Readers Report
Afterthoughts on 25 Ideas
Our summer double issue, "25 Ideas for a Changing World" (Cover Story, Aug. 19-26), prompted an outpouring of reader mail, including praise, criticism--and many additional ideas.
Fodder for the Imagination
I truly enjoyed "The art of brainstorming." I have always believed that we all possess the ability to be creative and artistic. We just need a little coaxing, stimulation, fun, and camaraderie. An open mind, imagination, and the quest for adventure and knowledge are what breed new ideas. After reading your article, I turned on the stereo, baked some cookies, called a few friends, and smiled. I plan to nourish the possibilities ahead and seek answers and solutions.
To borrow a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., "Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions." What a promising thought.
Diane E. Alter
Navesink, Conn.
Giving Kids a Smart Start
Your 25 Ideas are good, but reverse the order. "The importance of teaching tots" is No. 1 in my book.
Bill Collins
Davis, Calif.
As mayor of San Jose, Calif., the capital of Silicon Valley, I know full well the impact of new ideas. I especially want to congratulate you on including universal access to preschool on your list. America must embrace the goal of preparing every child for success in school and take the steps needed to achieve it.
In San Jose, we have created the Smart Start San Jose program to get children ready for kindergarten. The city is making the capital investments for these preschool centers. Our partners include community organizations, Head Start, and local school districts. Working together, our preschool centers have 90% of graduating children entering kindergarten ready for success.
Mayor Ron Gonzales
San Jose, Calif.
Sorry Isn't Enough
"The mea culpa defense" works only when the act in question is isolated or comparatively benign. Apologizing for chronic or acute malfeasance is popular in public-relations courses and in PR firms' case studies, but it rarely works in true crisis management. The public doesn't want apologies. What people do want is not to be abused in the first place.
Eric Dezenhall
Washington
Investors Are Angry
Americans were not nearly as scared by the attack on the World Trade Center [as was suggested in] "When business is scared stagnant." More inclined to use caution, perhaps, but scared out of the stock market--no. Nor does fear lie at the heart of our country's stock market problems.
Anger certainly is, though. Our business system and most of its leaders have betrayed us in the most corrupt and evil ways possible. If you want to restore faith in the stock market, help reform the system.
Fred Gibson
Tahlequah, Okla.
The perception of excessive risk seriously impairs both investors and consumers. But the way we deal with economic risk is to manage it. It is odd to attack financial derivatives as culprits when these instruments are actually designed to reduce market risk.
The real problem is the lack of transparency in risk-bearing and accountability for returns to risk. This has given rise to risk-taking of the "heads I win, tails you lose" variety where managers and other agents get to play with other people's money, often in a rigged game. The only way to harness risk-taking behavior is to be sure risk-takers know they will suffer the consequences of their own mistakes.
Michael Harrington
Santa Monica, Calif.
Rich Man, Poor Man
"The rich get richer, and that's O.K." discusses ways that wealth can be distributed across people as if there were no moral consequences. The notion that a person's work belongs to others is that of slavery, not freedom. The alternative to a free society is one in which everyone has a claim on everyone else: A wants B's money, C wants D's land, E wants F's spare time, and G wants H's artistic talent. We can have true equality when we all share everything equally, but it won't be a fun ride to the bottom of that swamp.
John L. Shelton
Redwood City, Calif.
Yes, the rich get richer. No, it's not O.K.
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Sherry Smith
Evanston, Ill.
Keeping Companies Honest
"Firepower for financial cops" hit the nail right on the head. The Securities & Exchange Commission needs the power to pursue criminal cases, not just civil cases. With the current operating practices, the SEC has told Corporate America that white-collar crime is not a punishable crime for individuals.
Keith S. Anvick
San Carlos, Calif.
Don't Dis Cold Cash
"Abolish paper money" is extremely insensitive. Many Latinos in America eschew credit cards and bank accounts--yet they are not tax cheats or drug peddlers. Likewise, the rest of us who carry $50 bills around do so in opposition to all the credit-card junkies [who use] cards for $2 purchases (while they are shouting into their cell phones).
Michael R.A. Wade
Los Angeles
You can forget about a night out with the gang playing poker.
Richard L. Smith
Phoenix
On the Brainpower Bandwagon
A time will come when it will dawn on us that competitive cores are built on intangibles, not special-purpose entities or even stock options; that vast sums are spent on creating intellectual property, and that these are the assets that market values--and investment bets--are based on ("Brainpower on the balance sheet"). The knowledge economy will force us onto the brainpower bandwagon, forcing managers to document intangible asset value, and efficient R&D, and disgracing them if they cannot.
Keith Cochran
Kirkland, Wash.
Redefining Quality of Life
"The coming battle for immigrants" addressed the future ability of nations to support more older citizens, and advocated a redistribution of the youth of this world. This raises two questions: What happens in the next generation, and who takes care of the parents of the immigrants? Biologists know that organisms, and populations by extension, have periods of growth, maturation, and death. We should be trying to find ways to have an acceptable quality of life with minimal growth, and thus, short-circuit the death phase. Unlimited growth usually means ever-accelerating material consumption and, thus, a "higher" standard of living. This issue needs much more consideration, not solely in economic terms.
Bernard Hofreiter
Peoria
Lawyer-Victim Insurance
Mike France's apology for the American trial-lawyer profession brought us mirth ("Don't kill all the trial lawyers"). We propose a better idea: Force every trial lawyer to carry "lawyer-victim insurance." It would automatically reimburse the majority of defendants wrongfully sued or accused by pernicious and sloppy lawyers.
David Behar, M.D.
Bethlehem, Pa.
James L. Schaller, M.D.
West Chester, Pa.
The Rules Don't Change
The "rules" that marketing gurus breathlessly cite to differentiate young consumers in 2002 from their parents are just so many rehashed shibboleths ("Didja c that kewl ad?"). Kids today don't like to be talked down to? Name me a generation that does. Teenagers now have a built-in BS meter? Everyone thinks they have a built-in BS meter.
The same rules of marketing apply as they did in the mid-19th century when Viscount Leverhulme--one of the Lever Brothers--complained that half the money he spent on advertising was wasted. And he couldn't figure out which half that was.
Christopher Grove
Los Angeles
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Copyright 2002, Bloomberg L.P.
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