Unfettered Letters

Government bailouts

All this talk about stimulus packages and bailouts scares the daylights out of me. We know from history, if we care to learn, that creating new money and spreading it far and wide in an attempt to get prices up does not work. It did not work in the 1930s. In fact, the attempts to re-inflate the economy prolonged the Depression by many years.

Yet here we are, doing what we should know cannot work. What the Bush administration has done and what the Obama administration is promising to do is exactly the wrong thing. The politicians are responding to the imperative to do something, anything, however foolish it is. In addition, it gives the politicians an excuse to do what they love to do — spend huge sums of money to buy votes and favors from the recipients.

The root cause of this problem is the ability of the Federal Reserve to print new money without restraint. This has driven prices of real estate up to unsustainable levels.

We cannot fix the problem by doing more of the same.

Michael Kerner
Lenexa

The government’s bailouts remind me of the T-shirt that says “I’m not broke. I still have checks left.”

David Scott
Lee’s Summit

Optimism didn’t cause economic mess

Rick Montgomery’s article (1/1, A-1, “Let’s take off those rose-colored glasses”) touting the current trendiness of negative thinking misses the point entirely. He states, “It was boundless optimism, after all, that brought about the mess on Wall Street.” In reality, it was boundless greed and corruption that caused the mess.

The article should have placed more emphasis on consultant Debra Lund’s analysis: Our economic woes should spur us to demand “trustworthiness … transparency … and honesty” to rebuild the strength of Wall Street. Without a higher level of integrity in our economic institutions and in their oversight, future collapses are inevitable.

An intellectually weak analysis of public reaction to the economic situation distracts us from what is important.

Without clarity of thinking by journalists, another one of the major bulwarks of American democracy collapses.

Marjorie M. Jackson
Kansas City

Waive matching requirements

Here is a suggestion for members of Congress and of President-elect Obama’s transition team as they craft a plan to help state and local governments meet their obligations to the people during this dramatic downturn in the economy. And it will cost the federal government, and federal taxpayers, nothing.

For calendar year 2009, waive all requirements for state or local matching for federal funding.

In Missouri alone, we stand to lose tens of millions in federal dollars because the economic downturn makes it unlikely we can provide the mandatory local match.

The aid package Obama plans to sign should include this waiver of the requirement for local matching from our state and local governments, including nonprofit agencies and other private vendors that receive federal funds to provide public services via grants or contracts.

This proposal will enable state and local governments, and the private and nonprofit agencies they partner with, to continue to provide vital services to those of our fellow citizens most in need. It would only compound the current economic tragedy to have people go without services because their local or state government is too financially pressed to provide the local match for federal funds that otherwise are available.

Bob Quinn
Executive director, Missouri Association for Social Welfare
Jefferson City

Sluggish retail sales

The day after Christmas, I listened to the news at 7 and 8 a.m. and 12, 4, 5, 6 and 10 p.m. The top story was “Retailers suffer as buyers look but do not buy.”

Has anyone told the retailers that homes have been foreclosed? Banks have failed? Wall Street has faltered? The Big Three automakers are going broke? Our wonderful Bush-led government is throwing money at everyone except the taxpayers, the buyers that retailers are looking for.

Mr. Retailer, if you can mark down a $200 leather jacket to $80, just to get shoppers to buy, why couldn’t you sell that jacket for $80 before Christmas? It tells me that the jacket was not worth $200 to begin with. Maybe you retailers should fly to Washington and get your share of the bailout. Your customers will bear the brunt, and they still can’t shop at your store.

Let’s hear some real stories on the news. Hundreds of thousands of people out of work, and I haven’t heard any of them whining about it. They are out there finding ways to pay their bills and feed their kids and look for other jobs. They’re not shopping!

Mary Dannaldson
North Kansas City

Raise gas taxes, boost economy

It looks like both parties cannot be fiscally responsible. It is so easy to spend money we don’t have and pass the debt on to future generations.

We should raise the total gas tax (state and federal) by 50 percent. This would add 20 to 25 cents per gallon to the price of gas. This would generate enough money to employ more people fixing roads and bridges. The way gas prices vary from day to day, the public would probably never feel the increase.

President-elect Obama then needs to let us know that he is serious about reducing our oil consumption by increasing the tax on gas by 20 to 25 cents per gallon each year for the next five years. This money would be spent on building public transportation in our cities and other projects that would help to reduce our dependence on oil. The revenue stream would be there for these projects for a long time and would be reduced only as gas consumption is reduced.

