Are you listening, Greenspan?

3/23/2009

Alan Greenspan, economist and chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1987 to 2006, where are you?

I am appalled that this man who had so much to say about the economy and was a trendsetter in issues concerning market matters had little to say when the market turned sour.

When the House held hearings on the market collapse in 2008, all he could say is that his directives were partly to blame. I beg to differ because he was the moral compass and conscience of the banking industry. I realize there is enough blame to go around, but the major culprit was his failed policies.

This man was so powerful that when he spoke, bankers listened, and when he sneezed the volatile stock market became ill.

Mr. Greenspan, can you hear me now?

Nate Washington

Bricker Avenue

In an editorial, The Blade stated that "former Rep. Gary Condit apparently did not murder Chandra Levy. A Salvadoran immigrant in prison for another violent crime has been charged in her death."

Wouldn't the Salvadoran be better described as an "illegal alien sex offender"?

Tom Nowak

Orchard Trail Drive

I've watched with disgust as General Motors raped the American people, and I've had enough. Recently, I watched GM stock plunge to Depression-era levels. Simultaneously, I see news reports of the Obama Administration's "automobile task force" joining in closed-door sessions with GM to look for a "solution."

I'm a self-made business owner. Every morning, I wake up unemployed and have to hustle and work, scrimp and save, and struggle and crawl to land the next job that will keep food on my family's table.

This while GM loses more money in one quarter than I'll make in my lifetime. Given $13.4 billion last year, barely covering last quarter's loss, GM was back in Washington asking for more of my money to flush down its toilet. I'm so angry that I will never buy another GM product again the rest of my life. This is coming from a man who's only new vehicle purchase was a GMC truck.

GM is a bankrupt, insolvent business. Let it die and let it die now. Government aid to GM and other automakers is a slap in the face to every hard-working American who succeeds by his own works, only to see dollars ripped out of his pocket by government.

Who's too big to fail? No one. Who's the biggest thief? Government. Stay out of my pockets and take your just rewards, GM.

As for former President Bush's end-of-term and President Obama's continued wealth distribution programs, I despise it all. This is one man who's looking for either a revolution or a new country.

Ken Matesz

Swanton

President Obama has achieved much, especially in light of Republican dogmatism and an electronic news/opinion genre bordering on inane. Until he hit education.

His current proposals for K-12 change simply channel more strategic failure. Throw $100 billion into systems that will absorb it, dig in deeper, and plan the next levy increase? Differential pay for better teachers? First, install better teachers. Voluntary knowledge standards? Have we learned nothing from No Child Left Behind? Cradle-to-career? Adults are failing; change "career" to "lifelong."

Listen up, Mr. President. It is not about teaching, it is about learning - we remain ignorant about its processes. For better teachers you need better schools of education. For knowledge rigor that will restore U.S. leadership, national standards, enforced, and research on what works. For effective K-12 oversight you need an organizational model replacing local control by the frequently naive residue of the same failed systems. And this is a stretch: We need parents more concerned about curricula than ball games.

Lastly, we need genuine reform of a bureaucratic K-12 culture and system management that have installed national catastrophe, increasingly directing funding to preserve their position rather than educate.

Ron Willett

New Bremen, Ohio

The Blade's recent article about the rising cost of fertilizer prompted a couple of thoughts. My husband, who gets frequent compliments on his thick green lawn, has always used half the recommended amount of fertilizer in spring and fall applications. So that's one way to save on the cost of fertilizer.

The other is to quit using chemicals on lawns altogether. In the days before power mowers and lawn services, clover grew in everyone's lawn and put nitrogen into the soil. If we all planted a bit of clover, lawns would get the nitrogen they need without chemical intervention.

Jan Barley

Perrysburg

Finally, someone gets it. I read with great relief Thomas Sowell's March 12 column in The Blade. Mr. Sowell is one of the few who understands that the only solution to the real estate mess is to get the people out of the market who should never have been in it in the first place. Old and trite sayings like "sadder and wiser" and "saving for a rainy day" are spot on.

My only hope is for the government to stop rewarding bad behavior at the expense of those who have acted responsibly by living within their means. It's unlikely, of course, given the current fashion in government of "helping the middle class" and "sharing the wealth."

Unfortunately, the real estate market will never recover until the government lets it be what it is - a market where prices are set by those willing and able to pay rather than being arbitrarily propped up by well-meaning politicians.

Kevin Decker

Whitehouse

If Congress had failed to give AIG a $170 billion bailout, would CEO Edward Liddy have given a second thought to paying hundreds of millions in bonus and retention pay to employees whose failure did not warrant any bonus? If AIG had gone bankrupt, would Mr. Liddy be worried about whether employees bailed or sued?

What junket were the congressmen on who required the Big Three auto executives to deal with union and employee compensation before loaning them any government funds while AIG stepped up to the plate looking for billions?

Our elected public servants in Washington should stop allowing fools like Mr. Liddy to sell crazy at the public's expense so AIG can line its greedy pockets.

Mel Pommeranz

Lakeside, Ohio

As long as we are discussing important issues, could The Blade move the crossword answers somewhere else so I can stop cheating?

Emily Duncan Winkle

Holland

I was shocked to read in the Pages of Opinion that people are more concerned about stupid cartoons than what is going on in Toledo in regard to people losing jobs, their homes, and not having food on their tables. You people need to get a life.

CAROL WHIPPLE

Perrysburg