Be active shareholders and hold execs accountable

As an investor, I find myself feeling quite guilty and ashamed. With the fallout occurring in the financial markets, I have to ask myself, "Who's tending the store?"

When an executive can take my money (as an investor I am part owner of the business) and run my business into the ground and then I must pay him or her millions to leave, I and all of my fellow owners are truly the ones asleep at the switch. We have delegated to boards of directors the responsibility to tend the store for us. Yet it is the very executives who are destroying our enterprises who often invite the board members to the table. Hmmm.

Employing some hyperbole, let's assume these executives work five days per week, 24 hours a day in their jobs. They sleep and see their families only on weekends. That means they would "work" 6,240 hours per year. With this as a framework, for every million we compensate an executive, we the owners pay them $160.25 per hour worked. The vast majority of us don't make anything close to that number. When we factor in a more realistic work schedule the hourly rate explodes.

Our legislators are trying to do what we, the owners, refuse to do. All owners need to become actively engaged in making sure our companies are being run well. Let's rein in the runaway, obscene compensation many executives are being paid. I do not begrudge anyone an excellent wage for his or her expertise. Somehow, I am convinced being paid $160.25 may be outlandish for the results we are getting.

Let's become activists in our businesses and do what every business owner does -- tend the store.

RICHARD L. FREEMAN SR.
Upper St. Clair

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Make all hang up

Concerning your Sept. 17 front-page article on teen driving and imposing limits on cell-phone use while teens are driving ("Teen Driving Limits Advance"): Why are the politicians in Harrisburg considering a law prohibiting cell-phone calls while driving for teens only?

Do they think adults are smarter? I think they are the worst offenders. This law should be passed for everyone. Stop and think! This law should be enforced for all drivers, not just for teens. Let's get this law passed. Prohibit cell-phone use while driving.

DOLORES N. FAZIO
Bethel Park

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A sad divide

With the presidential campaign as part of the backdrop on the Sept. 11 Day of Remembrance, I seem to recall we all acted like "community organizer" after the attacks. "United We Stand" seemed to conquer the great divides among us.

Now the barriers are up again and well-entrenched. Sad how we let the democratic process be so undignified and ruthless.

BOB RICK
Penn Hills

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The unreal McCain

Congratulations to Tony Norman for his courageous and insightful Sept. 12 column ("Where Have You Gone, John McCain?")

His description of the tragic moral deterioration of Sen. McCain provides the reader with compelling reasons for carefully considering the crucial decision he or she will be making on Nov. 4.

EUGENE and KATRIN ENGELS
Squirrel Hill

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Typical bias

Tony Norman's Sept. 12 column "Where Have You Gone, John McCain?" was nothing more than a typical political-based media effort to defend Barack Obama's "lipstick on a pig is still a pig" comment.

Yet the column's attacks or defense included slants on Mr. McCain's war heroics. Such writing is really an egregious error. Mr. Norman underestimates the patriotism that lives in our souls for both Democrats and Republicans. If he spent five years in a hole due to serving his country, it would live with him every day of his life, and Mr. McCain, from my perspective, can refer to that any time and as often as he wishes. His sarcastic use of the hole Mr. McCain once occupied as "a guest of the North Vietnamese" should have been rethought. Mr. Norman didn't gain any points for Mr. Obama, his candidate of choice.

Voters need to sift through the media-tainted biased verbiage and focus on the character and inner values of the candidates. We need to educate ourselves, putting aside the media-biased nonsense and vote for those who will best represent our interests as a nation. And, yes, the character of the person is paramount in our decision-making process.

Mr. Norman's mind is obviously made up as to whom he will vote for, which hardly reflects listening with his mind. Decisions should be left open until he casts his vote -- he may learn something he didn't know about a candidate that may alter his decision-making process!

HARRY A. FLANNERY
New Castle

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Oh, really, senator

Sen. John McCain has stated that he knows how to win wars and capture terrorists. Why didn't he inform President Bush that he had such knowledge before Mr. Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq? Certainly it would have saved countless lives and billions of dollars. We would not be in the deplorable condition that exists today within the United States.

THOMAS E. SCHOLLER SR.
Ross

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Our tattered image

The reputation of the United States in the world is lower than it has been in years, perhaps lower than it has ever been.

