Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.
USPS service is
dwindling in East Bay
We live in west Dublin and our mail is sorted and delivered from the San Ramon Post Office on Alcosta Boulevard.
Recently, when our outstanding mail carrier has been off, we have not received our mail. We received no mail today, Dec. 20, nor yesterday, Dec. 19. Our USPS daily notifications inform us via email what will arrive. The same happened on a day about 1 1/2 weeks ago when he was off.
Our carrier said he will be off with his family between Christmas and New Year’s, so will we not receive any mail at all for over a week? One wonders what the problem with the San Ramon Post Office management is that they cannot cover the carriers who are out. Or is the problem with the Postmaster General in Washington D.C.? It’s ridiculous — postage rates increase and service decreases to zero.
Ramona Krausnick
Dublin
Support libraries’
community mission
Congratulations to the Friends of the Pleasant Hill Library Group that led the effort to pass a city sales tax for a new facility. Libraries have been doing more than just lending books for many years. Alameda County Public Library for example has been doing so many activities under the following four strategic areas:
1. Innovation and cultivation;
2. Justice, equity, diversity and inclusion;
3. Civic participation;
4. Healthy families, healthy homes.
These activities include feeding hungry kids, youth activities and providing seed kits. It even includes tutoring at Camp Wilmont Sweeney, a compulsory minimum-security residential program for incarcerated young men ranging in age from 15 to 19.
Libraries have touched our lives right from our elementary school days. Let us support them for the rest of our lives.
Subru Bhat
Union City
Media must report
truth on Biden’s laptop
Re. “Where’s the outrage over Hunter Biden’s laptop abomination,” Page A13, Dec. 11:
Recently you published two letters attacking Thiessen’s op-ed that called out the suppression of the New York Post report about the emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop that suggested improper influence-peddling on behalf of Burisma, the Ukrainian company on whose board he sat. Apparently, the timing of the report, a month before the 2020 election, motivated the mainstream media to suppress and dismiss this story as “Russian disinformation” to protect Biden. Instead of smearing Thiessen for his opinions, it should be acknowledged that the FBI investigation of the laptop found its contents to be apparently genuine. Further investigation is clearly warranted.
While Trump was impeached for his chicanery in Ukraine, the mainstream media did our democracy a great disservice by suppressing reports of the Bidens’ questionable behavior in Ukraine, as opined by Marc Thiessen. The truth can only emerge if competing views are allowed to be presented to the public.
Michael Dunlap
Oakland
Lower interest rates
to grow production
As I understand economics, prices inflate because the demand for things exceeds the supply. So, how to increase the supply of goods? Get investors to invest in more production, and hire more workers. How to incentivize investors? Lower interest rates so they can borrow affordably.
Why is the Federal Reserve raising interest rates? Aren’t they doing the exact opposite to cure inflation? Some believe that lowering interest rates enables consumers to buy more stuff which increases demand over supply. So, lowering interest rates must be targeted exclusively to increasing production, not increasing consumption. Banks can do that if they get directed to from the Federal Reserve. The Fed must tie lower interest rates to investments in farms, factories and businesses.
If the Fed can’t do that, then Congress must step in. The interest rate hikes are leading us toward recession.
Bruce Joffe
Piedmont
Free programs are
anything but free
Words have meaning.
So, I wish people would use them correctly. Free day care, free college, free breakfast and lunch for public school children, and a movement for free public transportation are all grossly inaccurate as they are obviously expensive programs.
Subsidized, tax-funded or a similar term would convey the reality. They are only free for nontaxpayers, and I doubt there are any in California as everyone is subject to the sales tax
Additionally, most people seem of the view that the government never did anything right; yet they continue to support these not-so-free government programs.
Reminds me of the, “Get the Government Out of My Life” folks who immediately ask, “Where was the government?” if they get bad spinach, a flight delay or many other daily disruptions we experience.
Probably some of the same folks drawing salaries or wages from a free program.
Jim Kenna
Brentwood
Source: www.mercurynews.com