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p4 weekender june 26 1993 stux mm spending by canada post is flagrant canada post has finally done it the crown corporation actu ally turned a 26 million profit last year the year before they recorded a loss of 128 million this would be good news except for the fact that the com pany has now bought out one of its competitors in the courier business until faxes become as common a household item as televisions canadians are bound to use the postal service each year stamps increase in price as service declines many rural areas have lost their post offices ha these villages the post office was once a centre of the community but no more they were too expensive to run and canada post has a new respect for the bottom line except when it comes to spend ing theyve bought purolator courier theyve opened more retail stores and if news releases and media packages are any indication theyre spending bun dles on advertising and promo tion in the last two years canada post has sent glossy posters acrylic coasters booklets on magazinequality paper and numerous other general infor mation kits to this office in an economy when even large pri vate corporations have cut their promotion budgets drastically canada post is sending out expensive packages that make journalists take notice information from the corpora tion details how service has improved average ontime deliv ery rate for lettermail of 98 per cent during 19921993 states the release but how does anyone know mmmmmmmttmmmmmmamm by brian bassef liliiiiivltiiitiwlith 8fisftw hqtvwam ttue wt0 fa vfcfiwftrjt beat what ontime means a com mon complaint of the postal ser vice is that no employee can tell customers how long it will take to deliver a letter the only sil ver lining to this cloud is that at a prohibitive 43 cents each canadians are sending fewer letters to worry about until technology reaches the point where fast communication is available to all were stuck with this postal service until such means are available to all canadians it will be unaccept able for canada post to spend money so flagrantly markham economist and sun stouffville tribune uxbridge tribune weekender edition a metroland community newspaper patricia pappas publisher jo ann stevenson editmikhief paula crowell editor andrew maffi editor debraweller director of advertising barry goodyear director of distribution vivian cneo business manager pamela nichols operations manager markham 2942200 sales 7987624 classi fied 2941331 stouffville 6402100 uxbridge 8529741 2948244 distribution and administration 9 heritage ed markham l3p 1m2 fax markham 2941538 stouftmlle 640- 5477 uxbridge 8524355 the markham economist and sun stouffville tri bune and uxbridge tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distributing group of subur ban newspapers which includes ajax pickering news advertiser barrie advance brampton guardian burlington post collingwood connection etobicoke guardian the liberal georgetown inde pendentacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week milton canadian champion mississauga news north york mirror oakville beaver onllia today oshawawhitby this week peterborough this week scarborough mirror the era banner contents n be reproduced without written permission fr le publisher sultan is richest man her majety top woman buddy can you spare a dime im just kidding ive got a dime if you ould spare three or four thousand bucks this might turn out to be a meaningful conversa tion but never mind forget it were all singing the short of hard cash blues most of us anyway in place of dollars and cents weve got bills and dreams thats what keeps us plugging away at our ninetofive grinds buying lottery tickets and invest ing mad money in a few shares of consolidated moose pasture every once in a while theres no shortage of folks trying to get rich but you hardly ever come across someone whos trying to be poor no money in it still did you ever wonder what it must be like to be rich really rich rockefellerking midasscrooge mcduck rich well i can tell you its no picnic for one thing a billion dollars wont buy what it used to you know not by a long shot why measured in 1987 dollars a bil lion today is really no more than a measly 795 million according to fortune magazine which explains why there are more than twice as many billion aires in the world as there were just six years ago back in 1987 there werent even a hundred people in the world with a billion bucks to their name today the club membership stands at 233 its interesting to peruse the list and pick out the cream of the crop the 10 richest people in the world one of them is a woman there are three japanese several arabs and a handful of ameri cans put away those maple leaf flags folks there are no canadi ans among the top 10 you have to go all the way down to number 17 before you uncover a canuck there youll find media tycoon ken thomson and his modest 57 billion dollar grubstake queen elizabeth is the only woman on the list they reckon her stock investments race hors es jewellery and art not to men tion ahh real estate mean her- majesty make that her majety is worth just under 8 billion and number nine slot in the top ten you know all those mars bars youve eaten over the years well mister forrest mars sr basic black arthur black would like to thank you most sin cerely for that your patronage earned him the title of the worlds third richest person with a for tune of 14 billion give or take a nickel and yes virginia there really is a legendary american family called the waltons but it aint the folks that lived on walton moun tain this walton family owns the walmart store chain which the numbercrunchers say is worth 235 billion the richest person in the world a rotund and smiling chap in white silk robes whose business card if he carried a business card would read sultan of brunei brunei is a laughable lit tle chunk of sand not much big ger than prince edward island fortunately for the sultan his patch of sand sits atop the richest known oil and gas deposit on the planet which makes the sultan worth a cool 37 billion how much is that how much is thirtyseven thousand million dollars who knows who knows how much anything is these days we live in a world were a manchild like robbie alo mar gets four and a half million bucks a season for playing second base in what used to be a kids game we live in a world where a crook like ivan boesky the con victed securities dealer can tell a judge with a straight face that he needs 20 million from his ex- wife because hes barely surviv ing the judge agreed he also ordered boeskys exwife to pay him 180000 a year for life and to throw in a 25 million dollar mansion in california yeah that oughtta keep the wolf from the door ivan boesky proves the truth of hemingways retort to f scott fitzgerald let me tell you about the very rich said fitzger ald they are different from you and me yes retorted hemingway they have more money