Connie Lauerman`s article, ”The Dream Fades” (Nov. 1), showed empathy for the families and individuals profiled in it, but the proposed solutions attributed to MIT professor Bennett Harrison would only serve to worsen the situation, not relieve it.
While union leadership applauded itself for the concessions it got from management, management simply raised prices on their products to cover the increased costs. The result was that consumers-including the union members-wound up paying for those higher benefits. While we were chasing the higher-wage rabbit, other countries like Japan were producing more goods with better quality. As our products escalated in price and became less desirable in world markets, other countries filled the vacuum that was created.
Should a company choose bankruptcy to save union jobs in the face of increasing costs and falling market share? When management spends $700 million to buy back its company`s stocks, as General Motors did this year, it really makes you stop and think. Why didn`t they invest that money in new factories, equipment, etc.? Why not invest that money in new technology to make a better product at lower cost, which in turn would create employment?
Mr. Harrison`s statements that higher wages are the answer to our economic problems are ludicrous and simplistic. Higher productivity precedes higher wages. Higher wages simply don`t just materialize. Since the equation is now imbalanced in our country, this amounts to living on borrowed time. The huge amount of debt in this country bears witness to this. Mr. Harrison`s remarks also seem to suggest that strong unions would solve a lot of our problems. This is nonsense. It is a myth that unions create jobs. Unions create unemployment. The purpose of a union, or any organization for that matter, is to survive as an organization-even at the expense of the well-being of its members. SOURCE: Walter Macuda.
DATELINE: AURORA
Re: Connie Lauerman`s ”The Dream Fades.”
We have seen a stock-market crash in an excess of irrational, orgasmic greed, and we have, since the Reagan recession and false recovery, been watching the same excess of greed turn a burgeoning work force of eager young Americans into wimps, on one hand, and snarling survivors on the other as they battle not only their own large numbers and the sociological fact of a huge supply of female workers but excessive immigration, job exportation, job elimination through technology, and the calculated diminution of the real worth of employees by the new MBA kennelmasters.
What kills me in all of this is that many of the young, just barely making it on two incomes (unless one is job-hunting), have somehow learned to spit on employee power through union representation and continue to drool, puppylike, over possible ”trickle-down” from their Reagan-era taskmasters. When will they ever learn?
SOURCE: D. Koehl.
DATELINE: DES PLAINES
Connie Lauerman`s Nov. 1 cover story addressed perhaps the most pressing domestic crisis of this decade, one that has gone virtually unnoticed by the mass media and certainly by our current administration. There has been, in truth, no Reagan recovery. Those of us who have seen our income diminished and our expectations drastically lowered certainly know this. We seem to be living in an age of extreme self-centeredness, however, and those who ”have” are certainly not about to be concerned about the ”have-nots.” One can only speculate, though, on the rippling effects throughout the economy and the legacy of hopelessness of the 1980s. Ronald Reagan`s agenda seemed to be to satisfy the wealthy and big business, completely ignoring the working man and woman`s everyday lot. A proposed sub-minimum wage for teenagers, when in fact what is needed is a higher minimum wage for everyone, is a perfect example of this callous philosophy.
Yet the American people elected Mr. Reagan overwhelmingly, and the economic injustices perpetrated by his policies are setting in for a long, hard time, outliving, unfortunately, his disastrous presidency.
SOURCE: Judith Squires
DATELINE: GALESBURG
Please follow up your story with an explanation of how raising everyone`s wages will not raise prices-commonly known as inflation. You say ”everybody gets higher wages, there`s more to spend,” but leave the matter in the air-what happens to prices? What kind of voodoo economics is this?
SOURCE: Russell Packard
DATELINE: WILMETTE
BILL GRANGER Bill Granger should have checked his facts before submitting his Oct. 25 column. He wrote that ”20 years ago North Michigan Avenue was a collection of saloons, discount dress shops and other semisleazy enterprises.”
I lived at the Michigan Terrace Apartments at 535 N. Michigan Ave. from 1963 to 1969, so the avenue then was my back yard. I wonder if Granger meant any of the following, which, I remember, lined North Michigan Avenue all the way to Oak Street: Saks Fifth Avenue, Gucci, Blum`s Vogue, the Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein salons, Tiffany`s, McElroy Furs, Jacques, Bonwit Teller and many others of the same caliber. Plus the many men`s stores where merchandise could hardly be classed or priced as ”semisleazy.” Also the high-priced rental apartments in the 777 N. Michigan Building, the Drake and Continental Hotels and the several banks on the avenue, where these
”semisleazy” businesses probably did their banking. SOURCE: Evelyn Kresin
DATELINE: OAK BROOK
Bill Granger`s column ”Psychology Has Become That New-Time Religion-Or So the Babble Tells Us” (Nov. 22) lacks substance, integrity and logic. The only conclusions one can reach after reading it are that he lacks knowledge of and is confused about the professions of psychology and psychiatry and that he personally dislikes both professions.
In this regard, one might infer from reading his piece that he had what he perceived to be a ”bad” experience with a psychologist or psychiatrist and is letting his personal experience cloud his professional judgment as a journalist.
Using the guilt-by-association tactic of relating reported atrocities against dissidents in mental health institutions in the Soviet Union with the professions of psychology and psychiatry in this country is ludicrous.
Is Bill Granger denying the existence of social, emotional and psychological problems in people? If he is not, from whom would he say these people should seek help-a mechanic, a plumber . . . a columnist?
SOURCE: Robert E. Marciante, Educational Consultant.
DATELINE: GLENVIEW
I absolutely loved Bill Granger`s Nov. 22 column in the SUNDAY, Magazine! Psychology is the ultimate religion of the 20th Century, and psychiatry is its Inquisition.
These so-called ”scientists” or ”doctors” pervert the Western traditions of reason into base PR, attempting to sell us a weird version of man without individual responsibility, freedom or dignity. And they have garnered immense support from governments. Our tax dollars pay for their propaganda, and our courts and legislatures establish their legal authority to coerce the population. SOURCE: Randy Kretchmar
DATELINE: CHICAGO
Having devoted my college career to the study of psychology, I strongly defend the principles of that science. People such as Bill Granger, however, force me to admit that there are still those who result from bad genes-a strong case for genetic counseling.
SOURCE: Andy Poland
DATELINE: DEERFIELD
GROWING PAINS I read with great interest the Oct. 25 SUNDAY, Magazine article ”Growing Pains.” Many of the issues mentioned in Mr. Stevenson Swanson`s article are relevant to all communities large and small. There is, however, one omission to an otherwise fine story. In listing the many directions Chicago has grown and will continue to grow, he did not mention Northwest Indiana. Chicago investors have already discovered the potential of our area, particularly Porter County.
We will learn from Du Page County, and it may be that in 10 years SUNDAY Magazine will publish an article, ”Growing Pains II, the Coming of Age of Northwest Indiana.”
SOURCE: Nancy Pekarek, City Planner
DATELINE: VALPARAISO, IND.
