Letters to the Editor
AskDong
Published Letters: 37 Editor's Choice: 9
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Let's not lay criticsm where
[Read the article: No climate for old men]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I voted for Obama in the primaries and I hope to vote for Obama in the general election.
I've no great love for McCain's stance on social issues or Iraq. I don't believe he's the strongest environmental candidate, but the criticsm laid out here is tenuous at best.
To oppose McCain on global warming because he might appoint conservative justices is absurd. If Supreme Court justices wield so much power that they can knock down laws willy nilly, we really will have case of having activist judges. Having a court that ensures laws are written tightly and comprehensively does not have to be a left/right issue.
McCain's stance on global warming is reasonable. I work in the power industry and the fact is nuclear power is the only quickly viable source of power than can help us reduce greenhouse emissions in the short run (20-40) years. If we were to implement an escalating carbon tax, there's no question Nuclear would be much more economic and any of the current alternatives. As much as I'd like to have enough power supplied by solar, and wind, I'm cautious. The fact is the impact of wind is actually quite unknown. If we're taking out wind energy out of the environment that's going to have some effect. On a large scale wind power could be as environmentally damaging as green house gases. We just don't know. The fact is global warming puts us between a rock and hard place. There are tough choices to be made, and it's about time that we own up to some of those choices rather than just pretending there's a perfect solution around the corner.
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Still Reading and Loving the Economist
[Read the article: The most left-wing president since Nixon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm probably slightly right of many of the commentators here, but still solidly left on the political spectrum though admittedly less so on matter of free trade economics (while I think there's valid criticism of trade and to whom the benefits accrue to in different countries, much of the rhetoric against free trade is fueled too much by individual country specific self interest). The Economist remains an excellent periodical. It's coverage of world events remains unmatched, and I believe it's fawning over george bush has waned in the last few years. That said it's only begrudgingly given a a "mea culpa" over some it's part support for Bush's foreign policy misadventures. I encourage lapsed readers to pick up a copy. Like any periodical, it's vision and direction will shift decade to decade as staff changes (even without bylines), but I believe the Economist remains a solidly credible magazine. Yes it may take a condescending, but the arguments even if you disagree are well reasoned.
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Tasty
[Read the article: How the fortune cookie crumbles]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Being Chinese-American, I think of myself a little like the Chinese food in America. I'm tasty and certainly look ethnic, but my relatives in China don't really think of me as Chinese. The same holds for Chinese-American food. I like it, and done well it stands on it's own merit.
As for food in China, I'll echo many other commentators and say it's incredibly diverse and hard to pigeonhole. There's good and a bad which is often a matter of taste. There's conventional and the strange. While true that Chinese are willing to entertain thoughts of eating anything, it doesn't mean they eat the family pet or eat only odd items. Personally, even though my family is from Shanghai, I've longed preferred Sichuan cuisine even before it became the new hip chinese cuisine.
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What's in a Name
[Read the article: Nightmare on Wall Street]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While Bear Stearns is not a bank in the same sense as Citibank or Chase, that distinction is blurry at best and non-existent at worst. The Glass-Steagall Act which separated investment banking aka Bear Stearns from Commercial banking i.e. Citibank was repealed in 1999 by Congress and Signed into law by Clinton. Did that repeal contribute to current crisis we're in today is a topic in itself. The recently announced Term Lending Facilities that would've gone into effect in a little over 3 weeks would've let banks such as Bear Stearns borrow at the discount window. Apparently it was too little too late.
As for Bear Stearn's woes, those are woes that can be faced by any bank (investment or otherwise). The run on the bank is not coming from depositors but other creditors, i.e. other banks. Bank and other financial institutions are tied together by a complex web of credits and debits. When it's running smoothly things are great and money flows freely, but when things go bad it resemble a house of cards. Bear's creditors demand immediate payment, therefore Bear can't make them and other payments, those other payments put another bank in precarious situation and so forth.
I had hoped the financial markets would've been more resilient and been able to work itself out a bit more. I guess I was wrong. This exact thing happened on smaller scale when Enron went belly up eroding the financial footing of the entire power marketing industry. That industry which I work survived a difficult 3 years, and Enron was by far the largest player in that industry. The collapse of Enron is more akin to the collapse of Citi, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman, and Merrill combined.
I'm personally a little surprised that Bear was too big too fail. If it was truly was too "big" then clearly there's something seriously wrong with risk management on Wall Street. And if it wasn't then the Fed is setting a dangerous precedent.