THE PROBLEM OF HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT: RESULT OF MUDDLED NATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

During 1953 through 1979 estimated, the U.S. economy has exhibited a roller-coaster economic performance–six periods of inadequate upturn, stagnation, and recession, with a chronic rise in unemployment because each upturn at its peak has tended to leave us with more unemployment than the previous one. During the period as a whole, we have forfeited 7.1 trillion 1978 dollars in GNP and 80.8 million years of civilian employment opportunities, and consequently lost about 1.8 trillion dollars in public revenues at all levels, with severe neglect of national priorities, and chronically rising Federal Budget deficits. This sorry record is due primarily to reliance upon a “trade-off” between unemployment and inflation. But empirical evidence for more than a quarter century has demonstrated that inflation rises as unused capabilities increase and vice versa. The annual inflation rate during the first half of 1979 exceeded 13 percent despite recession; it ranged from 1.6–3.0 percent during periods close to full employment. We now need thorough reconstruction of national economic policies, including abandonment of (1) the unemployment-inflation “trade-off,” (2) attempts to balance the federal budget at the expense of the economy and the people, (3) the prevalent monetary policy with soaring interest rates, and (4) excessive reliance on tax reductions in lieu of increased public outlays or investment. These changes would replace improvised and frequently conflicting national economic policies with comprehensive and coherent efforts. All this is in accord with the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978     

A NODAL STRUCTURE FOR A SET OF CANADIAN CITIES USING GRAPH THEORY AND NEWSPAPER DATELINES*

The relative importance and the spheres of influence of the urban centres within some specified region, such as a country, are intriguing topics of investigation. Webber (1964) indicated that the ordering of centres within a country is not possible, since “the spatial extent of each [urban] realm is ambiguous, shifting instantaneously as participants in the realm's many interest-communities make new contacts, trade with different friends, or read different publications.’ We suspect, however, that there is considerable order in the communication links among the larger centres within a country. For example, Canada's leaders in business, governments, and the arts tend to move through a hierarchy of centres to end up in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, or some other large city, depending upon the particular field in which they work. All urban centres are linked to Ottawa, which is at the apex of political power, and to large urban centres, such as Toronto and Montreal, which predominate in the economic realm. The major purpose of this paper is to derive a nodal structure for seventeen major Canadian cities, based on newspaper datelines. By utilizing these particular information flows, the analyses also shed light on possible differences between the anglophone and francophone communications networks.