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Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!acton
From: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: tariffs,shoes: a source
Message-ID: <52@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Oct-85 01:36:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.52
Posted: Thu Oct 17 01:36:48 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Oct-85 08:05:13 EDT
References: <2650@watcgl.UUCP>
Reply-To: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Distribution: can
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 24
Summary: 

In article <2650@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
> They also say tariffs account for less than $.01 per person
> per day (in Canada).

When expressed this way the amount of money in question seems trivial.
Why don't you make the number even smaller by computing it on a per hour
or second basis? Nevertheless, you cannot get around the fact this works out
to 25,000,000 people paying $0.01 for 365 days which is $91,250,000 for, 
according to you, 16,000 jobs. On tariffs alone we are subsidizing these
jobs to the tune of 5,703 dollars a pop. Since there are also *quotas* on 
shoes the cost of keeping these jobs is even higher. 

To me the problem is that we are subsidizing one industry at the expense
of others by distorting the importance of that industry. Ninety-one 
million dollars is a lot of money (except maybe to socialists) and
there are other more worthwhile and productive things that we could
purchase rather than a crutch for the shoe industry. However, the 
shoe industry is just one of many industries that soak the Canadian
public by convincing the government of the need for tariffs or quotas.
Any one of these subsidized industries may not cost us very much but
it all adds up and in the end it costs us a lot.

Donald Acton