LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
End Putin’s bid for fossil fuel
3/25/2014The March 18 commentary by The Blade’s Mike Sigov, “Courage required to handle Putin,” gives a good account of the Ukraine situation, but for the United States to ask for help from China is not the solution.
China is dependent on the United States for exports, but it likely would ask for even deeper trade concessions from our country for this favor. We cannot afford more unbalanced trade agreements with China.
The solution should focus on the root of the problem, which is fossil fuels. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal in Ukraine is fossil fuels. The ultimate solution is to make fossil fuels obsolete.
World peace and world energy depend not on fossil fuels, but on alternative energy sources such as solar power, geothermal, wind turbines, and generators powered by ocean currents. We can live in a peaceful, environmentally safe world with clean abundant energy. Or we can be destroyed by the greedy billionaires and warring political tyrants. The choice is ours.
PAUL SZYMANOWSKI
Curtice, Ohio
TV talking heads have a bad record
While watching the talking heads on the Sunday morning TV news shows telling us what should be done about Russia and Ukraine, I noticed that some of these were the same people who said the George W. Bush tax cuts would be a boon for the economy, we were going to war with Iraq because it had weapons of mass destruction, the Iraq war would pay for itself, and Iraq would become a shining beacon of Jeffersonian Democracy in the Middle East.
At what point do we stop listening to these people?
BILL PIEPER
Oregon
Tax code change must bridge gap
The Blade’s Feb. 23 editorial “Income inequality” stated that the disparity that separates the richest and poorest Americans is getting worse and stressed the need for increasing the minimum wage and investment in education. There is a more effective solution: Change the income tax code.
Levying too high a tax on lower-income people cuts into their buying power, which reduces demand for goods and services. That curtails economic growth.
Levying too low a tax on the wealthy encourages corporate earnings they control to be spent on dividends and stock buy-backs, instead of using the money to grow business.
For years, the middle and lower classes have been taxed at too high a rate and the upper class has been taxed too low. Our economy has suffered for it.
Republicans have launched a plan to change the tax code, but their plan continues to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.
Our current economic woes of slow growth, high unemployment, increased poverty, and unprecedented income inequality have a political basis. As long as the wealthy continue to make large campaign contributions, some politicians don’t care that bad tax policy hurts America.
KEN CLOSE
Orchard Tree Lane