Re: Political arrogance

The arrogance of public officials when police are involved is well-documented. Mayor Santini would be well- advised to give the same attention to making long-overdue improvements in Condado as he does to interfering with police trying to do their job. Now he wants a full-blown investigation at taxpayers’ expense. Give us a break, Mayor.

We have more pressing problems in Condado that have been unattended to for decades — rotten bus service, pot holes, crumbling sidewalks, insufficient street lighting, drug addicts on every corner, dozens of homeless competing with the addicts and sleeping in the public parks, shop lifting and assorted other crimes. And all of this in the major tourist zone of the capital! Let the police do their job. You do yours!

Disgusted,

Myron Herrick
from Condado on Nov. 4

Where free enterprise is unconscionable

What’s wrong with marketplace medicine — beyond the wealthy get the best — is that doctors and hospitals manipulate diagnostics and treatments to maximize profits, it’s like any other business. Only it’s arcane, they know all the ins and outs and you’re terrified of what may happen if you have the audacity to haggle with or second-guess them.

Say you’re diagnosed vitiligo. It can be cleverly and cheaply covered up with makeup, skin bleachers if you’re light-skinned or darkeners if you’re not or you like to go to the beach a lot.

But a dermatologist will sell you on UV sessions, getting a lot of sun and special pills, expensive but marginally effective. You probably won’t read the insert or won’t know enough med jargon to understand, but it reads that with use of the product you have to be monitored for skin cancer. What it’s saying is that that’s where the treatment will probably land you, especially since the vitiligo itself has already opened patches of UV-unprotected dermis, all to the glee of the good doctor who’ll then really make a killing. No, he won’t warn you — you don’t believe me, ask around — but he’ll be checking you for it.

The essence of capitalism is allowing every trick in the book to make a buck. But that’s out of place when your very life is at stake.

Danilo Alvarez
from Hato Rey on Nov. 5

Not to worry

Civic leaders, union leaders and the political opponents of the present administration, and even some members of the same political party as Governor Fortuño, have all been crying “Foul!” and “For shame!” at the firing of tens of thousands of government workers. But everyone knows this drastic action is being undertaken in order to slash the budget to the bone, providing only for such bare essentials as the salaries, the per diems, the SUVs and the chauffeurs of the legislators, not to mention the very expensive professional advice the legislators and the administration must have available night and day for them to fulfill their obligation to the people.

To be fair, it should also be noted no one in the government, no one in the public unions, no one in authority has ever cried anything but “Tsk, tsk, tsk” at the negative numbers published year after year after year that show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the chronic operational deficit has not been diminishing but instead growing by leaps and bounds. Today, the deficit is considered dangerous enough to swallow whole the entire island unless thousands of jobs are sacrificed before Christmas.

Mercifully, alternatives to the bitter solution of layoffs abound. Senator Eder Ortiz calculates that if government employees work only 30 minutes less each day, and that is reflected in their pay, then the government could save an astonishing $435 million in just one year (27 Sept., page 3).

Ortiz does not specify the number of workers whose sacrifice she estimates will be so productive, but according to the computations of Professor Yolanda Cordero Nieves, if only 120,000 of the total government work force chose to work two days a month for free, then the government would save $367 million, but in two years, not one (10 Oct., page 4). Those sums, however, even when combined, pale in comparison to the $3.4 billion that stalwart socialists and former governor Carlos Romero Barceló (1977-1985) claim could have been collected just last year alone from the foreign corporations, the CFCs, by raising taxes on earnings from the presently anemic 2-3 percent to a more equitable but problematical 10 percent (3 Oct., page 3).

Reports of that salvational $3.4 billion coincide with persistent rumors that there is yet another considerable fortune, $3.5 billion, loafing about in the form of uncollected taxes that date back to the era when Christopher Columbus failed to pay the IVU on his crew’s bar tab, although he claims he did and has the receipts to prove it from his Gold Isabella Card (Oct. 12, Local News).

These “Billionaire Brothers,” one from uncollected taxes, the other from untaxed earnings, will simply have to wait their turn, however, because former governor Aníbal Acevedo Víla (2005-2009) has been urgently insisting that something in the neighborhood of $3 to $4 billion could quite, quite easily be squeezed from the fruit on the electronic lottery trees, if only he had been allowed to plant them (Nov. 4, page 4).