If Obama still feels he needs to boost the economy, he should send everybody a check.

Bill Klinkenberg
Lenexa

Learn to live with less

As I understand our economic situation, it boils down to the realization that about a third of our country’s wealth does not actually exist. It once existed in the form of inflated real estate, Ponzi schemes and complicated financial instruments.

After we quit looking for a villain (other than the one in the mirror) we are going to have to live with less and willingly share what we do have with those who have nothing.

Rae Ann Nixon
Kansas City

How are the banks spending our money?

AIG just reported that they have lost $30 billion but, of course, they still have their fleet of corporate jets. What kind of deal is this?

The Associated Press recently asked 21 banks what they have done with the billions of dollars you and I have given to them. They refuse to say.

Is this crazy, or what? It certainly isn’t transparency. And my congressman, Dennis Moore, voted for this fraud. He needs to retire ASAP. No wonder Congress has only a 9 percent approval rating.

We continue to allow a group of private bankers to create our fiat paper money that has lost 60 percent of its value in the last 20 years. And they charge us interest to use this nearly-worthless money, which means they have made billions of dollars from us.

Why do we continue to reward failure and ignore the Constitution that says Congress is to create our money via gold and silver?

R.J. Brown
Leawood

Recession is our reality

I tend to disagree with Randy Kietzman (12/21, Letters), who says dwelling on the recession is making it worse and there is no better time to invest.

If you are well off and can stand to watch your money disappear like smoke, go ahead and invest in the market. If you are young and can stand to wait five or 10 years, then leave what money you have left in the market, and you may retrieve your losses.

Many of us baby boomers cannot wait for the market to turn around as our 401(k)s and IRAs dwindle away.

It’s all right to think positive, but let’s be realistic. It is likely there will be many more layoffs after the first of the year. Just because a new administration is taking over the White House doesn’t mean happy days are here again for everybody.

As a result of job layoffs, credit tightening and current loan debt, it is foolish to think just anyone can rush out and purchase a new car or home.

Reality is a fact of life, no matter how we perceive it.

Jerry Mathews
Kansas City

Disgusted with hotshot bankers

I am disgusted as I read about the hotshot bankers who make the big bucks because they “need extra money to be motivated” (12/22, A-1, “Banks in bailout gave big rewards”). Is this still America? Do we still have a collective soul?

I think of the thousands of workers whose daily efforts keep the country going and who do not always quit at quitting time if there are still people to be served. Do the hotshot bankers think they are more intelligent and deserving than the teachers, social workers, nurses and other caregivers who chose to enter a service profession despite the lower pay?

And what of the people who are overseeing the bailout? Does U.S. law not provide the clout to hold accountable the recipients of the bailout money that taxpayers were told would salvage the country’s economy?

In less than a month, a new administration will take over. Will the hope of the campaign carry over past Jan. 20 in the face of so much brokenness in America? Hopefully, Washington will take its cue from the middle class. Those at the top are too far removed from the reality of the rest of us to be of much help.

Janelle Lazzo
Roeland Park

Increasing the middle class

Joe Biden, interviewed about his new job, says he and Barack Obama will measure their success by the growth of the middle class (12/22, A-5, “Biden to lead effort on middle class”). As usual, he gives no specifics on how it is to be achieved or measured.

My guess is that the plan is to tax people down into it, give the money to others to raise them up to it, and then use the time-honored liberal principle of lowering the bar to include everyone else.

Jim Barber
Independence

Befuddled by bailout

Let’s make sure I understand this. We are giving the auto manufacturers $17.4 billion so they can pay their workers while they are laid off for the next one to two months, because they manufacture a product that nobody is buying.

Makes no sense to me.

Don Brown
Kansas City

Teach school children about personal finance

Our high schools and colleges are doing a terrible job of preparing students for their place in the world. Required courses in basic math and personal finance could do a great deal of good.

There are basic guidelines for the amount of debt you can owe. Lodging and other monthly payments should not exceed 40 percent of your net income. This leaves the rest of your disposable income for food, gas, insurance, utilities and savings. This means you can’t live in a mansion and drive a new car unless your income warrants.

