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Silicon Valley Bank
unworthy of bailout
Silicon Valley Bank does not warrant a bailout. Tech startups and VCs trying to make their buck aren’t critical to our societal well-being.
The failure of SVB has shown the weakness of the overpromising, razzle-dazzle tech sector that has been flaunting sane market fundamentals for years with excessive speculation funded by cheap credit, continuous investment and hope. The people who have lost out in the SVB collapse are wealthy, speculative, selfish and short-sighted, and I don’t believe any of them deserve sympathy for their losses; those losses are lessons for them to learn from.
Tech needs this correction to start to rein itself in, and that includes the investor class that’s been wildly pumping it for years.
Mathew Clark
Campbell
Los Gatos should tap
local talent to fix deficit
Re. “Projected annual budget deficit grows by $1 million” (Page B7, March 5).
Yet another story about Los Gatos’ massive annual deficits, yet another story, unfortunately, lacking evidence of any serious consideration of cuts to nonessential services, reductions in subsidies to noncritical activities, or the merger or consolidation of service units.
Indeed, a story about one month ago on the Town’s Priority Setting indicates it is headed in the opposite direction. It is troubling, too, that these stories continue to portray the legalization of cannabis stores within the town’s boundaries as a panacea. There is no definitive evidence they would bring in the claimed amounts, which often neglect associated expenses.
Regarding revenue, a quick look at the town’s budget makes clear the town’s two major revenue sources are property and sales taxes. It’s time to take advantage of the business/accounting experience on the Town Council and thoughtful people on town advisory bodies to develop some creative ideas to boost these two revenue sources.
Jean-Marc Blanchard
Los Gatos
Play reflects women
reclaiming their stories
Thank you for your preview of the terrific musical “Six” (“Angry, crooning queens,” Page G3, Feb. 16).
We saw “Six” at the Orpheum Theatre and loved it. The irresistible title track had half the audience singing along, including our children. Our 13-year-old son, Sammy, also enjoyed the techno-inspired song “Haus of Holbein,” while the emotional apex of the play, Jane Seymour’s powerful ballad “Heart of Stone,” moved our 10-year-old daughter, Sophie, to tears.
In between, the various songs and imagined colorful exchanges between Henry VIII’s queens offered not only an engaging history lesson on the reign of the most famous king of the Tudor dynasty but also an insightful perspective on what these women endured beyond their respective fates as royal wives, with resonance for women today seeking to reclaim their own stories.
Shoshana and Stephen A. Silver
San Francisco
Hydrogen cars key
to hitting climate goals
As the owner of a 2022 hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai, I strongly endorse columnist George Skelton’s plea for more state investment in hydrogen infrastructure in California (“Hydrogen cars should be bigger part of state’s future,” Page A7, March 3).
Hydrogen cars use onboard fuel cells to generate their own electrical power. No recharging is ever needed. Fill-ups take five minutes and provide 350-400 miles of quiet, emission-free range. While nominal fuel cost per mile is roughly 2 times the cost of gasoline (not 4 times as implied in Skelton’s column), buyers of new fuel-cell cars currently pay nothing at all for fuel for up to six years (courtesy of dealer-supplied prepaid fuel cards) and incur very low operating and maintenance costs.
If the state is serious about meeting its zero-emission goals without overtaxing the electrical grid, it should promote the rapid conversion of gas pumps to hydrogen pumps all over the state.
Roy Verley
San Jose
Incremental time change
easier to tolerate
As we again adjust to the one-hour daylight saving time change, the debate continues whether we should move the clocks at all during the year.
There are plenty of advantages to having the “extra” hour of daylight after work or school during outdoor-friendly summer months balanced with the desire for most commuters and students to leave the house after daybreak in the winter months. The main rub comes from the sudden, one-hour time change that is enough to impact sleep patterns and morning alertness.
I propose on the first day of every month we adjust the clocks by 10 minutes: forward 10 minutes each month March through August and backward 10 minutes September through February. This incremental change should be much better tolerated.
Eric Johnson
San Jose
Source: www.mercurynews.com