Goode, job loss, Chatham E.S., the financial crisis, uranium mining and leadership gaps

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: October 1, 2008

Goode kept the doors open

To the editor:

As the result of significant hard work by U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode, debtors in financial distress, their creditors, business owners in this area and their attorneys will no longer have to travel to Roanoke for “First Meeting of Creditors” hearings in bankruptcy cases. Thanks to Goode’s efforts, these hearings will be held in the terminal building at Danville Regional Airport after a year of having been transferred from Danville to Roanoke.

The creditor’s meeting, like the U.S. District and Bankruptcy courts, serve the citizens of Danville and Martinsville, and the counties of Pittsylvania, Halifax, Henry and Patrick. When held in Danville, they increase the statistical utilization of the Danville federal courts and thus help protect Southside’s only federal court system which was threatened — as reported in this newspaper’s articles on March 23 and Sept. 13.

Citizens in the affected areas owe a vote of confidence to Congressman Goode for his careful scrutiny and investigation of maintaining our federal courts, thus protecting us from bureaucratic robbery.

LEWIS E. GOODMAN JR.

To the editor:

Why does Washington continue to reward companies that invest abroad? Because our tax code actually encourages companies to do business in places like Mexico, China and India. This sticks the rest of us with a higher tax bill.

The government taxes the worldwide earnings of U.S.-based companies. But under the federal tax code, American companies have to pay taxes only on the earnings of their foreign subsidiaries when they bring that money back to the states. Currently, there is no rule saying those companies have to bring that money home as long as they reinvest their foreign earnings abroad. They pay only the host countries’ tax rate. That’s what you would call a big-fat loophole — and big business finds a loophole like water finds a leak.

Many companies just plow the money they make overseas back into their foreign operations.

According to a 2006 government report, U.S. companies have nearly $500 billion stashed abroad that could be taxed here at home. The Senate and Congress have made tax laws that reward companies that invest abroad. The American workers are subsidizing their own job losses through taxes.

WALTER F. PAYNE

To the editor:

Some months ago, I was intrigued by an article I read in the AARP Bulletin. The article described a school in Vermont that had been transformed into housing for the elderly.

Because the school was on the Historic Register, certain features had to be preserved. The old chalkboards and lockers had been retained to preserve the history. The article pointed out how grandchildren enjoyed the chalkboards when they visited grandma. The cafeteria was converted into a dining hall.

Converting school houses into apartments for elderly citizens is occurring all over the country. One builder stated, “What is unique is that we are using tax credits to do the equity portion.”

Chatham Elementary School has been vacant for a number of years. It is located in a residential area surrounded by lovely historic homes. I am writing this letter to suggest consideration of this option by the town of Chatham.

CAROLINE H. SPRADLIN

To the editor:

These are perilous times in our country and around the world. If the experts are to be believed, the economy faces a crisis the likes of which has not been seen since 1929.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson tells us this. He spent 1999-2006 at Goldman Sachs, one of the biggest investment companies in the world — one of those, like AIG that are probably considered “too big to fail.”

He helped create this mess. It’s Bush administration policy to reward poor performance if the business ties are close enough. Haven’t we had enough of this?

Sen. Barack Obama has shown true leadership during the last week while this administration and Congress struggled to develop a workable plan to restore confidence and stability to the financial markets.

Obama knows that it will take hard, bipartisan work to make massive changes to the financial services in a fairly short amount of time.

The reality is that the credit markets have seized up like a bad engine. Money isn’t moving between lenders and business, and that will soon lead to crunches in the consumer credit market — that’s you and me. Home loans, car loans, student loans — all stand to be affected.

Let’s get this thing turned around.

CAROLYN LaVISCOUNT

To the editor:

I went to a meeting about uranium mining in Danville last week held by Southside Concerned Citizens and found out some things I did not know.

Gregg Vickrey ran the meeting. He told us that he did not know anything about uranium mining until he looked it up on the Internet. “That’s what I did, and that’s where I learned all I know about uranium,” Vickrey said.

In praising various people, Vickrey pointed out Chatham Mayor George Haley, calling him his “hero,” and asked the folks there to give Mayor Haley a big round of applause. Some did.

Then Shireen Parsons got up and talked about what she called chemical trespass ordinances. She was really stirred up about them. She is so upset about things in general that she told the people, “I don’t know why we aren’t rioting in the streets.” She predicted that Danville willbecome a “ghost town” if uranium is mined 20 miles to the northeast.

Parsons, who lives near the coalfields, said that she would not let mining take place in the backyard of her house even if offered $1 billion.

The meeting was a very interesting experience. In fact, it was sort of like going to an old-fashioned carnival and seeing wild movies with loud music and all sorts of horrible exhibits. One of the movies even showed what appeared to be a two-headed baby.

I also saw pictures of rain water standing in the ditches near Coles Hill and heard threats that all of this water would cause the tailings ponds to overflow or burst.

My question to the SCC is why my father’s pond or any other pond in the area that has been there for 40-plus years and was built with a tractor and a shovel didn’t burst?

One would assume that given the same scenario, of controlling water, a couple engineers could come up with something even better than the local farmers.

I had some questions I wanted to ask, such as why the SCC is opposed to a scientific study to find out whether uranium can be mined safely. If it can be, it would be a huge boost for our region.

But this meeting was not a place where anyone could ask reasonable questions or find out any useful information.

STEWART EAST

To the editor:

It has become clear that we have come to a point in our American journey that will leave many of us in a state of fiscal turmoil that will take us years to climb out of.

All the political jargon and doublespeak of the past few weeks and months have left so many of us disgusted with the whole lot of those that supposedly represent our interests in Washington. It is hard for us to put our faith in them when they continually put partisan agendas above what is really crucial for our benefit. We elect them not only to voice our opinions, but we also elect them to make decisions that will make our lives better.

We have seen the greed and selfishness permeate the pristine halls of Washington, the firms of Wall Street and the corporate boardrooms throughout America as never before. The rich are getting richer and the rest of us are left holding an empty bag of promises of a better life, more jobs and shared prosperity.

What we saw over the past week was a failure to communicate by the president and the crowd in Washington on what was at stake for the American people. No one initially would explain to the American people how the failure of this rescue bill, bailout package or whatever label they may put on it would affect them.

What we saw on Monday, was the personification of all those bad situations merging together in a perfect storm of “country last” partisan posturing.

The bill had its flaws, and I would be the last to back something from the Bush administration, but it was clearly a necessary evil. Not only was the fate of the Wall Street fat cats at stake, but the forward motion of the banking industry and credit market was about to come to a screeching halt. Its failure will bring hardship down to the grassroots level with the loss in 401(k)s, pension plans, small business survival, job losses, more home foreclosures and the unavailability of needed credit for individuals.

When they got on their stoop of not wanting the taxpayers to have to bail out poor decisions made on Wall Street, what we found were $1.2 trillion in losses to those same taxpayers that may take years to recover from. Where were they while the greedy were making those bad decisions and predatorily feeding off the rest of us? What did they do to stop it before the bear market became rabid? We must learn as individuals to look at the overall picture rather than our own little piece of the puzzle; those that represent us must also look at that overall picture as well to make decisions on our behalf that help us and not always what is politically expedient for re-election.

We have to hold these people that will not completely tell us the truth accountable for their actions that hurt us, but we must also be strong enough to praise them when they make decisions that may not be popular but reflect our best interests.

DAVID L. WILSON JR.

Danville