You can’t put living expenses that you should be paying cash for on credit cards, such as gas, food, utilities and entertainment. Some of these wonderful credit card companies will keep increasing your line of credit as bait so you will wind up with a nice balance and paying them lots of finance charges.

Unfortunately some professional credit grantors talk customers into credit they cannot afford. Then after years of putting marginal or bad credit on the books, hurting consumers, these businesses find that not only will their high interest rates not support the credit operation, but they come to the taxpayers for bailouts.

William S. Thompson
Olathe

Economic woes aren’t our fault

Americans have been chastised for not saving money. People have stopped spending borrowed money on things they do not need. We have been chastised, again, for not spending money!

The public did not create this economic mess. Twenty years of lax oversight of investment markets created an illusory bubble of prosperity. The public did not create “no down payment required” or “interest only” loans.

The public did not loan money on inflated house values so people could buy SUVs, speedboats and exotic vacations and invest in speculative markets. The public did not create a $1 trillion stock market bust or the $50 billion Ponzi scheme that existed under the noses of the regulators.

My parents are children of the Great Depression. I will do my best to follow their proven record — work hard, save money, invest rationally and live within my means.

I know that I will be called upon to help “bail out” everyone from Wall Street to Main Street. The situation cannot be changed. I will do my part.

I resent being told is that this mess is my fault. It is not.

Michael G. McDonald
Leavenworth

What really burns me is that the people who caused this economic disaster will never experience the suffering of those who had nothing to do with it.

And Congress actually gave themselves a raise. Shame on them.

Kathleen Wyatt
Independence

A reel message for real change

After recently watching the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” I have to believe that the overwhelming theme of the movie is more relevant today than it was back in the 1950s.

Governments have risen and fallen, economic instability comes and goes, and the band just marches on. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the constant inhumanity to our fellow man.

In the movie, when threatened with world extinction, we hear the phrase “we can change.” Change to what? Possibly more inhumane treatment of others?

Wars, civil rights violations, starving children, corruption — it shouldn’t take the threat of global annihilation by an alien race to wake everyone up to the fact that with the exception of a few animal species, we are the only ones to make war upon ourselves.

We are killing ourselves and our future. I hope that we are not standing at the precipice before we decide to make a real change.

Paul M. Lickteig
Raytown

Ho, ho hard times …

As I sat thinking about the economy and holidays, I put my thoughts into this poem:

Money is tight, times are hard,
All I can afford are Christmas cards.
Rent is due, utilities too,
What money is left is not for you.
No more waste, no more fun,
All of us are under the gun.
If the gas pump doesn’t get you, the utilities will,
To top it all off, bills, bills and more bills.
No more fast food, snacks or six packs,
Carry your lunch in a little brown sack.
Beans and cornbread is the meal of the day,
Stretch those beans until payday.
So Merry Christmas, have no fear
If we survive the winter,
We’ll see you next year.

Karen Stumbaugh
Kansas City

Negativity index soars

Come on, people. Stop with the doom and gloom! The end of this recession will coincide with the end of our emotional funk. Even movie critic Robert Butler (whom I love) has gotten into the act with his “Making the best of it; In a poor economy, we’re the richer for these 10 films about economic woes” (12/13, FYI).

The sooner we stop dwelling on it, the sooner it will end. There is no better time to buy a new car or a new home. There is no better time to invest in the stock market. If you own a business, there is a larger and more talented pool of potential employees than at any time in the last 15 years.

We are about to have a new administration with a commitment to competence and to restoring our moral dignity and world reputation. We now have an opportunity to participate in the dawn of a great new era, but we must stand up to do so.

Our perception is our reality.

Randy Kietzman
Kansas City

Elaborate inauguration inappropriate for times

Notwithstanding the fact that the first African-American president will be inaugurated on Jan. 20, it will be interesting to see how much is spent and by whom on this celebration.

I think in such hard times, ostentation will be frowned upon, especially by the average working folks.

Maybe this would be a time for Barack Obama to show he is willing to give up something, like many other Americans have been asked to do.

John Couture Sr.
Kansas City

Bail out people, not companies

I do not support any bailout for financial companies that are failing.

Let’s pay off all the home loans and foreclosures of the general public, increase Social Security, bring jobs back to America and, in general, help the citizens who are the real victims.

What is needed is to bring manufacturing back to U.S. soil to create jobs so people can pay their bills, including loans.

Making loan money available does not mean people without jobs can borrow what they need, let alone anyone pay back what they currently owe.

