FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IGNORES - MONEY SAVING TECHNOLOGIES 

Every year our Auditor-General Kenneth Dye lists the many items on which our national government wastes money. Money that you take out of your pocket to pay.

Remember, one-third of all your federal taxes goes just to pay interest on our growing national debt. That means you have less to save. This causes industry to pay a higher interest rate when they borrow because our pool of savings is smaller than required. Other nations with lower tax rates enables their citizens to save more and their economies can boom. They put a good portion of these savings into research, development, innovation and global marketing. With what they have left over they buy the land in countries that haven't saved like they have! In Canada we pay roughly 50 percent of every dollar we earn in taxes. Last year in Tokyo, the average family earned C$40,000. They paid, an average just 6.2 percent tax on that income. Is it any wonder they have US$144,000 each (man, woman and child) in their personal savings account. Almost every homeowner in Tokyo (population 7.5 million) has an equity in their home worth a million dollars. They have been saving about 22 percent of their gross income for years. Now you understand how they can buy so much over here.

In Hong Kong only one in eight pays any income tax at all. You have to make a fortune before you fall into their top bracket of 16.5 percent. The top corporate rate is just 15.5 percent. Again, a large amount of what they earn they keep. In Singapore you save 25 percent of your salary by law. The government matches it. No wonder they don't require any other "safety nets". In South Korea they know they will need lots of capital to continue their explosive growth in a future that will be capital intensive not labor intensive.

They are currently saving more than 35 percent of their paychecks.

In Japan, school costs are half those in Canada for twice the product. They don't have janitors. The school kids clean the schools under teachers supervision. This is just one of many ways they have lower costs.

For a few years now the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) has been simulcasting their 7 p.m. evening news. In Japanese and English. The benefits in a world that has chosen English as the language of science and technology are obvious.

Canadian governments have long believed that there is no use spending one dollar when you can spend two. We have two national news broadcasts every day. One in English the other in French. Duplicate cameramen, duplicate anchorpersons, duplicate satellite transponders, duplicate staff throughout almost the entire world. Even duplicate buying of what news we don't gather ourselves !

At a fraction of this price we could have one network, superior staff, half the equipment and a news channel that brings the country together watching the same news pictures. The only additional cost being that of two anchordesks. The same picture goes out to all but the French hear it in their mother tongue while the English hear it in theirs. Because the voice goes out from the satellite on a different and lower cost radio frequency we could offer half a dozen major languages for other ethnic groups still at less cost than we are now paying. When everyone watches the same pictures a country becomes united. When they each see a different world it divides them all.

It can't be done? South Africa is doing it with thirteen languages: English and Africaans plus eleven tribal languages. They all watch the same television picture but they listen to the voice in their particular language on different radio channels.

Our failure to spend wisely will prohibit us from owning what little we still have. Our present standard of living has only been maintained during the past decade by our international borrowing and debt buildup. Today this has placed a per capita albatross of national debt around our neck heavier than carried by citizens of any other country (including the United States) in the industrialized world.

Government spending not only steals our earnings it paralyses our minds.

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