Growth of start-ups key to economic future
Re: “A 96-year journey in Colorado,” June 1 business story.
The recent articles regarding Sun Computer’s layoffs and Samsonite’s imminent departure contain a lesson that I hope does not go unnoticed by our legislators. Since 1971, the business landscape has changed dramatically, with the loss of literally thousands of manufacturing and white-collar jobs with high salaries and benefits. These have largely been replaced with nickel-and-dime jobs with few benefits in the retail sector or construction. There has been an explosion of activity in the health, education and government sectors but, because they do not export, they are an overhead burden to society and zero sum in terms of wealth creation. While Colorado’s gross state product is growing, we are hollowing out our economy and failing to position ourselves for the coming boom in alternative energy, bio-tech and nano-technologies.
Unless there is a succession of new companies, the economy will age and eventually decline. Government must support and encourage new start-ups in everything from land-use policy to taxation and regulation. Presently, state and local government think they can micro-manage us into success. Our failure to empower businesses to acquire affordable health insurance through association health plans is one glaring example.
Francis M. Miller, Parker
Constitutional law, not cities, governs guns
Re: “Local gun control best option,” June 6 editorial.
It was predictable that The Post would rest on an over-simplified justification such as “reasonableness” for its immense satisfaction in the deadlocked Colorado Supreme Court ruling Monday that preserved many of Denver’s local firearms restrictions.
According to The Post, “reasonable” gun control is an issue best decided at the local level. However, Colorado is governed by a constitution setting forth my rights as a citizen of this state and which establishes a representative government to enact laws pursuant to the preservation and protection of those rights, including my right to keep and bear arms. If local entities can restrict my rights with virtual impunity, then is Colorado a sovereign constitutional republic or a conglomeration of independently sovereign city-states free to arbitrarily abrogate constitutional rights in the name of “reasonableness?”
Dog-licensing and hedge restrictions are matters for municipal regulation. Leave the constitutional rights to the constitutional government, please.
Anthony J. Fabian, President, Colorado State Shooting Association, Aurora
.
As to whether there has been warming that goes back more than 30 years, just compare the glaciers in the Rockies or the Alps today with photographs taken 100 years ago. It doesn’t take much expertise to see a difference.
Richard Bradley, Colorado Springs
Childhood lessons
Re: “Banning childhood’s important lessons,” June 7 Jessica Peck Corry column.
What possible lessons of life would Corry’s young daughter might learn from being allowed (encouraged?) to bully other children? Will she learn that bullying is cruelty, and that cruelty, by any standard of civilized behavior, is morally wrong and should never be indulged in for an instant? Or will she learn that, if she has little enough regard for others, she can often get whatever she wants by intimidation or coercion?
D.A. Mueller, Colorado Springs
Global warming
Re: “Chill out over global
warming,” June 5 David Harsanyi
column.
Interesting that columnist David
Harsanyi’s expert on global warming
lumps it with “nuclear winter”
as a hoax and a scare that will run
its course.
Nuclear winter was a prediction
of what would follow if the U.S.
and the USSR unleashed their nuclear
might upon each other. Fortunately,
that never happened, so we
don’tknow from experience whether
the prediction was accurate.
As to whether there has been
warming that goes back more than
30 years, just compare the glaciers
in the Rockies or the Alps today
with photographs taken 100 years
ago. It doesn’t take much expertise
to see a difference.
Richard Bradley, Colorado Springs
Owens does right thing
Re: “Touting tourism to fill
coffers,” June 6 business story.
It’s rare that I applaud Gov.
Owens. But he and our current legislature
have seen the light in creating
and signing into law an economic
development bill.
It’s long overdue, and for those
who think it’s corporate welfare,
just remember the late ’80s recession
in Colorado.
When the Federal Reserve raises
interest rates at the end of this
month, and again before the end of
this year, Colorado’s home-building
industry will come to an abrupt
halt, and foreclosures will set
record numbers by the end of 2006.
The only way to avoid another
devastating recession in Colorado
is exactly what the governor and
the legislature have done.
Steve Lustig, Greenwood Village
Goats chomp weeds, build community
Re: “Woolly weeders,” June 6 Page
1 story.
The value of the woolly weeders
goes far beyond the lack of pesticides
used. The woolly weeders
bring back a neighborhood.
In the Bible Park area of Denver,
neighbors walk to the park every
day just to visit with goats and
their friendly keeper as they
munch the weeds. Neighbors greet
each other, children meet neighbors
and their pets.
In an area not previously used
and enjoyed because of the weeds,
dogs exercise, families gather,
adults smile and children run to
see the goats.
If the alternative is pesticides
that hurt children and pets, kill
wildlife, seep into our groundwater
and run into our waterways,
then bring on the goats!
Nina Barber, Denver
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