William A. Ingram
Kansas City

Punish executives for malfeasance

What is so infuriating about the current economic crisis is that it was created solely by people in the banking and mortgage industries who, as middlemen, produce zero yet receive unconscionable sums for mismanaging the redistribution of resources of productive Americans.

Such money manipulators have always been reviled. Once known as money changers and robber barons, we now simply call them financial schemers, swindlers and thieves.

One would have thought that Enron, WorldCom and others would have served as effective cautionary tales for the financial community, but there is no accounting for the arrogance, greed and dishonesty of some.

If Ken Lay deserved what was coming to him for helping to destroy a single business enterprise, what do these current corporate titans deserve for the financial destruction they have caused the entire national economy?

We taxpayers must insist that they soon face appropriate accountability for their malfeasance, including criminal prosecution.

Crosby P. Engel
Weatherby Lake

Auto executives treated unfairly

I am tired of the congressional circus of self-righteous representatives happily bludgeoning the CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler for all to see because they asked for a loan of $25 billion.

Isn’t this the same Congress that approved $700 billion (not a loan) for the banking giants whose greed prompted this crisis? When were the CEOs of AIG, IndyMac and Washington Mutual pummeled in a photo-op parade?

And I am tired of a Senate that now is holding the autoworkers hostage as scapegoats for our anger at the $700 billion. Is this not an old mentality — let those at the bottom pay for the sins of the rich?

If virtue were required for recipients of such grants, none would receive.

Eugene L. Lowry
Kansas City

Wall Street CEOs should walk the plank

The pirates of Wall Street

For a long time we have been hearing about the pirates of Somalia. The hijackers have extracted millions of dollars from insurance companies and ship owners. Their crimes are obvious. Their piracy at sea was born on land out of poverty and desperation.

In America, men who were never impoverished practiced maneuvers so clandestine they went undetected. Since they were not poor, it’s hard to fathom why the cargo has vanished and the ship left crippled.

On CNN, Lou Dobbs said that Wall Street CEOs were guilty only of “bad management.” This mess is so complicated, our justice system wouldn’t know how to unravel it anyway.

I resent this financial disaster. We have borrowed the savings of the rest of the world and consumed them, and now we are forced to accelerate that strategy. How will we ever pay it all back? Will others keep lending?

It’s like watching the fall of Rome governed by a leader who uses credit cards to make credit card payments.

Cory Thompson
Tonganoxie

Dodd man out …

I am with Sen. Chris Dodd. Those auto CEOs need to resign. In fact, everyone who caused the subprime fiasco needs to go.

Oh, I guess that would include Chris Dodd, too.

Charley Morasch
Leawood

‘Tough’ enough?

In the article “Talk of the town; The main topic of conversation at a local diner: Getting by in a bad economy, of course” (12/9, FYI), Brian Smith is worried about the economy, driving his Hummer out to eat three times a day after a long night of tending to his Internet ads. I genuinely believed I was reading a satire until halfway through the article.

Tough times cause us to rethink priorities. Perhaps had Brian spoken to the other diners he could more plainly see the face of genuine need as well as reassess the extent of his own “tough” times.

Jeff Owen
Kansas City

Where are their brains?

The Big Three couldn’t succeed with their own money, and our federal government is about to hand them $15 billion dollars of our money.

Can you imagine the neck muscles it takes to hold up that much granite?

Mark Forster
Lee’s Summit

Tough times make giving more important

Most people will feel the effects of the dropping economy this Christmas, but who will feel it the most? Maybe I don’t get the iPod Touch I’m asking for this year, or a fellow student will go without a new pair of Uggs, but we won’t be the ones who are hungry Christmas night.

The economy is bad for everyone, but some more than others. People have less money and, in return, have less to give. Some people will go hungry this Christmas. I might go without the latest Apple gadget, but my stomach will be far from empty when I go to bed.

So even though it seems like there is barely enough money for your own family this holiday season, giving just a little bit can make a huge difference.

Clare Connealy
Kansas City

It’s time to hold Democrats accountable

I am amazed at all the politicians calling for resignations of corporate CEOs.

How about the resignations of members of Congress that got us into this mess — Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid?

These hypocrites call for resignations for those who caused the failure of corporate America, but what about the failure of government?

The fault cannot all land at the feet of President Bush.

When are we going to start holding the majority party in Congress accountable? We did when they were Republicans, and rightfully so.

