Letters to the editor for Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014

Working wage has steadily declined

I have questions for Ron Knecht and every other starry-eyed free market pitchman out there — in 1980 my father earned $100 a day producing cedar roofing shingles; where today can a simple man perform a simple manufacturing skill, earn equivalent money and be home with his family every night? But that’s the point.

Since the late seventies, the working wage has steadily declined, relative to the cost of living index, while corporate profits continue to grow.

Your free market is a myth. You tell us a fairy-tale. This is the world of big-box retail and offshore manufacturing at cents on the dollar of corporate monopolists and other money mongers who fix the markets.

It has been a slow, steady plundering of the world’s wealth which has brought us to where there is a small elite who rule. While in this country, there is the smallest participation rate in our history. More people on welfare, disability, more unemployed, under employed, homeless or in prison than ever.

Now I agree. Taxation is not the answer. That only puts more money in the hands of government to misappropriate. But what do you suggest we do to return some economic equity to the landscape, other than ignore a problem exists?

Kelly Jones

Carson City

No rubber bands on newspapers, please

Do you know what I would like for a New Year’s resolution? No more rubber bands placed very tightly on my newspapers that are delivered in Washoe Valley. When it rains, the problem is compounded; sometimes, skinny, wet newspapers with rubber bands very tightly around them. After I cut the rubber bands off, lay the individual pages of the papers to dry in my living room, I wonder, why are those bands so important?

I really like it when the papers come just folded with no bands on them. Why can’t they be delivered that way all of the time?

Nancy Laird

Washoe Valley