Don’t feel sorry for Mr. Speculator
To the editor:
Re: Sunday's article on the Las Vegas foreclosure rate:
I don't see how anyone can feel sorry for these so-called speculators and investors who turned the Las Vegas housing market upside down. A quick read of just about any real estate investing book would have warned most of them that they were headed for trouble. It's called "doing your due diligence."
Anyone who bothered to look would have seen this coming two years ago. The smart ones made their killing and moved on to their next target city two years ago. Didn't anyone notice that those days of buying a property to lose money until they could sell it for a nice profit were over?
Look at the whole class of people who were forced out of their mobile homes and apartments so that these investors could build all those new condos on those lots. What happened to these people? What happened to those condos? How many people who saw their property value skyrocket went into shock when they saw their property taxes skyrocket also?
Look at Aspen. The people who work there can't afford to live there anymore.
No, I don't feel sorry that you are losing your shirt, Mr. Speculator. Not at all.
Andrew Hatcher
LAS VEGAS
Health issues
To the editor:
Kent Rischling's Monday letter suggests that no one protested when the Nazis came for the gypsies, then the communists, and then the Jews. He appears to be comparing this to laws designed to regulate smoking, obesity, etc. That's a rather rude analogy.
No one is protesting the latter because, you know, no one is being systematically and ruthlessly murdered about it. These are issues of health and should be dealt with accordingly. To even suggest that losing one's rights as, say, a smoker is akin to being rounded up and gassed seems a little more than self-centered and misguided.
Deal with the facts, and leave genuine victims out of the discussion.
Timothy James
LAS VEGAS
GOP's fault
To the editor:
It appears that the numerous efforts by Senate Democrats to pass legislation designed to return our troops from Iraq have failed -- despite promises from them to "change our Iraq policy." And the Republicans are gleefully pointing out that the Democrats have failed to live up to their promises.
How two-faced! What hubris! It is the Republicans who consistently vote against Democratic legislation, causing it to be defeated, and then they crow about how the Democrats can't pass the legislation they promised. Not once do the Republican spokesmen ever mention that they're the ones who blocked the legislation from being passed.
President Bush asked for a "surge" and got it. Now he is calling for a reduction in troops, but only after 15 months of "surge" and then only to the pre-"surge" troop levels. In other words, he's bailing out on the war, leaving his successor (almost surely a Democrat) to attempt to clean up the mess he leaves in Iraq. There is, and never was, any intention to bring our troops home during his administration's reign.
It was the American people who elected this president, and it is our sons and daughters who will pay for his incompetent leadership. Yes, our sons and daughters pay with their lives and shattered limbs, and our grandchildren will pay and pay and pay for his irresponsible spending and ill-advised tax cuts.
David Adams
LAS VEGAS
Campaign plan
To the editor:
In your Sept. 18 article, "Kucinich touts his plans for change in visit to LV," reporter Molly Ball makes a few incorrect assertions. Ms. Ball wrote:
"Kucinich is the only candidate promoting what he calls a 'not-for-profit,' or wholly government-run, health care system -- what is unkindly referred to as 'socialized medicine.' He has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to enact such a system."
In reality, Rep. Kucinich's health care plan, HR 676, is not "wholly government-run." It is wholly government funded. It is a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system. People would be able to choose and visit any doctor or health care group they desired.
Ms. Ball is showing her bias when she claims that the system is "unkindly referred to as 'socialized medicine.' "
It is not "unkindly" but erroneously referred to as "socialized medicine." It is not socialized medicine, it is "Medicare for all" -- and who can argue with that?
Michele Hutchins
VAN NUYS, CALIF.
