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Re: Experts puzzle: Why are jobs lagging?, Sept. 19.
The so-called experts who are wondering why there are so few jobs to be found must have pea brains. Don't they know the reason is that our industries are sending their merchandise to be made overseas as the labor is cheaper and they can obtain larger profits?
Go into any retail store and one will find hardly anything manufactured in America, but plenty from China, Indonesia, Japan and numerous other foreign countries. The reason is pure greedy profit for big business. A case in point was the closing of a textile mill in North Carolina because the owners found it was more profitable to have their fabrics made in China. As long as this sort of thing continues, there will always be massive unemployment.
Re: Experts puzzle: Why are jobs lagging?, Sept. 19.
I could save these experts lots of time and money doing research. The new jobs are going overseas and to Mexico. With companies trying to increase the bottom line by hiring cheap overseas labor, they are only cutting their own throats. People in India, China and Mexico don't buy the junk that they are making. Americans do at the cost of their own jobs.
We can't blame the people who live there. We must blame ourselves and corporate greed. What jobs we don't send elsewhere are going to illegal immigrants who will work at lower wages. I work construction and have seen things change for the worse.
No longer are experienced craftsmen hired. Instead there are half-trained workers who for the most part don't even speak English. Not only is a problem created in the construction of homes and buildings but also in on-the-job safety. We as a country must look past our pocketbooks and stock returns and get our country back on track.
Don't even think of turning to President Bush. He cares little for the working Americans, just his big profits from cheap labor and oil.
For some time we have been reading about the loss of jobs since George W. Bush became president. The number now is more than 3-million and most of them are manufacturing jobs. Those jobs paid workers $30,000 to $50,000 a year.
At the time of the president's last tax cut, he promised it would create 1.4-million new jobs. That promise has turned out to be false, just as other promises of his have. But that is another story.
There is a new dimension added to the problem, one that until recently has not been mentioned often. That is that most of those manufacturing jobs will never return. The companies that employed these workers have moved over seas. In China, a factory worker earns 55 cents an hour and dares not to agitate for more. That scenario plays out in many Asian and Third World countries.
The factories moved originally to Mexico and other Caribbean countries, but as wages there inched up they pulled stakes again for greener profit pastures.
There are a number of health care jobs available here, and some laid-off factory workers are retraining for them. The problem is that they have traded a $50,000 job for a $25,000 job. Our largest employer, Wal-Mart pays about $16,000. When the factory jobs are all gone and Wal-Mart pay is the standard for U.S. workers, how can we maintain our status as a world superpower?
Re: Richard Grasso.
I think the executives of Enron, WorldCom, etc., really do not believe that they broke the law. I think they did, but maybe they did not. Former New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso did not break any law. But most of us think something was wrong with his accepting a $140-million pay package. What did he do that was wrong?
Maybe he allowed himself to be lead beyond the point of fairness and ethical behavior. What did the Enron and WorldCom guys do? They certainly ignored any notion of fairness and ethics. They believed that the "law" was everything and on any given day, it could be interpreted differently. And on some days, the law could even be changed. America has more lawyers and lobbyists per capita than any other nation to help make this happen.
So it is not surprising that so many business executives believe they have not broken the law or breached good faith or fairness. These guys just think differently from the average person. There is truly a social disconnect.
Is there a solution? Maybe not. A few things might help. First, we could reinstall ethics and civics into our K-through-12 and college education programs. This is not a religious issue.
We could also put a common-sense indicator on how much salary a person is worth. A reasonable test of salaries in a great company might be this: If there are six levels of management and nonmanagement in the company, give the top person "X" million. Give all his reporting managers that are doing a satisfactory job, "X" less maybe 25 percent. You pick the percent. This would continue down to the lowest working level. This would demonstrate two facts. First, that everyone contributes to the success of a great company. And second, the top managers deserve more of the credit, but not thousands of times the credit of everyone else.
Re: Richard Grasso.
I find it difficult to feel sympathy for someone who believes himself to be worth $140-million. However, I do not know of many people who would turn down a bonus from the boss. I know I never did.
