The wish list

To the editor:

The revised wish list to Santa sounds wonderful if the readers took notice and acted accordingly.

Specifically, the list of nine “wishes” for Santa, so to speak, would certainly aid our country economically, socially and politically. It appears that one could raise the I inference underlying all nine items listed in your article that with freedom comes responsibility. Those immigrating to this country or are natural-born citizens of the United States, are coming to this country or choose to stay for as many reasons as there are people seeking residence here.

Most of your wish list includes an implied responsibility to perform your job, whatever that may be, to the best of your abilities and see that all of us depend on one another to improve society. A man is not an island, if he or she wants to retain the privileges (not rights), which attend responsible living and above-average living standards in the U.S.A.

Government ought to ease the tax burden on the middle-class, who do most of the working, living and dying in this country. Further, the government ought to provide former GIs with re-training in skills he or she can apply to the 21st century to re-enter society as functional, productive individuals. Local jobs should remain local and avoid special interest groups. Voters, if informed, should vote or don’t complain later. Homelessness is a partial result of the corporate greed on Wall Street and the home mortgage meltdown and the government’s relative indifference to correcting the problem.

Lastly, all people should volunteer their time, money or skills to improve our society, if they truly appreciate their freedom. The economy needs help, obviously. But, underlying the economy are people who control the land, labor and capital, the driving economic forces to achieve a vibrant market economy. Therefore, encourage the people, one at a time, if necessary, that their life does make a difference to our society.

Change the person’s attitude and behavior and nearly all your concerns will have a reasonable solution, including domestic violence, increased crime and helping to see your neighbor as yourself and treat him or her with the same concern you do yourself.

Steven M. Bell

Kissimmee

Fix a problem the right way

To the editor:

As an older adult, I have experiences that guide me in my thinking pertaining to driving. I see the value of intersection photo cameras to determine who is at fault in a crash and saving lives.

As printed earlier in your newspaper in another Your View article, a big negative is who gets the ticket – unknown driver or vehicle owner. Obviously the vehicle owner gets the ticket, which may not be just.

A vehicle owner trying to get their money back from the actual driver could cause all kinds of turmoil with their family or friends and possibly incur needless lawyer fees. The ticket would still be in the owner’s name. Who wants to be in this situation?

Intersection red light running crashes can be deadly and happen way too often. People drive on a green light without looking first, which I advise new drivers not to do where possible.

As printed in yet another Your View article in your newspaper, yellow lights are far too brief. A driver has far too little time to decide at roadway speeds whether to stop – and possibly get rear-ended – or go. The start and biggest part of making things right is extending the yellow light duration.

Yes, money will have to be spent to reorient lights to previous conditions, such as timing. Duh, it’s our money to start with. Use our money to make things right and not penalize people’s decisions with a system that is not right. Then go after the blatant offenders and sock it to them.

Guy Frigen

St. Cloud

We have a lot to offer

To the editor:

Greetings, and thank you for a very timely article on West U.S. Highway 192.  I thought I would add my 5 cents worth.

From 1997, I was an international marketing manager with  Vistana,  and later with Starwood Hotels, which acquired Vistana. We operated 14 guest services centers on U.S. Highway 192 between the Florida’s Turnpike and U.S. Highway 27 from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., some seeing as many as 400 visitors a day.

Ninety percent of these visitors were Brits, Germans and other Europeans  –  very different from our own American tourists. They liked an inexpensive hotel,  pubs where they could sit, relax, and have a beer, shops where they could buy good-quality shoes and shirts and a sidewalk where they could stroll in the evening. The free Disney shuttle also was important.

When these visitors saw that we dug-up the sidewalk and left it there for months, they came to inquire about other possible locations, and selected International Drive and Crossroads. Many commented that they rarely saw workers – some days perhaps one lone worker who, they often commented, was “probably looking for his shovel.”

Gradually  U.S. Highway 192 hotels/motels began to offer “$39  sleep 6 – 2 double beds and a double sofa-bed.”  The Brits and the Germans soon discovered the Rosen Comfort Inn and other similar properties  … and they never came back. Of course, they also told their friends.

Some of the hotels/motels went out of business, others became hot pillows. Standards nose-dived and Chuck Young’s flea market became one of the few reasons to visit Kissimmee. This is what travel agents in the United Kingdom, Spain and elsewhere said.

I don’t believe that anybody outside of this area has even heard of Kissimmee’s history and restoration. We have a lot to offer, but the members of a commission do not necessarily know what to do.

Vince Hodgins

Kissimmee

The minimum wage lie

To the editor:

I had no idea that Florida has indexed the minimum wage to the cost of living. This is a major blunder and we have to correct it.

Minimum wage earners will not benefit from this; not one penny. The ones who will directly benefit in increases in minimum wage are the landlords, short term loan sharks, furniture rental businesses and pawnbrokers. The person who is actually making minimum wage will find any increases soon sucked up by the sharks that surround and feed from low income workers.

But these sharks are only the direct and first tier beneficiaries. The next tier — and the really big winners — is the unions and others whose contract pay is indexed to the minimum wage. The AFL-CIO is a major contributor to the nonprofit National Employment Law Project. They construct their lies to make you believe we taxpayers are helping the working poor by getting behind this.

If increasing minimum wage will cure poverty, then we do not need to send all those billions to Haiti and other poor populations. All we need to do is insist that those countries raise their wages. How stupid is that?

In the USA, it has been reported that only 3 percent of all workers earn minimum wage. Most of those entry level young workers are soon advanced to better wages through their proven work ethic. Others who want better wages will take advantage of things like the Pell Grant and progress that way. That leaves the very few who do not care, but are happy to take extra that is given to them, and the landlords are ecstatic over their coming raise.

This is vitally important to understand. The indexing of minimum wage to the cost of living is a part of the socialist movement in the U.S.A.  It has nothing to do with “the working poor.” It has everything to do with the benchmark of union wages and artificial inflation in order to advance other socialist causes. The insidious fact is that this will cause more people to be unemployed, bring more automation to the workplace and add to inflationary pressures.

Each one of us needs to contact our Florida representatives and roll back this minimum wage law. You have been sold a bill of goods and a lie, and, as usual, you have to pay for it.

Michael Hall

Kissimmee