It is time that we started holding Democrats accountable for there actions and calling for their resignations.

Enough is enough!

Ward M. Dickmann
Raytown

Alternatives to bailing out the Big Three

Instead of forking over billions of dollars to the Big Three American auto companies, why not simply give a one-time $10,000 tax deduction to the first 2.5 million individuals who purchase American-made cars (not Chevys made in Korea).

That way, the car dealers and the makers are bailed out, and it would cost the government less.

Al Elton
Leawood

Give the automakers a bailout only under these conditions:

By lottery, each company will make only one size vehicle: large, standard or small. Prices are not to exceed $30,000, $20,000 and $10,000 respectively. They may make up to three models of their selected vehicle.

The company that becomes profitable and starts to pay back the taxpayers will only then be allowed to expand their product line of the same type vehicle. This way the American public should have nothing but the highest quality vehicles on the road.

Russ Henderson
Overland Park

Consumer spending got us into mess

We keep being told by the “experts” that the way out of the recession is consumer spending. Consumer spending is what got us in this mess in the first place.

For several years, personal credit card debt has increased, and now the average credit card debt per household is reaching the $ 9,000 vicinity. The mortgage fiasco wouldn’t have exploded if consumers had examined their personal finances and purchased a home within their needs and means.

So go ahead, consumers, and spend yourselves out of the recession. But before you use your past-due credit card for that iPod, Blackberry, big-screen TV or $200 concert tickets that you just can’t live without, bring that credit card balance down to a manageable amount.

Clyde Houghton
Shawnee

Hold corporations accountable

Most Americans are suffering due to higher prices on everything, loss of jobs, loss of homes, loss of massive amounts of retirement savings due to the Wall Street disaster, less disposable income and more.

If we are going to loan, not bail out, failing businesses, banks, insurance companies and so on, there must be accountability, lien on ownership, concessions and monitoring.

1. Accountability: They must submit a plan to the controlling government committee or agency as to how they are going to use our money.
2. Ownership: We the taxpayers deserve a lien on these businesses.
3. Concessions: No bonuses for any executives for any reason. No holiday parties. Since upper management must be held accountable for their part in the failed business, no top executive may earn more than the president of the United States, i.e., $400,000. All employees must take a 10 to 20 percent reduction in pay. These people will have to adjust their lifestyles. Welcome to hurting America.
4. Monitoring: The controlling government committee or agency must require quarterly reports designed to reveal progress made.

I am an angry, frustrated American who says there are no free lunches and desperate times call for desperate measures. Effective, responsible leadership with sacrifices must start at the top.

Will Miller
Mission

Don’t bank on this economist

Paul Krugman’s reading of our economic situation (12/3, Opinion, “This is not the time to worry about the deficit”) is based on a crude Keynesian worldview that regards consumer spending as paramount and substantially disregards the structure of production of a market economy.

The current recession is a result of the misdirection of capital structure set in motion by the credit expansion and consequent below-market interest rates of the 2002 to 2004 Greenspan Fed. A speculative boom in housing was one result. It couldn’t last, and it didn’t.

What is necessary now is that markets be allowed to shed the mal-investments caused by the previous distortion of market signals. What we are getting instead is a desperate attempt to put an unsustainable structure back together. Krugman plugs for yet more of this.

As is obvious from reading his exchanges on the subject with free-market economists that Krugman has little fundamental understanding of capital theory. His policy prescriptions will doom us to another 10 years of stagnation. The “rock star” economist has it “exactly wrong.”

Alan Kent
Kansas City

Dear politicians,

Attention all politicians: Here are just three simple questions.

1. Where are going to get the money?
2. How are you going to pay it back?
3. Is this the way you manage your own personal affairs?

With all your brilliant minds, would just one of you step forward and explain this to us? You owe the legal American citizens of America an explanation. We are scared.

Jim Lockhart
Merriam

War in Iraq bankrupts America

Tom McClanahan (11/23, Opinion, “Obama is being handed good options on Iraq”) echoes the claim of correspondent Michael Yon that “the war is over and we won.” We can always count on Mr. McClanahan to be the uber Bush apologist.

If only the American public had this information before Nov. 4, the outcome of the election may have been different. We should remember that we have previously been told by President Bush that victory was secure via his “mission accomplished” celebration 561/27 years ago.

