's At Issue this week.