That low reputation has been brought about because of fear. Friend and foe alike fear what we have become and what we might do. Our task is to rebuild the confidence of other nations and their people in our leadership and in our steadfastness to the high moral and ethical values that we profess to be ours.

A pit bull in lipstick is not the image we need to help us bring that about.

JOE F. STIERHEIM
Ligonier

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Here's the answer

So they spent $10 billion to shed light on the origins of the universe ("Fantastic Moment for Science," Sept. 11). I would have been glad to give them the answer for free. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

What else do they need to know?

JOHN F. JOHNSON
Jefferson Hills

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We receive more letters than we can fit into the limited space on the editorial page, so we'd like to share some additional letters with our Post-Gazette Web site readers.

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Americans might gain from all this

Most Americans are obliviously unaware of what has transpired in the national economy in the weeks past.

However, there were a few Americans -- top government employees -- we know who they are -- who took the unusual bold steps, not merely to make temporary fixes as per standard procedure, but to halt a chain reaction of financial institution failures that would end in a great depression.

To be perfectly blunt, they may have saved our skins, not to mention their own. But we are not out of the woods yet. By bailing out other bank systems, the Fed has made the central bank the financial institution of last resort. The cost is enormous. No one knows for certain if this will really work. But it must work.

In speculation, if the Federal Reserve actually failed, there would be no bailout. An unspeakable worst-condition scenario would follow. Woe would be United States. On the other hand, this grand venture in which every American has a stake, whether they know it or not, is very likely to be successful and possibly profitable. This is not a done deal. There is still work to be done and there are global implications as well.

But then, when implemented, perhaps the government can focus on the other imperatives in the national interest. We know what they are.

PAUL D. VESELY
Bellevue

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Let's end our suffering with this election

Sally Kalson's Sept. 14 column, "Lipstick on a Crocodile," exposes the Republican slime machine approved by John McCain. The McCain-Palin ticket horrifies me, yet I've met some likable people who support it -- some on the basis of McCain's "experience."

I don't understand -- his experience only proves he's unfit to govern! Look what's become of our country under Bush, with whom McCain voted 95 percent of the time in 2007. The current banking disaster stems from irresponsible deregulation long espoused by McCain. His "experience" includes taking gifts from and doing favors for Charles "savings-and-loan scandal" Keating, getting his economic wisdom from Phil "nation of whiners" Gramm and choosing a campaign staff loaded with lobbyists. He favored privatizing Social Security and throwing seniors onto the tender mercies of the market. He supported attacking Iraq (which was not involved in the 9/11 attacks and had no WMDs), resulting in Iran's becoming more powerful. His campaign has been a nonstop parade of innuendo, slurs and lies. His temper is infamous and dangerous.

Furthermore, if "experience" is your foremost concern, how could you support a ticket that pairs Sarah Palin with an older man who has had malignant melanoma four times and is starting to show signs of cognitive impairment? Palin may be ruthless, ignorant and a liar, but experienced she's not. This is the ticket you want leading the world your children will grow up in?

I don't understand. After eight years of Bush, haven't we all suffered enough?

MICHELE FEINGOLD
Squirrel Hill

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Scorched-earth candidacy

Well the "Maverick" McCain keeps up his relentless attacks on Barack Obama. He says all Obama had to do is join in town hall meetings and he wouldn't campaign so negatively. So Obama has to agree to do anything McCain wants him to do and McCain will be nice to him?

Well, I have been watching the ad wars steadily and I have been astounded by the lack of honesty. McCain has one ad running touting himself and Sarah Palin as fighting against pork-barrel political spending.

Yet Sarah Palin says she opposed the "bridge to nowhere." She says, "I told Congress "thanks, but no thanks ? if we need a bridge, we'll build it ourselves." Yet Sarah Palin was out campaigning for this "bridge to nowhere" when Sen. Ted Stevens was bringing home the bacon. Sarah Palin only said "no thanks" after Congress was pulling the plug. And in saying "no thanks" to the bridge, Sarah Palin still kept the money that Congress appropriated.

Hey Sarah ? that's my money! Give it back to the people who earned it ? like us!

I won't hold my breath.

So when they say in ads what is patently false, how can we take McCain at his word? He's just not a "straight talker." I guess honesty and honor are the first casualties of political warfare.