Obviously, with so much help on the way, the days of that pathetic $3.2 billion deficit are numbered. And then, after the deficit has been completely overwhelmed, surrendering with dignity, and the credit and credibility of the government have been restored, consider the further restorations likely to occur when someone gains office in 2012 like former governor Síla Calderón (2001-2005).

In four years she reinvented the need for nearly 30,000 new government employees, about the same number of jobs her predecessor had eliminated in his eight years. That probably means the deficit would be restored, too, but, given the resources of the people to come up with surprise endings to tragic plots, I wouldn’t worry about it.

Steven Greenia
from Rio Piedras on Nov. 5

What do these 3 men have in common?

‘Trickle Down Economics’

Last Thursday at the Fine Arts Popular Center, I saw the first showing in Puerto Rico of “Capitalism: A Love Story.” I urge every Puerto Rican to see this movie. It will open your mind to what is happening to Puerto Rico under Republican-New Progressive Party Governor Luis Fortuño and his special interests cohorts. Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Luis Fortuño have a lot in common. They believe in the failed policy of “Trickle Down Economics” which created the economic mess in the United States and is now being practiced full steam ahead by Governor Luis Fortuño in Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans are falling for Fortuño’s con to break the unions and give away Puerto Rico’s government to private interests of which many are actually under foreign ownership as is Capeco.

“Capitalism: A Love Story” is the handwriting on the wall warning all Puerto Ricans to learn the facts before taking harmful action.
Quoting Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, on the internet: “Capitalism: A Love Story” is a 2009 American documentary film directed by and starring Michael Moore. The film centers on the financial crisis of 2007-2009 and the recovery stimulus, while putting forward an indictment of the current economic order in the United States and capitalism in general. Topics covered include Wall Street’s “casino mentality,” for-profit prisons, Goldman Sachs’ influence in Washington, D.C., the poverty-level of many airline pilots, the large wave of home foreclosures, and the consequences of “runaway greed.” The film also features a religious component where Moore examines whether or not capitalism is a sin and if Jesus would be a capitalist. The film alternates between a fierce critique of the status quo, personal portraits of the suffering caused by the recent economic crisis, and comical social satire.

Puerto Rico is not the only place where religious leaders are involved in economic political issues. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Detroit actually said that capitalism has become an evil. Many other stateside religious leaders — many of whom are conservative — feel that capitalism has become sinful. At one time capitalism was a wonderful system which made the United States a healthy economic nation. It was predicated on helping the middle class. During Ronald Reagan’s Republican Administration the greed set in. The rich wanted to be super, super rich at the expense of the middle and lower classes. The hard working Americans in the middle and lower economic classes were denied their basic economic opportunities and security. The governing idea was to give outrageous tax benefits and other economic benefits to the super rich and the corporations without regard for the middle class. Main Street once decided programs for the national government. Now it was Wall Street bankers in control. Behind the scenes, Wall Street took control of our government. Jobs were outsourced to foreign countries and many cities in the industrial sections of the Unites States became rust belts.
The movie outraged me as I viewed scenes of employers secretly buying life insurance on employees. These were known as “dead peasant insurance” policies. There are archival footage of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt calling for a Second Bill of Rights that would guarantee all Americans “a useful job, a decent home, adequate health care, and a good education.” The same special interest tried to do the same con on the middle and lower classes during the Great Depression that is being done today in the United States and Puerto Rico. FDR put a quick stop to it. Unfortunately, President George W. Bush continued a faster and greater pace President Ronald Reagan’s “Trickle Down Economics” which made the super rich even richer at the expense of the middle class which was once the backbone of our economy and social well-being as a world leader.

“Capitalism: A Love Story” ends on a note of hope and positive change. We see scenes of President Barack Obama campaigning for President of the United States with large cheering crowds attending his rallies. Finally, we realized that there is hope for the middle class and all working people when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States by a super majority in the Presidential Election of 2008. We knew that “Happy Days are here again!”

An unusual thing happened at the Fine Arts Popular Center as I was exiting the theater. A large group of responsible, middle class Puerto Ricans did not want to leave the theatre. They wanted to discuss “Capitalism: A Love Story” with follow Puerto Ricans and an Upfront Yankee like me. These were mostly educated, professional, middle class Puerto Ricans. They all commented that it is great that President Barack Obama was elected in the United States to save the middle class and America’s true leadership values. They all concluded that Luis Fortuño is the complete opposite of Obama. He is more like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush — even worse!

Robert McCarroll
from Carolina on Nov. 5