Posted: Friday, February 13, 2009 12:00 am
Best bet for saving us from ruin: billionaires
There are 409 billionaires in the United State whose total net worth exceeds $1.3 trillion dollars.
With billions of destitute people, this seems off balance. How to remedy this gross inequity? Certainly, we're all part of one human family and, in truth, what befalls one affects all others because we are members of this human collective!
I propose billionaires remain billionaires! Let them keep their chalets, yachts and Lamborghinis. Just create a net worth cap of $1 billion. The remainder would becomes a public trust, guaranteeing impoverished U.S. citizens, food, clothing, shelter, health care, college education and a job.
This simple plan allows the aristocrats to remain elite, ends their guilt (which they hopefully feel acutely) about having everything while others become homeless or die of starvation.
Let's face it; if you can't make it on a billion dollars, you have a psychological problem and need psychological counseling. No arguing; just go! As multimillionaire J.D. Rockefeller commented near the end of his life (when he was asked) if he had all the money he needed: No, just a little more would be better.
Wars are usually poverty-based. If we don't get better at sharing, an ugly "Blade Runner"-esque technological feudalism and desert-prison planet future could ensue. Who wants this?
Four hundred and nine people hold the fate of the planet in their hands. Just 409 people! They could be heroes forever and still be billionaires for the rest of their lives. Is this too much to ask?
Reed Behrens, Corvallis
Ranks of global climate change doubters growing
Headlines say Emperor penguins MAY be endangered. Global warming MAY destroy our forests. And nonscientist Al Gore made another appearance before Congress, saying that an ice storm doesn't mean the end of global warming. After 650 dissenting scientists around the world recently challenged man-made global warming, proponents are turning up the heat.
Proponents realize that "Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason." (Samuel Adams, 1722-1803, American politician and patriot of the American Revolution.) Debate and criticism of global warming should not be an emotional issue.
Russian scientists have "rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming."
Andrei Kapitsa says, "It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round Kyoto theorists put the cart before the horse. A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the U.N declared global warming to be a scientific fact."
Well-known Hungarian physicist and environmental researcher Miklos Zagoni, once an outspoken supporter of the Kyoto protocol who changed from supporter to critic of global warming, explains how nature regulates the amount of carbon dioxide, keeping it in balance.
Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, prominent Japanese scientist and educator, said, "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another. Every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so. Global warming as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver's seat and developing nations walking barefoot."
Jean Nelson, Corvallis
Education lacking on how to share the road with all
In response to my second day of reading the Feb. 10 letter from Sonya G. Richardson, "What were these pedestrians and bicyclists thinking?":
Yes, the "laws are made to protect" cyclists and pedestrians, but that implies a familiarity and understanding of these laws. At best, our car-oriented culture does a poor job educating drivers in how to share the road. Sadly, we provide almost no similar education to people who choose alternate forms of transportation.
In our current economic situation, there are and will be many new folks walking and riding who have an imperfect or incomplete understanding of how to share the road safely.
Last week, there was a request to the Corvallis City Council to hire a full-time employee to help deal with pedestrian and cycling issues. For now, there is a part-time employee doing this, and as Richardson's letter demonstrates, it seems obvious that we need more time devoted to this concern. Please contact your City Council member to support this effort.
Of note: In 30 minutes of driving in town during a high-traffic period, Richardson admittedly was taken by surprise and slammed on her brakes three times. Could it be that she was not cautious enough in her driving? Was she identifying potentially hazardous situations adequately? Perhaps she could slow down and pay more attention. We all could.
Wendy Byrne, Corvallis
Consider Canada's prices for emergency care
Referencing Lisa Hargest's recent shock over the cost of having a few moments of a doctor's time in an emergency room setting to close a serious cut: (Letters, Feb. 10, "Cut on the hand leads to shocking encounter with medical costs"), I would like to relate an incident that happened to my son:
As the ferry approached the dock, he opened the trunk on his rented car to get something. Being unfamiliar with the car and moving a little quickly, he hit his head on the trunk lid and cut himself quite badly. So he jammed a cloth on it and got on the ferry.
When he arrived in Victoria, B.C., he was directed to a local hospital where the wound was cleaned and stitched. He is not a Canadian citizen. His cost, $0. If he had been a Canadian citizen, the out-of-pocket cost would have been the same.
John Wells, Corvallis
Social Security better than risky stock market
John Brenan's Feb. 9 letter lambasted Social Security as a very bad deal. I assume he has, or wishes he had, big money in the stock market right now. The Dow only dropped about 400 points today (Feb. 10). And with care, he has an assumed reliable financial planner. Maybe he has been following the advice of nice Bernie Madoff, who ripped off a mere $50 billion with his tiny Ponzi scheme.
I must assume that our letter writer has never heard of the millions of persons who are collecting Social Security disability checks. Nor heard of the millions who paid into the system only a few years and are now drawing benefit checks for decades. Maybe they deserve it. Apparently he does not realize that Social Security is in part an insurance system.
What if his 22-year-old example person has a car, and by law makes big payments for insurance on the vehicle? Such a person might pay that insurance price for maybe 50 years, and never get one penny of benefits as payments for himself, with nary a cent when he dies.
I would consider him in fact quite lucky; he had insurance to help with what might have happened to him. And it is good that all other drivers also are required to have coverage, since they might hit him. Thus, he is clearly not ripped off.
I suggest to our writer that he retire in his 60s and live to be 100. Then he could count the big sums he would have collected from Social Security.
Floyd McFarland, Corvallis
Clarifying a letter on church, state separation
I see by Tom Johnston's letter ("Why not make marriages either civil or religious?") I did not make myself clear. I want government out of the marriage business for strong separation of church and state reasons. It's the wisest course.
I get from Thomas Jefferson's "assurances" letter to the Danbury Baptists he'd agree with me - David Prichard obviously sees this differently ("Early 'wall' protected church from 'wilderness' of the world"). Jefferson practiced nontraditional coupling, and was known to be fond of things French.
How Prichard came to the conclusion that the "Establishment Clause" is to protect the state from the church is beyond me.
Robert G. Gourley, Corvallis