What I do find obscene is a system that counts such a charade as legal and a president who believes that what Richard Grasso and the members of the NYSE board really need is a tax cut.
In an early Star Trek movie, Mr. Spock says, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
In today's corporate world that has changed to, "The wants of the few outweigh the needs of the many."
Re: County ponders jump in gasoline tax, Sept. 14.
It's like deja vu all over again! The vicious circle. Raise the gas tax to finance roads and traffic control. What happens? The taxes go up and roads and traffic get worse. It seems to be a never-ending cycle.
Everybody complains about the gas-guzzlers, but nobody does anything about them. I propose that the manufacturers create SUVs only with gas-guzzling engines that won't even start on less than super high test gas. Give the yuppie overachievers what they want: giant, expensive-to-buy, expensive-to-own, expensive-to-run status symbols. A rise in gas prices and taxes would be considered a reaffirmation of their exalted status. They would love it! Maybe a usage tax: High fuel consumers would pay extra, based on their odometer readings every year when they renew their tags.
The rest of us could continue in our fuel-efficient, lightweight, needed-for-work vehicles. Burning our low-cost, low tax, environmentally friendly 87 octane gas on roads that are still being torn up by overweight vehicles that still don't pay their fair share of the maintenance costs, thanks to high-test lobbying.
Re: TECO's deal with transport unit under scrutiny, Aug. 29.
Where does it stop? Prescription drug prices out of reach. Telephone charges increasing up to 50 percent. Gasoline prices out of reach and some of the highest electric rates in the country. And now it's a shell game with Tampa Electric Co.'s pending deal with a sister subsidiary company that could increase rates more than $50-million a year.
For years TECO has toiled to build a good corporate image in the community. However, the company's refusal to address the Public Service Commission's objections with this deal threatens to destroy that image and place the company in the category of the other greed-and-profit-above-all-else companies.
In recent years electric utilities have done what they could to cloud the process they must use when meeting PSC regulations. This is another such instance, as TECO tries to circumvent a fair, open and competitive bid process while passing excess rates from one pocket to the other.
I encourage newspapers to inform their readers and for those readers to speak out against TECO and its disregard for ratepayers. State elected leaders must step up to protect citizens who are entering a twilight zone of making choices not just between drugs and food - but of those vital services necessary to just live day to day. This is especially so for those who live on small fixed incomes.
Write to Gov. Jeb Bush, Attorney General Charlie Crist and the Public Service Commission and urge them to use their power to force TECO to rebid this contract fairly, before it becomes another devastating hit on consumers.
The American Academy of Dermatology Association is concerned that your Sept. 9 story Study raises concerns on office surgery risks, on the recent study published in the September issue of Archives of Surgery may be unnecessarily alarming to patients considering office-based procedures.
The reasons for many of the serious incidents reported in the study were not addressed. Some were the result of procedures that should not be performed anywhere, specifically combination procedures such as liposuction and a tummy tuck. The AADA's policies and guidelines strongly discourage combining these types of complicated and prolonged procedures, whether they take place in a hospital, ambulatory surgery center or office. And in terms of location, the study looked at procedures usually performed in an ambulatory surgery center - thus excluding the vast number of dermatologic procedures that are performed in office settings safely every day.
Each year dermatologists safely perform millions of medical, surgical and cosmetic procedures in our offices, providing our patients with safe, convenient and cost-effective care. These procedures range from skin cancer biopsies to the latest treatments for acne, psoriasis and aging skin. Although the study did not distinguish between the types of anesthesia used in the reported procedures, the overwhelming majority of dermatologic procedures are performed safely and effectively under local anesthesia.
To ensure the safety of patients undergoing any medical, surgical and cosmetic procedure, the AADA has a number of office-based medicine policies and guidelines that protect patients including: recommending medical offices use appropriate anesthesia to ensure patient safety; requiring the reporting of adverse incidents; and making sure that doctors have equipment and plans for handling emergencies.
With reasonable policies in place, we can continue to make the benefits of office-based medicine available to patients - and our patients can be confident in the care we provide.
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