Our Readers' Views October 3

Safety compromised

As described in his Sept. 28 letter, “Effect of trucks is crushing,” the volume of trucks that Mark Jones counted on state Highway 500 and Northeast 53rd Street highlights another egregious decision by Tower Rock Products to compromise the safety of the Livingston Mountain Quarry neighborhood. The quarry is limited to 32 truck trips per day until safety improvements are completed along the haul route. After improvements are complete, the quarry will be permitted to operate a rock crusher and increase truck traffic. Violations of truck trips, noise, etc., need to be reported to Clark County Code Enforcement.

In a June 2008 appeal to the Clark County Commissioners regarding the quarry conditions of operations, only Marc Boldt voted to increase their hours of operations beyond the current 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thankfully, the other commissioners’ decision prevailed.

Barb Repman
Vancouver

Toughen oversights

Our economy is in shambles. Who can understand a number with 12 zeroes after it? Some of us who are challenged by math pretend it doesn’t exist. We like to think someone can somehow wave a magic wand to make our economic woes disappear.

The truth remains. The numbers are real. We and our families for the next few generations will pay. Our government leaders think they can print more money, borrow from foreign nations, and repackage the bear market, recession, and depression words to convince us of the “slight bump” in the economy. Wrong.

The policies to deregulate the mortgage industry, stock market, and other privatized agencies are bogus. “Free the market from restrictions — let it swim or sink.” It has sunk. We taxpayers must challenge our lawmakers to reinstate tough, transparent oversight plus ironclad consequences for abuses.

Mary Caton Armantrout
North Bonneville

Free market not yet tried

In a Sept. 30 letter, “Free-marketeers’ handout,” Frank Goheen blames overconfidence in free markets for our current problems, and cites the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as evidence that economist Adam Smith had it all wrong. Ironically, his own letter refutes his argument. Fannie and Freddie are not private institutions, but GSEs (government-sponsored enterprises), whose troubles can be laid at the feet of politicians who attempted to protect them from the discipline of the free market while insisting that money should be lent to people who can’t pay it back.

Thomas Sowell’s Sept. 30 opinion column, “Politicians created financial mess,” gets to the heart of the matter, and readers who seek to understand how we got to this pass would be well-advised to read and ponder it. To paraphrase journalist G.K. Chesterton, the problem with the free market in this instance is not that it has failed, but that it hasn’t been tried.

Bob Harper
Vancouver

Penny has seen changes

In response to Rich Mason’s Sept. 27 letter, “Change the penny? Now?” I think it costs more to make the penny with copper then the penny is worth. Another waste. I recall the penny was changed from copper to zinc-plated steel during World War II when copper was needed in the war.

I also recall as a young person there were three tax tokens to a penny and some were a fiber material. We used to find those thrown away and save them to get enough to turn in for a candy bar.

Our problem now is that our leaders lack the foresight of our forefathers. Their concern, on both sides, is: “What’s in it for me.”

Austin Shotwell
Vancouver

Death penalty law flawed

Troy Davis’s capital murder case in Georgia illustrates how flawed the death penalty is. A Sept. 24 Associated Press story reports, “Georgia convict gets execution reprieve.” Seven out of nine trial witnesses against Davis have since changed their stories, one didn’t identify him as the perpetrator until two years after the crime, and the last witness is a suspect. Yet the Georgia Board of Pardons leaves Davis on death row, where he faces execution unless people are willing to admit they made mistakes.

We must change our outdated system to keep innocent people like Davis from being killed. When people are being executed (many prisoners have lost their lives despite serious questions about their guilt), it is way past time to open our eyes to what we’re doing.

Perry Callas
Astoria, Ore.

Plastic collects in oceans

Lois Kullberg’s Sept. 24 letter, “Renewable or reusable?” lacks awareness of the horror of plastic. Plastic won’t pass through the digestive tract and stays trapped. Eventually, there is no space left for real food within the stomach. Gradually, an animal will starve.

Plastic, even flexible plastic, breaks down into small, hard pellets. Much of it ends up in the ocean. Because of the currents in the ocean, a gyre has collected this plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean. It is twice the size of Texas, estimated to weigh over 3.5 million tons. Birds and marine life mistake the plastic for plankton. They eat it and feed it to their young, and they are dying (www.noplasticbags.blogspot.com).

We cannot continue to put convenience ahead of the environment. Once we have destroyed our natural resources, there will be no reset button. Learn more about the trash vortex in the Pacific. It’s frightening.

Den Fusso
Vancouver

Privatization can succeed

In a Sept. 24 letter, “Privatization, anyone?” David R. Evans asks, “does anyone still advocate privatizing Social Security?” My answer is a resounding yes. If I had been allowed to invest my Social Security taxes in the stock market beginning in 1965, when I first started working, my Social Security would be worth 50 percent more than it is today at age 65 in spite of the recent downturn. The stock market is always a good investment when one has a 40-year horizon to maintain a balanced portfolio.

Carl Price
Vancouver