Letters to the Editor
From our weekly issue dated February 25, 2009
(Editor’s Note: Views and commentary, including statements made as fact, are strictly those of the letter-writers.)
Typed, double-spaced letters are considered for publication. Hand-written letters that are double-spaced and legible also can be considered. “Thank you” submissions are not accepted as letters
Starlight Reserve idea
From Jerry & Kaly McMillen
Cave Junction
We’ve lived in Illinois Valley for five years. Relocating our family rental business and our home from Southern California had certain criteria. Quiet and darkness headed our list.
Our thought was that you can always make noise, but it is difficult to make quiet. I.V. is one of those places where relative quietness can be found. We know that Nature has its moments when a cacophony of sounds can be experienced, but the din of a busy city is far different.
Darkness is rare in our modern world. Upon visiting the valley for the first time in 2000, my husband and I happened to meet a resident on his way into the CJ library. He noticed a couple of aging folks traveling in a VW camper bus and was curious as to our visit. We talked about the area and our travels.
He told us to be sure to pay attention to the night sky. “You’ll be able to see the Milky Way,” he said. We followed his advice and saw much more than just the Milky Way; we experienced a night sky previously unknown to us. That was the beginning for us; we had found dark.
It is our desire that Illinois Valley preserve that starlit night sky. As a community we have been creatively thinking about ways to bring tourists to our area. The town of Tekapo, New Zealand is working to be “officially” designated a Starlight Reserve by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Tekapo has been on this quest since 1965. It began because of the observatory on the island, but has become a vital tourist attraction known as “Astro-tourism.”
It is sad that every new development idea, housing tract/subdivision, business park, etc. that comes across the mayor’s or the city council’s collective desks isn’t more closely scrutinized about the true cost to our community. Empty streets with empty lots with empty houses or buildings with multiple light standards lighting up the area only costs the city unnecessary monies long after developers vanish.
Approximately a fifth of the world and at least two thirds of the United States can no longer see the Milky Way. Let us find the environmentally friendly way to light only what needs to be lit. Let’s keep experiencing that wonderfully rare opportunity to view the night sky.
There are so many other reasons to do this besides money, but if we can create an economic benefit to the community, so much the better. Let’s create a Starlight Reserve.
‘Rentism’ coined
From John Bowler
Kerby
Last year I heard Don Moore comment during a city council meeting that Cave Junction had a developing “upscale rental market” as a result of all the unsalable houses within city limits. He anticipated a new movement originating in the beleaguered U.S. financial institutions, a movement I term “rentism.”
“Rentism” is the banking industry answer to the simple fact that Americans cannot afford their mortgages. The math is simple, but it is worth explaining in full.
In the early 2000s, investment money moved from a crashing high-tech market to real estate investment: Remember the “Real Estate Investment Trust” (REIT)? Real estate prices traditionally had tracked inflation, as mortgages and rents rose by around 3 percent a year and house prices rose to match.
Americans paid 30 to 40 percent of their income on housing, primarily via rent or mortgage payments.
Financial institutions, flush with money, adopted a hard-sell strategy for mortgages. House prices rose. Developers began developing. Builders started building. House price rises continued.
However, the money to pay the mortgages to buy these houses came from Americans whose income actually fell behind inflation. Working Americans got poorer in real terms between 2001 and 2007 (U.S. Census). Consequently, working Americans had to pay a greater proportion of their income to fund their mortgages, and hence less money was available for everything else. The inevitable result of this was to send the economy into recession.
The very simple math is that house prices cannot rise in real terms without major disruption to the economy. Housing prices in the country as a whole have to track raises in employment income or something big has to change elsewhere in the economy.
The U.S. financial institutions had all the data to predict what would happen. Those institutions and those in charge knew what was happening to mortgage costs across the nation, but they did nothing to head off the problems. Now they see a housing market with overpriced houses rapidly losing value, and, because of foreclosure, they own an increasing number of these houses.
“Rentism” is their answer to this. Raise the income bar on home ownership. Home owners as a group have more money, so house prices can be higher. Lower-cost homes, traditionally the first home an American owned, now will be rental properties.
A renter pays the same money as a mortgage holder, but has no equity in the rented home. To a bank a renter looks like a home owner with a 100 percent interest-only mortgage. The corresponding rents are lower than a conventional mortgage on the same home; therefore the house price of the rented property also can be higher, without destroying the economy.
The president’s plan would do the opposite of “rentism” and allow many current home owners to avoid foreclosure with an affordable mortgage of up to 105 percent of the value of their homes. In the president’s plan through the long-term these mortgages will disappear as house prices reset to historical levels. In the banks’ counter-plan, house prices remain forever increased.
The percentage of Americans who have to rent their homes from the rich capital owners who control the banks increases to match. This is “rentism.”
The salient difference between a renter and home owner, so far as the banks are concerned, is that the renter doesn’t whine about being conned out of their home. Renters expect this. So the “rentists” hope that the new renters will be happy to return to work for their new landlords’ benefit.
But every attempt so far by the banks to manipulate the U.S. economy has had some small but insurmountable problem. “Rentism” is no different. The enormous stress placed on the U.S. economy by the banks sucking up money via foreclosure cannot be fixed by simply resetting the original balance of home ownership.
If every single one of us lived in rented accommodations there still wouldn’t be any money to bootstrap the economy back into production. The plan the banks have for that is to blame the president when it doesn’t happen.
Pointing fingers
From Andrea King
Selma
The caption under a front page Illinois Valley News photo (Feb. 18) of two persons with middle fingers extended tells that “street drinkers … express their brazen contempt of the law.”
Are those words in brazen contempt of factual reporting?
The photo is placed within an article about combatting public drinking, but no containers are visible in the photo; and the persons, although identified, are not quoted in the article. If the subjects were expressing contempt, brazen or not, perhaps it was directed more specifically than at “the law.”
Reductive labeling and inflammatory remarks are fuel for witch hunts.
Bird-flipping incident
From Crystal Costa & Jeremy Beck
Cave Junction
The other day (Feb. 18, 2009) Illinois Valley News put a photo of us on its front page.
We feel that we were misrepresented and that the Illinois Valley News made it look like we were protesting the “law” with obscene gestures.
We were simply trying to express our feelings about cameras pointed at us and public harassment.
We are sorry for any misunderstandings the public had to face for this act. We are truly sorry for any embarrassment that anyone, including us, had to face.
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