Letters to the Editor
curmudgeon2
Published Letters: 414 Editor's Choice: 64
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It's really simple...
[Read the article: Yet another horrible housing data point]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The average income in the US is around $50,000 a year. Historically, and realistically, a family can afford a house about 3X their annual income. That means the average house needs to sell for $150,000. I entered a $50,000 income into one of those websites that says how much house I could afford. It came back with $280,000. I guess it would be true if a family had no other debt, never traveled or took vacations, and ate lentils and rice.
I was in Boise recently visiting one of my daughters. The newspaper pointed out that the inventory of unsold houses was 8X larger than the previous year, and 7/8 of them were owned by speculators. In my town Californians who had sold a house for $750,000 come here and buy two, one to live in and one to speculate on. When there are no good investments except real estate, a country is in trouble, and when real estate goes south, it becomes catastrophic.
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Muslims are Unitarians
[Read the article: Vengeance is Brandon Mayfield's]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Somewhere in Gibbon's "Decline and Fall..." is a sentence about "Mohammad and his little band of Unitarians". As opposed to being a Trinitarian, as for example Bush.
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Government regulation (?)
[Read the article: Number of the Day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]All regulatory bodies become the enablers of those they are supposed to regulate. Consider two: USDA, which supports the crops and diet that sickens us; the FDA which promotes poisonous pharmaceuticals. Both of these organizations are totally under the domination of the industries they are supposed to regulate. We would be better off without them. Regulatory agencies should have sunset clauses; after five years they should vanish and all those who worked for them would be forbidden from ever working for the government again, or the industry they regulated.
A strong system of legal redress would be far better. Lots of good lawyers able to investigate and sue malefactors.
In the short run having the government run your life can be beneficial, since the government can borrow money to enable you to live beyond your (and its) means. It just leaves it to your children to pay off the resulting debts.
I think that is why Ron Paul is against federal regulation.
As for social security: if we could induce everyone to save 10% of their income starting with their first job, everyone would be a millionaire by the time they were in their 50's. I convinced my children that they should live below their means, and max out in 401K's. Despite having modest incomes they have saved considerable money and they will be independent in their 50's. Of course, it requires a lot of discipline not to fall into the trap of "keeping up with the Jones". And if that is true we need a forced saving system like SS.
Medicare is administratively efficient but is extremely inefficient in avoiding fraud and overuse, and is the vehicle for huge subsidies to pharmaceutical companies.
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Let's not waste precious sperm...
[Read the article: The science of strippers' tips]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]On women who are not ovulating. It only stands to reason that evolution would promote mechanisms in men that reduced their chances of mating with a woman who was not ready to become pregnant. Just like women can detect the kind of immune system a man has through his "aroma", and not make the mistake of mating with a man whose immune system is too similar to theirs.
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Please, Larry, don't resign...
[Read the article: Judge to Craig: You're stuck with your plea]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you stay in a Democrat will have a fighting chance here in Idaho to succeed you. Our astute governor, Butch Otter, wants to get an electable Republican in as soon as possible so he/she can be the incumbent. You don't owe the Republican Party anything. You carried the water for the logging and mining industries for 30 years, and did whatever the Texas Oil Oligarchs asked whenever they needed something. As soon as you stumbled a little they cast you out. Screw them, stay in until the end of your term.
BTW, our Unitarian Church welcomes gay people, so feel free to attend.
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Regional jets?
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I cannot believe that the sole reason for using regional jets is to have more frequent departures. They burn more fuel per passenger mile, they have more pilots and co-pilots per passenger, and they take about as much gate space as a larger jet. It sounds to me like their per-passenger operational costs should be higher than larger planes. What is their capital investment per passenger mile-year? There must be some economic incentive, besides frequency of flights, for their increasing use. Personally I like it. Our airport now has five airlines serving it, with direct flights to many more destinations, with regional jets having replaced the 737's and MD-80's that formerly served us.