or even above par? The TSX index also closed above 11,000 in September 2005 for the
first time in five years. Could the Canadian stock markets continue to do well, even with
Canada’s tremendous resource base, if the U.S. dollar were to fall into the basement and
the U.S. economy were to slow precipitously or enter into a recession? If unsound U.S.
government policies and rising deficits lead to major problems within the American
economy, Canada is bound to suffer in spite of the generally sound fiscal and monetary
policies pursued in Ottawa over the past decade.
(3) A potpourri of other concerns: The overall health and stability of the U.S.
economy is threatened by other trends as well. The performance of U.S. students in
primary and secondary schools in tests pitting them against their counterparts around the
world in such disciplines as math, the sciences, and reading has been mediocre at best.
Lamentably, fourth graders have done better comparatively than eighth graders, and
eighth graders have done much better than twelfth graders, meaning the longer students
spend in U.S. schools, the greater the deterioration in their performance when compared
to other students their age in Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation
(OECD) countries. The most severe problems are found in inner-city schools and
minority groups are the most adversely affected.
It is ironic that Martin Luther King, Jr.
High School in New York City, which is situated a block from the Lincoln Center in one
of the most affluent and predominately white neighborhoods in Manhattan, has a student
body which is overwhelmingly African-American and Hispanic. Why? White families
who have money have basically abandoned the public school system in favor of private
schools which typically charge tuition and fees of 20,000 dollars per year.
brainpower is by far the most important natural resource of the twenty-first century, the
United States has much to worry about. At an education summit, Bill Gates stated that if
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Convention