Whatever happened to talking about the issues? Debating each other's positions?

I guess McCain's "County First" logo should be changed to "Campaign First" in his scorched-earth campaign to be president!

NICK BALANDIAT
Baldwin Borough

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More of this legacy?

Allowing John McCain to take the high ground on the Iraq surge is like showering praise on the guy who finds a tow truck after helping run the car off the road. A ticket should be issued for running off the road, not praise given for getting the tow truck.

Second, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin may have executive experience as a mayor and governor, but so what? President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney each had executive experience, too, and look where that took this country. It's character, rather, that really counts, best shown, I believe, in how candidates live up to Jesus' or Lincoln's example.

I'd like to suggest that Mr. McCain, Ms. Palin and their right-wing Christian supporters reread the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe then they might realize that community organizing to help people is a far greater moral strength for this country than the Bush/Cheney legacy of war mongering, sex discrimination, war profiteering and lying that they seem so eager to inherit.

BOB SCHOBER
Whitaker

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An action lacking in compassion

While I applaud the work of faith-based organizations that seek to care for young mothers and their children ("Abortion Foes See Positive to Palin Teen's Pregnancy," Sept. 4), it's amazing to me that Nancy Cochran and other socially conservative Christians would imagine that VP nominee Sarah Palin would be an advocate of programs to support single mothers. A recent Washington Post article discloses the fact that as governor, Palin actually slashed funding for programs designed to support teenage mothers. Using her line-item veto privilege, Gov. Palin reduced expenditures for such programs by more than 20 percent. As a public servant, Gov. Palin apparently has demonstrated very little compassion to teenage mothers beyond her own immediate family.

Further, those who would celebrate Bristol Palin's situation might do well to reflect upon the dismal statistics about teenage pregnancy. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, only 40 percent of teen mothers finish high school and only 2 percent will earn a college degree. Two thirds of families headed by a teen mother are poor. Marriage doesn't solve the problem. And having a baby within the first seven months of marriage at any age markedly raises the odds of divorce.

It's time to stop romanticizing the terrible situation most teenage mothers face, stop denying information about contraception for teenagers and stop imagining that abortions will end if we just outlaw abortions.

SUSAN ROTHENBERG
Squirrel Hill

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About Sarah and Hillary

I agree 100 percent with Gov. Sarah Palin: Sen. Barack Obama had the chance to make history as the first black president with Hillary Clinton as his vice president. Instead he folded and handed John McCain the presidency. Why?

Three reasons: First, his wife -- you know she would never go for it. Second with Hillary in, he would always feel like the second banana. Third, with his very large ego, he could never go through with it.

And for those reasons, Sen. Obama will never be the president of the United States.

CHARLES E. LOWES
Apollo

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A queen bee?

I would like to know how many "hockey moms" Sarah Palin took along with her on her meteoric career.

Back in the '70s when we were fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment there was a particular type of woman whom we called a "queen bee." This meant that she had achieved her goals and now viewed every other woman as a potential competitor.

The community organizers of that era continue to believe that the "queen bees" are the major reason that in 2008, the women of the United States still do not have an Equal Rights Amendment.

Thank you, Phyllis Schlafly and the Republican Party, which (in 1980) repudiated an ERA plank that had existed for 40 years and elected ERA opponent Ronald Reagan as president.

SHEILA CONLEY
Oakmont

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Hillary's continuing role

As a follow-up to Jane Haskell's Sept. 16 letter "Hillary Is Needed," I wonder if those Hillary supporters who were leaning toward Gov. Sarah Palin have stopped to consider that Hillary will still be in the picture playing a prominent role in the Obama administration.

President Obama will undoubtedly nominate her for a top role in his government, perhaps as a member of the Supreme Court (and remember how vitally important the rebalancing of the Supreme Court is to the survival of our rights to privacy). She would be in a position to adjudicate on issues vital not only to women. Or as secretary of state, she would bring world experience and a positive image to the United States sorely lacking currently with the Bush administration among our allies and foes alike.

Compare her continued importance and solid image to both the Democratic Party and the world with what the McCain-Palin ticket would offer. They stole the attention of the media for a moment with devious Rovian rhetoric. Now is the time for Hillary to take it back with a vengeance and assure a Democratic Obama-Biden victory.

JOAN MORSE GORDON
Oakland

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