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By Times Staff
Published January 13, 2008

Senate gets in line to grill insurers Jan. 11

Competition needs to be encouraged

The story about the Florida Senate's efforts to chastise insurance providers for not sufficiently lowering insurance rates in an attempt by the Senate to lay the blame for high insurance rates on insurers alone. This is misguided and unfair. The state government also shares culpability.

The mechanisms under which insurance rates are determined are set by individual states. The goal of a state when determining insurance rates should be eliminating procedural barriers and encouraging competition whenever possible. Florida has a challenging and dynamic insurance market that could benefit from an infusion of new companies and innovative ideas. But Florida's rate-regulation system stifles the ability of insurers to react to market forces, creating an environment unfriendly to business, which discourages providers from setting up shop instate.

The Senate's aggressive stance is simply alienating insurers and guaranteeing the insurance environment in Florida will remain unfriendly. Competition should be welcomed, not stifled. The end result will be a more responsive market with more options and lower costs for consumers. The benefits of competition should not be underestimated.

Matthew Glans, Chicago

Legislative specialist for the Heartland Institute, a group that promotes free-market solutions to problems

Florida, it's time for a new message, column Dec. 30

Maybe it's time to stop growing

I wonder, Mr. Trigaux, if it isn't time for Florida to stop trying to grow. We are beyond the limits for the available freshwater already, trying to desalinate which will hurt the bay somewhat and have sucked the aquifer under Pasco County dry to the point of collapsing strata. Public services are hard-pressed to provide adequately, and the needs exist for yet more public services.

Is there a way to shrink the overall population and stabilize the commercial operations? There must exist a formula to establish a population figure and its needs for public services without straining budgets.

Tourism is a pretty good income generator, but condominiums are not, except to the developer. Were they erecting office buildings or technical service/work areas, the existing population would find work, perhaps. Heavy industry is probably out because of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) feelings, which will surely grow as we continue to overpopulate.

I realize the magic phrase has been "grow, grow" for years, but I wonder if that's the smart thing to do. I feel we've overdone it already, but that's just me. Honestly, it's not just being old and crabby, but nothing about Florida is as nice as it once was. Why visit the wonderful beaches if you have to sit behind a condo or pay killer prices for waterfront lodging?

Max R. Loick, St. Petersburg

Hourly rate will grow by 12 cents Dec. 29

Rich get richer, laughing along

There must be great joy among the minimum wage earners. After all, they got a 12-cent per hour increase. After eight hours work, it might not even be enough to buy a soda out of a soda machine. But then who cares?

I quote from the Business section of the St. Petersburg Times, dated April 10, 2007: "Corporate paydays that boggle the mind." Charles Jenkins Jr., Publix Supermarkets, 2006 pay per hour $438.84. Poor guy compared to the rest. Phillip Humann, SunTrust Banks, 2006 pay per hour $2,886.28. And let's not forget Ray Irani, Occidental Petroleum, 2006 pay per hour, $26,730.78. They are all laughing all the way to the bank.

Only in America. The rich are getting richer and the h--- with the poor.

Phillip L. Gans, Clearwater

Campus on the computer Jan. 5

Internet becoming a boon for education

This article was excellent and certainly on target regarding the future of online courses. Our real estate school starting providing online courses July of 2004, but what is really exciting is a new concept called "OpenCourseWare" coined by MIT that makes available by video streaming the course(s) for students to view for free. The Internet's ability to bring education to the general public in the next 10 years is going to be nothing but phenomenal.

Frank Cooke, St. Petersburg

Cooke Real Estate School

Publix reaches into worker's pocket again, letter Jan. 6

Grocer should allow you to tip

The employees who bag groceries and help you get them to your car are forbidden from taking tips at Publix. We have never checked their salary rates, but are reasonably sure that they are not paid a great deal of money. Just before Christmas we offered a very polite, courteous employee $5 and told him it was a Christmas present. He said that his manager told him that if he took money from customers he would be fired. We always tip when services are provided. We think that the Publix grocery store policy is ridiculous. If we want to provide a tip, there should not be a rule against it.

Elizabeth and Herbert Eimerman, Inverness

Customers need to say no to Publix

My wife and I had been regular customers of Publix for more than40 years. In the past year, we rarely shop there anymore. Their prices are 20 to 30 percent higher than Super Wal-Mart and Winn-Dixie. The color ads that Publix runs in the local newspapers several times a week has to be paid by someone. Who might that be?

Here's who: workers like Joan B. McKee-Szues, who wrote last Sunday's letter, and the current customers who continue to shop at Publix regardless of what they have to pay. The consumer public needs to wake up and stop shopping at Publix stores. As soon as upper management sees their gross sales dwindle and dedicated workers quit due to their already low wages being continuously slashed, maybe they will come to their senses and treat everyone in a fair and decent manner.

Joe Torregiante, Tarpon Springs

Gauging the economy

GOP thinking puts country in a hole

For the life of me, I can't figure the strategy of the Republicans to think that cutting the taxes for the top 7 percent will stimulate the economy better than helping the bottom 93 percent. The Republicans cut the taxes under Reagan and Bush and ran the deficit way up, thinking of a "trickle down" effect. Well, the economy will pick up with the "trickle up" effect.

Donald F. Kelly, St. Petersburg

Doctor combats pull of drug reps Dec. 27

Doctors' ethics shouldn't be for sale

Thanks to Dr. Orlowski for his ethical stand, and the Times for printing this story. I'm reminded of visiting the home of a psychiatric nurse in Clearwater. She had a coffee cup that carried the name of a heavily pushed antidepressant. Your readers should add psychiatric institutions to the list of health care personnel who are in an unethical relationship with, and unduly influenced by, pharmaceutical companies.

Rick Schott, Torrance, Calif.

The cost of living, now and then Jan. 7

Was income in '70s right?

I believe the $42,450 figure that Becky Bowers used in her article is way too high for the early 1970s. In those years, I was a branch manager for IBM with a well-paid group of salesmen. They would have liked making that much. Could she have used income for the early 1980s, or have used the dual-income instead of the single-income?

George N. Proctor Jr., Oldsmar

Editor's note: Harvard's Elizabeth Warren offers for comparison the income of an average family in the early 1970s. The confusion may set in with the adjustment for inflation. We displayed the comparison, as she did, in recent dollars. If we had used 1970s dollars, the '70s family would have made about $9,000. Does that better fit your memory?

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[Last modified January 11, 2008, 21:55:26]