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Sunday, March 27, 2011
LETTERS
Dekom Did Well With Investments
(Hollywood entertainment lawyer and former State Investment Council consultant) Peter Dekom ran the most successful investment program in New Mexico this century. In the period of time this portfolio was lending, he preserved 100 percent of the capital that was entrusted to him and brought in enough money to pay most of the costs of the program.
During the same time frame, the other state investments lost an average of 30 percent with our entire portfolio down over 50 percent at one point. We are told that if we had just put this money in Treasury (bills) we would have made $30 million. How about the rest of the money? We would have made $5 billion rather than losing $6 billion. Hindsight is always 20/20.
We paid millions to salespeople, advisers and fund managers to lose our money, almost all of which created no jobs or economic activity in New Mexico. We bought out-of-state and international investments that actually put money into our competitors for jobs and development.
Peter never invested one penny out-of-state, and most brought in multiple additional dollars.
Outside of the film program, we failed in our fundamental mission of preserving capital and providing a return to the state. Peter created jobs in Las Vegas, N.M., Carrizozo, Taos and Tularosa and an industry in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
His high profile, sage advice and salesmanship brought many, many pictures and TV series that did not use the loan program to New Mexico.
We will miss his counsel, his expertise and his candor. He never steered us wrong. I personally will miss his wit and mischief. We can only hope that one of our close competitors doesn't seize his talent.
JOHN HENDRY
Santa Fe
Editor's note: Hendry is business agent for the local Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union.
Myth About Unions Busted by Texas
If public sector unions are driving us into poverty, why does Texas, where those unions are illegal, have one of the nation's largest deficits, the unhealthiest children, the highest illiteracy rate, the highest unmarried teen pregnancy and the most millionaires per capita?
I'm no genius, but I can figure that out.
ROBERT BARRY
Questa
Global Warming A Disaster To Come
John Fleck's March 22 article on global warming reports Sandia's researchers found "in the distant future ... there's a real risk ... increasing greenhouse gases could make things a lot worse." They —"Birkenstock-wearing hippies" aside — apparently haven't exited their cave.
Already, for example, gull chicks on Scottish isles died because fish moved north due to the warmer ocean, and Australian ranchers lost livelihoods due to drought.
A large majority of climate experts see the risk of not reducing carbon dioxide emissions to be a severe drought here in only a few decades and the demise of most humans this century, not just "7 million lost jobs by 2050."
Sandia's report is a blatant apology for continued fossil fuel burning. That Sandia "applied the same risk-assessment tools used in the national security community" makes me want to duck and cover right now. Clearly, we are not getting our money's worth from Sandia and national security research.
JOHN OTTER
Santa Fe
For Job Growth, Capitalism Is Hope
IN HIS OTHERWISE admirable commentary, "Cast Off Chains of Oppression," Guy Watson cites unions, workers' struggle and class war. He names capitalism and fascism, but he coyly defers to give a name to his own view.
What is this ideology that must not be named?
Even communist China now acknowledges that capitalism — aka job growth — is the only way to give the hope of upward mobility to the greatest numbers of its people. What's stopping the old academic left from acknowledging the same?
Rather than academically debating tired old phrases like "class war," the bottom line is unless job growth meets or exceeds population growth, life is grim for the unemployed. Their numbers, misery and unrest can only grow and grow and grow.
That circumstance describes our nation today. Today's "new normal" only gets grimmer faster and faster for the coming generations that must pay for the electoral fantasies of the preceding ones — the greatest generation and the boomers — whose retirement, medical, and job security benefits were made unsustainable by paleo-progressive overreach.
Instead of doing the math to make benefits sustainable, paleo-progressives — Democrats and Republicans alike — have used the promises of public goodies to win votes from the vulnerable. The great crime is not that we all wish to help the unfortunate among us. The crime against humanity is to use that wish to make promises that cannot be sustained, to get elected and to gain power today, then to kick the can of fiscal reckoning into tomorrow.
It's time for a new game plan. It is time that the adjective "liberal" be put to use again to describe capitalism.
It is time for conservative neo-progressives — those who can do math and who can name things confidently — to reverse simple-minded socialist blithering. We must fuse the strengths of capitalism, the American dream and inalienable rights, with the core ideals of universal morals: To love our neighbors and to help those who are in need.
Cutting government spending is admirable, but it is hardly the winning strategy for America. Republicans and the Tea Party are not working sufficiently hard on America's No. 1 problem: jobs. Instead they're doing what all politicians are comfortable doing: arguing over how to spend other people's money.
The winning strategy is to lift as many people out of poverty as possible by fostering plentiful and safe jobs, then turning to regain fiscal independence and engineering the proper balance between sustainable social benefits and sustainable business growth.
Just never, ever again do it in a way that bankrupts society.
STEVE STRINGER
Los Alamos
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