Stop inflation: Buy US savings bonds
Inflation is caused by having too much money chasing too few goods. The Fed reduces the money supply by raising interest rates, and this hurts people with credit card debt, and those buying and selling houses, among others. Instead, the Treasury should offer savings bonds and other incentives for consumers to hold onto their money, instead of spending it. This reduces the money supply in the near term, which is what’s needed to fight inflation.
The money is released back into the economy later as people cash in their savings, stimulating economic growth. Raising interest rates just takes money from people, whereas saving the money gives consumers a future benefit.
John McConnaughey
Oro Valley
TEP increasing rates, while decreasing service
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In the last few weeks our subdivision has been experiencing many electricity service interruptions from our wonderful electricity monopoly which is owned by UniSource. Several emails sent to TEP executives about this went unanswered. An email sent to the Arizona Corporation Commission regarding the matter resulted in a TEP representative contacting me. She indicated that some equipment in our area needed attention due to lack of preventative maintenance. With TEP’s increased rates equating to more revenue realized, that does not mean these funds are being used on its infrastructure or for preventative maintenance being performed. TEP’s new motto is “Pay More, Get Less.”
Max LaPlante
Southeast side
How we almost lost the republic
On Jan. 6, 2021, Congress met to certify the election of Joseph R. Biden as president of the United States. Donald Trump had invited Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to Washington to disrupt these proceedings, but the plan failed.
What if the plan had been successful? New evidence, from hard-core Trump supporters, reveals that some right-wing terrorists were held back. Apparently these insurrectionists, armed with AR-15s, body armor and explosives were waiting for Trump to signal that Pence would not accept the certified election results. Once they stormed the Capitol, Trump would proclaim martial law, and the U.S. would officially be a dictatorship.
This is how I see it. If you have another theory that explains all the evidence, I’d love to hear it. (If evidence is not your thing, and you just want to complain about “border problems” or “inflation,” please don’t respond.)
Robert Mann
Northwest side
Carbon-free crude
With the war on fossil fuels and the worry about global warming, President Biden is pursuing Saudi and Venezuelan crude and removing crude from the strategic stockpile. I wonder if those specific crudes are carbon-free. A bit two-faced, you might say.
Loyal M. Johnson Jr.
Oro Valley
Trouble accepting new golf league
The new Saudi-backed professional golf league is offering millions of dollars for players to jump to their league. I don’t begrudge players leaving the PGA to make big money, but I can’t accept this league until the Saudi’s start a Ladies LIV League.
David Jeffries
Oro Valley
Come out fighting
There are a lot of people violently upset that President Biden fist-bumped the Saudi crown prince. How dare he show that much respect to a man believed to have ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
At the start of nearly every professional boxing match, the combatants meet in the center of the ring and touch gloves to show mutual respect and an element of sportsmanship, then proceed to fight in an attempt to beat their opponent using all of their skills.
Yes, Biden started the match acknowledging the crown prince and in effect said, “Let fight begin.” From what I’ve heard and read he did pretty darn good.
Now, if we can get our elected officials to shake hands and come out fighting for the country and their constituents ...
Dave Glicksman
Northwest side
Climate change
Climate change is here. Temperatures are increasing, droughts are more common and lakes and rivers are drying up. This is not unprecedented. There was a worldwide climate change that occurred in 2200 BC, long before humans had their impact on the environment.
Our current government is trying to stop climate change. If this climate is part of a 4200 year cycle there will be no way to stop it.
I believe that we should expend our remaining time and effort preparing for climate change. We need to store food, conserve the water we have, and prepare our homes for hotter temperatures.
I believe that all this effort to prevent climate change is a waste of time, money and effort. We need to prepare for the inevitable.
Thomas Wenzel
Northeast side
Time to rotate the bench?
At the time that our Constitution was written, life expectancy in the U.S. was less than 50 years. A man appointed to the Supreme Court back then, someone highly accomplished by age 35, might serve out his lifetime appointment in just under two decades. Fast forward to today and our average life expectancy being almost 80, that same hypothetical judge might hand down decisions affecting our lives for 50 years. I didn’t let even my parents, whom I loved most dearly, interpret for that long how I should be living my life.
Wes Ward
Oro Valley
Guard against genocide
Re: the July 23 article “A recent visit to Auschwitz raises troubling questions.”
Stuart Brody, in his excellent article describing his trip to Auschwitz, asked, “Could a holocaust happen in America?”
My answer is, yes. Consider the manner in which the United States treated our indigenous population and our 4 million Black slaves and their descendants. We finally passed an anti-lynching law in 2022. We did not ratify the UN Genocide Convention, passed in 1948, until 1988.
Recently, the Texas GOP included in their platform a plank stating that gays are abnormal. In 2022, over 300 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation have been proposed.
During WWII, citizens of nations occupied by Nazi Germany collaborated in the extermination of their Jewish neighbors. The government of Croatia built its own concentration camps and killed two-thirds of the Jewish population. French police in Paris rounded up Jewish children for deportation to Auschwitz.
Is the United States different? No. We have political leaders and a segment of our population that could lead and participate in a genocide. We must be on guard.
Stuart Sellinger
Northwest side
The Trump years
Re: the July 22 letter “Trump did three years well!”
Truth demands that this letter be called out.
It was Antony, not Brutus, who observed, “The evil that men do lives after them ….” Antony used this speech to turn the rabble of Rome against the man who’d just attempted to save the republic from the Trump-like Caesar.
Likewise, many if not most people saw nothing excellent, even decent, in Donald Trump’s four-year reign. He ran the presidency criminally, like Al Capone; he attempted to coerce Ukraine into a fraudulent scheme; he fostered anti-Muslim hatred; he stuffed federal courts with conservative ideologues; he encouraged anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican and anti-Black hatred; he separated immigrant families; he caged children; he fostered a wealth-gap-widening tax package; he pretended national emergency to misdirect defense funds for his idiotic, rabble-pleasing wall; he roused the worst in American nativism.
Trust me, we have not forgotten Trump’s “excellent years,” and if there is any justice he will soon be serving jail time for them.
Jim Christ
East side
Concerned about direction of GOP
As a life-long Republican, I remain concerned about the direction of our party. While in office, Donald Trump was clearly enamored by authoritarian leaders who control their countries without the inconvenience of checks and balances or having to worry about elections. The article on July 27 regarding the visit by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban only served to further demonstrate this trend. When a major foreign political leader and member of NATO visits the U.S., they normally request meetings with administrative officials. But instead, Orban is attending a conference of conservative activists in Dallas which will include Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene who seem to welcome his anti-democratic views. With the acceptance of the “big lie” by most registered Republicans, coupled with the likely outcome of the mid-terms, and the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, things are not looking good for future elections and the peaceful transfer of power. Wake up fellow Republicans and let’s find candidates who truly represent the values we have embraced for over 150 years.
Don Davis
East side