McClanahan, like many conservative Republicans, remains oblivious to the reality shared in opinion by many Americans that this war was illegal, unnecessary, incompetently managed and has led to the bankruptcy of America financially and morally. In the eyes of most of the world it has greatly damaged our reputation and status as a great nation.

This war has been “won” by only a few: Halliburton, Blackwater, defense contractors and the other corporate cronies of the Bush administration. McClanahan’s claim is like saying that FDR had only to lose the golden opportunity to further a prosperous economy bequeathed to him by prior Republican free marketers as he took office in 1933.

J. Martin Kerr
Independence

Big Three vs. Big Banking

It’s hard to understand the debate over the bailout of the Big Three, when we just approved $700 billion for the banks who represent the most corrupt, inept CEOs on earth.

Warren Whitney
Stilwell

KU-MU games at Arrowhead

Yael Abouhalkah’s position on the KU-MU series entirely misses the point and spirit of the rivalry (11/29, Opinion, “Showdown welcome on the border”).

First of all, I didn’t realize that the litmus test for a college football game was the value to local merchants. As an alumnus of KU (’82-’86), I would have been furious if that game had been taken away from campus. We had very little to play for in those days, so rivalry was everything. Now there’s much more at stake, and it should be decided on the respective campuses.

As to having to go to a hostile environment to see your team play: boo hoo. Isn’t that what rivalry is all about? I doubt the Wolverines feel very comfortable in Columbus, but I don’t see anyone clamoring to play that game in Detroit. Maybe we should go to a flag football system and have a “5 Mississippi” rush to limit any hard feelings.

This decision saps all of the spirit of rivalry and tradition from that game. It’s about only one thing: money.

Harlow D. Schmidt
Leawood

Recession worth a banner headline?

Shame on you for making the banner headline in Tuesday’s paper “It’s official: We’re in a recession” (12/2, A-1).

You had a great front page story and article about Obama’s very fine appointments to his national security team (“Centrists take center stage”). But why did you want to deflate this positivity by your gloomy negative banner headline for a story that was hardly newsworthy?

Laurence R. Smith
Kansas City

We, the people, must help selves

Susan Dickey (11/28, Letters, “We, the people, need help”) wrote something that caught my eye. “When will someone on Capitol Hill start helping us, ‘the people?.’” This struck me as a symptom of what’s wrong with our society today. Too many people want government to take care of them rather than working through their problems.

My father grew up through the Depression, was orphaned as a teenager and was sent to a relative’s farm to work. He worked hard, as all did on the farm in the 1930s, and then built up his own farm enough to sustain our family.

When he was in his 80s, I mentioned to him that Habitat for Humanity was building someone a house near him. I thought he would be pleased, but instead he said “Nobody ever built me any damn house.”

We are truly becoming too soft.

Bill Moses
Liberty

Unions' responsibilities

Unions protect workers’ rights

I have worked at union places and non-union places. The only places I felt intimidated were the non-union ones. The union’s fought for the 40-hour workweek, eight-hour workday, paid vacations, health care, time and half for overtime, and pensions. Companies have moved jobs overseas, and if your memory is not too short, you should remember how they treated their workers.

Yes, there have been some bad unions. There still are companies that are bad, too. I will always be thankful for the unions.

David L. Netz Sr.
Independence

Employers and unions must cooperate

This article “YRC, Teamsters work together; Two sides want to change labor agreement to help out the company” by Eric Palmer (11/29, Business) should be must reading for all other unions whose employers are having trouble due to the economy, especially the autoworkers. Everyone needs to give a little.

Remember the old saying “A half loaf is better than no loaf at all?” But companies are not asking that much.

Paul Newhouse
Shawnee

Memories of Great Depression

Your stories on the Great Depression of the 1930s (11/30, A-1, “Following history’s line, but dodging ’30s despair”) brought back a flood of memories. I was born in 1931 in Lexington, Mo., and recall vividly my parents’ struggle to survive during that time.

In 1939 my father was injured while working on a pile driver on the Missouri river. He was unable to work for a year, and our only source of income was my mother’s $7 weekly wage as a seamstress in the local shirt factory. After a year or so there was some sort of settlement, and Dad received $100. Half of it went to his attorney. That worked out to about $1 a week for his lost wages and pain and suffering.

It was a difficult time for my parents and my sister Mary Pat and me, but there were many other families with many more mouths to feed who suffered more.

