Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
‘Clinton Proposes Yearly $20 Billion Tax’
If Senator Clinton’s plan to take $20 billion in earnings a year from our oil companies were implemented, it would immediately knock off about $280 billion in market value just on the math: $20 billion times the industry price/earnings ratio of 14 [“Clinton Proposes Yearly $20B Tax on Oil Companies,” Meghan Clyne, National, October 26, 2005]. Plus, the greatly diminished prospects of these companies would probably cost them another $200 billion to $300 billion in market capitalization as investors moved their money to the still-competitive foreign oil companies.
All in all, losses to U.S. pension and endowment funds, individual investors, and the U.S. Treasury (via massive tax losses) would totally dwarf the money raised for Hillary Energy.
CHRIS WIGERT
Manhattan
‘Keep It Simple’
In the course of using the occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (October 17) to praise the approach of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an agency of the United States government, Brian Hooks gives a distorted impression of the history and purpose of the day [Brian Hooks, “Keep It Simple,” Opinion, October 21, 2005].
First celebrated in 1987 at the initiative of people from the Fourth World Movement living in extreme poverty, the International Day was proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1992. The stone that Mr. Hooks saw is a 1996 replica of the original placed at the Plaza of Human Rights in Paris.
October 17 is an all too rare opportunity for the voices of the poorest to be heard. Each year, the commemoration enables people living in poverty to have a real voice at the United Nations, testifying to both their suffering and to their efforts to move beyond poverty. October 17, now celebrated in dozens of places around the world, is an occasion for all citizens to join with them and make a commitment to refuse poverty.
With its emphasis on rewarding top performing governments, the MCC says to those with two broken legs, “When you can walk, we will help you run.”
The Fourth World Movement, committed to leaving no one behind, helps those to get on their feet who are invisible to MCC’s 16 quantitative indicators. We are convinced that there is a place for both approaches.
CHARLES COURTNEY
Madison, N.J.
Mr. Courtney is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Drew University and the president of Fourth World Movement, USA.
‘Europe Under Siege’
Daniel Pipes’s heartbreaking story regarding starving Africans seeking illegal entry into Europe need not end tragically [“Europe Under Siege,” Foreign, October 18, 2005].
In the 18th century, on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, Europeans were politically oppressed by the aristocrats, and yearly per capita income stood at the starvation level of roughly $265. But the Enlightenment’s glorification of individual rights and the freethinking mind was a charter of liberation for the common man, leading to political-economic freedom and immense technological advance.
Contemporary Africa is even more repressed by indigenous dictators and, consequently, despite the diffusion of American technology, almost as destitute.
The solution is the same: The principles of an individual’s inalienable right to his own life and his own mind, and the resulting political-economic system of free market capitalism, will enable the Africans – as the Europeans before them – to rise out of repression and destitution into freedom and prosperity.
ANDREW BERNSTEIN
Cold Spring, N.Y.
Mr. Bernstein is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Marist College and the author of “The Capitalist Manifesto.”
‘Abroad in New York’
I read with interest Allen Tobias’s letter to the editor [October 18, 2005] and certainly agree with him that Francis Morrone’s “Abroad in New York” is one of the most interesting and informative columns appearing in the New York press.
While I found Mr. Tobias’s enumeration of great mosaic sites – including the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome – absorbing, I must note that he passed over the (smaller) church of Santa Prassede, a five-minute walk from Santa Maria, whose mosaics in the Byzantine style (9th century) are widely viewed as the best in Rome.
PETER M. COLLINS
Manhattan
Autophagy of the Times
Why do you use uncommon words that require humble beings like me to have to consult the dictionary? [“Autophagy of the Times,” Editorial, October 24, 2005]
In my 62 years on this planet, I can confirm that I have never used the word autophagy and swear I never will in the future.
WALTER STOUFER
McKenna Engineering And Equipment Co.
Carson, Calif.
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