Losses Try Investors’ Faith in Market
This stock market is like your worst hangover: You’re kicking yourself for being so stupid and your savings are gone.
After the “irrational exuberance” of the ‘90s, we are paying dearly for our fun. WorldCom Inc. is just the last straw. Not only have I lost money personally, I now find my pension company also had a lot of that stock.
People like me are never going to have faith in the market again unless these CEOs, CFOs and boards of directors are forced to give back the money they have stolen. It’s fine to tighten regulations on accounting firms, but those executives will feel no pain unless they have to return the money. They had exorbitant salaries and stock options that made them millions before the truth was found out about their companies.
Congress is a lot to blame for what has happened. They took millions from accounting lobbyists while keeping the Securities and Exchange Commission from enforcing regulations. Now they say they are shocked.
The only way for the market to regain people’s trust is for the money to be given back to employees, pensioners and shareholders. Otherwise, employees won’t agree to have their 401(k)s invested in it. At least when you buy a CD from an FDIC bank, you end up with what you put in, and that sounds like a pretty good deal. Jeanne H. Manning
Laguna Woods
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Massive stock market losses amounting to more than $6.5 trillion in recent years were not primarily the result of corporate fraud and accounting dirty tricks.
Sadly, they were the inevitable byproduct of unprecedented investor greed and stupidity, magnified by unrestrained optimism on the part of an excessively promotional Wall Street establishment shamelessly hyping overvalued stocks at their peak and a largely passive Federal Reserve that piously professed concern but did nothing to stem the speculative madness.
If history runs true to form, investors will have two decades or more to contemplate the damage done by their reckless disregard of risk. We’re in a weak recovery with puny profits and stock price indexes closer to valuation levels normally associated with bull market tops, not bear market bottoms.
Anthony Dent
Los Angeles
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Executive Malfeasance Causes More Damage
When is the trashing of many peoples’ savings, the loss of thousands of jobs and the imposition of billions of dollars of debt upon taxpayers merely an indiscretion [“More Time for Executive Crime,” July 13]?
When it’s criminal behavior in the executive suite, of course. When will the establishment concede that the damage caused by these criminals is far worse than that caused by many, if not most, of the three-strikes lifers?
Lewis H. Cohen
Riverside
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Jackson’s Woes Have Nothing to Do With Race
Pity poor Michael Jackson [“Power, Money Behind Jackson’s Attack on Sony, Insiders Say,” July 9]. It is sad to see how far the mighty pop star has fallen, but even worse to witness his reaction to his own demise. Jackson’s depiction of Sony Music Chairman Thomas D. Mottola as an evil, devilish racist is a desperate attempt to stay relevant, but at the expense of his own dignity.
It’s time for Jackson to stop playing the race card and just admit the truth: His time has passed. It’s time to move on.
Darrin Mariott
Santa Monica
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As a black person, my first reaction to hearing Michael Jackson singing the racism refrain of “the white man trying to keep the black man down” was, which one is Jackson? Tommy Mottola is at least five shades darker than Jackson and Jackson probably is five times wealthier. I mean come on, Michael Jackson playing the race card?
Now that’s a switch that even Jackson’s plastic surgeon will have a hard time performing.
Rene Hicks
Los Angeles
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These Aren’t the Good Old Pre-Union Days
During the management tour of the unnamed shipping facility, industry consultant Frank Hanley “chuckled and shook his head” when at 11:30 a.m., the “noisy, outsized and frenetic” work scene ceased for lunch. According to “Making Waves on the Waterfront” [June 30], he “couldn’t have asked for a better demonstration of the union’s power.”
What’s with the chuckle and the shaking of the head? What is he implying here? Is he opposed to these union members taking a lunch hour? Are they supposed to wait until “work slows down” before they have a meal? Why would it be a problem if they all took lunch at the same time? Lunch breaks are not a job perk.
This is not the pre-labor union days of the Industrial Revolution, where outhouse (a luxury) breaks and meals were nonexistent.
Wendy J. Salaya
Long Beach
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Homeowners Could Rely on Props. 60, 90
“Sellers Market Tightens as Homeowners Won’t Let Go” [July 7] pointed out that many homeowners are wary of selling properties with a pre-Proposition 13 assessment and then finding themselves paying higher taxes on a replacement property. That’s something to consider.
But it should be noted that Proposition 60 (and the lesser-used Proposition 90 involving moving to another county) does allow homeowners 55 or older a one-time purchase that could result in the transfer of a Proposition 13 value from one property to another without an increase in taxes.
Information about these propositions can be obtained by logging on to our Web site at assessor.co.la .ca.us and accessing the Property Owners Overview Section, by calling toll-free to (888) 807-2111 or by visiting any of our offices to obtain the Senior Citizens Replacement Dwelling Benefit brochure.
Rick Auerbach
County Assessor
Los Angeles
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Chrysler Needs More Than a Warranty
Re: “Chrysler to Offer 7-Year, 70,000-Mile Warranty,” July 8.
I wish them luck.
I have a ’99 Chrysler Town & Country with about 22,000 miles on it--my third Chrysler minivan since 1985. A couple of months ago, the transmission started acting up and I took it in to the dealer.
They ended up having to replace most of the innards of the transmission. The 3/36 warranty had expired about a month earlier. Fortunately, I had purchased a service contract and I was out only the $100 deductible. When I wrote to Chrysler about the situation, they sent a form letter back saying how sorry they were that I was unhappy with the car and they’d forward my letter to somewhere within the bowels of the corporation.
My previous car was a ’92 Dodge Caravan with a 7/70 warranty. At about 74,000 miles the transmission went out during a trip. Fortunately, I was able to leave the car with a Dodge dealer and rent a car for the rest of the trip.
When I wrote to Chrysler, they refunded about one-half of the cost of the replacement transmission, since I had evidence of earlier problems.
I do hope that Chrysler will be able to actually improve its reliability, but I doubt whether I’ll be buying another Chrysler product.
Richard Kinz
Atascadero, Calif.
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Technology Can Miss the Connection
I couldn’t agree more with Chris Borden [“Fewer Cell Phones Could Be a Good Thing,” Letters, July 14].
My husband and I are among the millions of normal Americans who refuse to own a cell phone to feel connected. We connect by talking to real people face to face by attending many community events and being out in the world.
It is our feeling that many of these electronic conveniences really isolate people from one another. It is possible for one to totally avoid personal contact by communicating only via cell phones, e-mail, voice mail, Internet shopping, etc. Is this really being “connected”?
Cindy Carlburg
Altadena
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