Jim O’Malley
Warrensburg, Mo.

U.S. automakers must go green

As we are possibly on the brink of an auto industry bailout, I think we should put major conditions upon it.

First, they must immediately go super green. Why finance the inefficient cars they now sell that no one wants to buy?

Next, why not start selling in America the natural gas vehicles they already sell all around the world? Natural gas is absolutely cheaper and cleaner, and there is enough in the U.S. right now to radically drop use of foreign oil. Do this in conjunction with moving to electric cars and natural gas hybrids.

Thirdly, the automakers must chop high executive pay and golden parachutes. If the executives do this, then union will be far more willing also.

On a related issue, we must have a plan to change the fuel systems for all the cars on the road, which can most quickly be changed to run on natural gas. There is no reason that U.S. auto makers can’t recover quality and pride.

Raymond O’Brien
Weatherby Lake

U.S. should bail out the American people

I’m so sick of all this doom and gloom. What do you have to look forward to? All I have heard is that the American people are at fault for this economic mess we are in, because we lived above our means.

I firmly believe that the big oil companies and these big corporations that President Bush has let run this country and that get all these tax breaks have gotten us into this mess.

Americans need to write their senators and congressmen and tell them: Don’t bail these big companies out. Bail us out. Give us the money. Let us stimulate the economy.

Sherry Galster
Nevada, Mo.

What will save us now?

I need some input from my fellow Americans. My understanding is that WWII got us out of the Great Depression. We’re in a recession now, and we’re also at war.

What’s going to save us now?

Joanne McBride
Prairie Village

Views on the economy

Millions of dollars but no sense

How is the American taxpayer supposed to make any sense of what is going on now? We have politicians who spend millions, for the head political office maybe close to a billion, for a job that pays a fraction of a million.

We cannot find anyone intelligent enough to run one of our corporations if they don’t demand millions, some even hundreds of millions.

Now we are led to believe this whole thing that threatens the financial solvency of most major countries was derived from your and my neighbors’ inability to pay their mortgages.

Maybe we have bigger problems than what we realize, since this was brought to us by the supposed best and brightest talent that America has to offer.

Jerry Jackson

Liberty

Stimulate the economy

Here are some ideas for an immediate and long-term economic stimulus.

Short term: Immediately increase the federal gasoline tax by 25 cents a gallon and use the money immediately to put people to work on highway and bridge construction. After paying nearly $4 a gallon for gas this summer, I do not think too many folks would have issue with this plan. It would put people to work immediately.

Long term: Institute a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with a rate the first 10 years at 4.99 percent, the next 10 years at 5.99 percent and 6.99 percent for the last 10 years without any prepayment penalty.

Ed Casey

Kansas City

Economic woes

Bail out hardworking consumers

If we are planning another stimulus package, how about bailing out the hardworking consumers this economy depends on?

This new $700 billion stimulus package could be broken into $14,000 no-interest loans to 50 million households to be used exclusively to pay down their household debt. This loan would be paid back from future tax refunds or Social Security benefits.

To qualify, the household would have to owe no current taxes, have a good work history and good credit as well as a to-be-determined qualifying debt-to-income ratio. The money would be paid directly to the creditor to pay down debt principle.

The government should also encourage the creditors to renegotiate the interest rates on the remainder of the debt, thereby giving the families more money to inject into the economy while providing the institutions and companies holding the debt an infusion of cash.

Craig Colbert

Prairie Village

What happened to sacrifice?

I have a problem when I see CEOs of large corporations sitting before Congress begging for a piece of the $700 billion pie. Especially when these same people flew in on corporate jets they refuse to get rid of and refuse to take a cut in their high-dollar salaries.

In 1982 when the oil bust came, my husband had a radiator and air conditioning shop in Oklahoma City. We did a lot of oil field work. My husband gave his employees a choice: He would let some go, or lower their salaries and quit paying their health insurance. They chose. He kept everyone on and gave them a little bonus whenever he could. Half the time he didn’t draw a salary for himself.

I had just given birth to our second child, and we had bought a new car. Luckily I worked for Ma Bell and made a decent salary, but I still had to supplement bill-paying with our small savings account.

Our new baby sat with me at the county health department, not the pediatrician’s office, for her wellness visits and I used cloth diapers.

We sacrificed and we made it. Why can’t they?

Linda I. Schill

Paola, Kan.