President Donald Trump now owns this economy.
In Trumpville, nearly every regulatory institution tasked with monitoring the financial system is now run by someone who once profited from bending or breaking its rules. In filling U.S. government posts with champions of lax oversight and loose regulation, Trump has effectively hired a team of self-serving financial arsonists.
Wall Street views Trump’s appointees with glee. Big bank stock prices soared. When the next crisis comes, it will surpass the last meltdown because our financial system is mired in now larger mountains of crushing unredeemable debt, unreformed and without adult supervision.
Banks not only remain too big to fail but have grown considerably more so with government- backed policies guaranteed to put us all at risk again.
Here is the established pattern: First, there’s a crash; then comes a period of remorse and talk of reform; and shockingly soon comes the great forgetting.
Markets are manipulated higher and Wall Street begins to gouge out more deregulation. The government attracts unscrupulous deregulatory enthusiasts and then there’s another crash.
Gary Pardy
Haleiwa
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If feasible, move parking spots inland
To address the problem of rising sea levels, high lunar tides and robust swells, vehicle parking spaces at all beach parks in the state should be relocated away from the shoreline as much as possible.
Accessibility for residents, such as at Ala Moana Regional Park, also must be addressed and a compromise agreed upon. Let’s deal effectively with a problem that we have no control over, such as global warming and king tides, with a well-thought-out community plan to preserve accessibility to our beaches.
Laniakea Beach on the North Shore is an example of the power of Mother Nature to disrupt public accessibility. Foresight and planning, with adequate financial backing, could have addressed this problem more effectively years ago.
The city’s current master plan for “The People’s Park,” Ala Moana Regional Park, is definitely a step in the right direction.
Steve and Toni Robinson
Kaimuki
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Secure rehabilitation facilities work better
Rehabilitation for drug and alcohol offenses, and anger management, would work much better if a secure rehabilitation detention facility was created.
Non-secure detention facilities are not that efficient. A captive audience for one year will satisfy both the rehabilitation and the incarceration factions of society at large.
Keoni Ronald May
McCully-Moiliili
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To ease financial hardship, vote
In a remarkable display of compassion for the half of Hawaii’s population that is faced with financial hardship at the hands of our towering cost of living, Jim Loomis suggested a hike in the state minimum wage from what is essentially $21,000 to $31,000 annually (“Hawaii workers need $15 minimum wage,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Feb. Opens in a new tab3) Opens in a new tab.
Instead of burdening private enterprise with the consequences of public policy, perhaps a more rational and effective response might take place in the voting booth.
Stephen Hinton
Waialua
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Foreign investment raises cost of living
My wife and I just returned from Brisbane, Australia. During our visit we learned that the minimum wage is just under $20 an hour. Even with that high entry- level pay, 80 percent of local residents cannot afford to buy property, and that those who rent usually share that cost with another live-in couple.
The reason for this imbalance is because of the huge amount of foreign money pouring into the area.
Sound familiar?
James L. Jones
Portlock
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Hawaii should not be a sanctuary state
Did you know that if you do not contact your state senator and representative, we may become a sanctuary state like California?
The organization Hawaii J-20+ is visiting all of our state senators and representatives on a weekly basis to lobby them to pass Senate Bill 2290 and House Bill 1994, which will make our state a sanctuary state. The goal of Hawaii J-20+ is to convince you that our new president’s view on immigration should not be enforced.
Hawaii J-20+ was formed to oppose President Donald Trump. Look at its website. The liberal left wants the state of Hawaii to not obey federal laws. I do not want our state to be a sanctuary state. If you feel the same, contact your senator and representative to let them know that you oppose SB 2290 and HB 1994.
Peter Lee
Makiki
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Conflicting accounts of alert disturbing
Get the story straight.
The headlines recounting the events of the Jan. 13 ballistic missile false alarm were very disturbing.
The warning officer who pushed the button said that he believed the threat to have been real (“I did what I was trained to do, and I feel very badly about what happened,” Star-Advertiser, Feb. Opens in a new tab3) Opens in a new tab.
I tend to think that his version of the events makes sense.
At least, more sense than Brig. Gen. Bruce Oliveira’s report, which said that the warning officer was a poor performer who made the same type of mistakes on multiple past events.
Huh? If Oliveira is correct, what kind of mission-critical organization would leave a sub-par fumbler at the console where he has access to “push the button” and, like U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard alluded to, potentially start a war?
In this case, honesty and transparency is really hard to come by, or imagine.
Who else needs to fall on his sword?
Ted Kanemori
Kaneohe
