Show us the money

Recent news is that the bailout made money. Really? Where is it? We gave it, we want it back. We could balance all the states’ budgets with what we gave to the banks!

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report on the financial crisis said, “We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable ... We conclude widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision proved devastating to the stability of the nation’s financial markets.

“The prime example is the Federal Reserve’s pivotal failure to stem the flow of toxic mortgages, which it could have done by setting prudent mortgage-lending standards. The Federal Reserve was the one entity empowered to do so and it did not” (see www.fcic.gov/report).

If this was a company, corporation or individual, there would be civil and criminal charges. Where is the accountability? Ignorance is not above the law.

Who is going to look out for us? I’m scared because I don’t see any accountability for the Federal Reserve or any other government entity. Are they really above the law? Did we really reward them for their ignorance?

Please, Lois Capps, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Kevin McCarthy, Sam Blakeslee, Katcho Achadjian: we are hurting. We elected you all to represent us, so do it!

Larry Sullivan

Los Osos

Some suggestions

The first thing Rep. Darrell Issa did as House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair was ask corporate lobbyists and his rich industry friends what to investigate. I have some suggestions.

After what Wall Street, banks and the other usual suspects have done to this country, why don’t we ask the mafia to advise us on police policy?

We have one war, hopefully winding down, that was started because we were evidently afraid that Iraq had the capabilities to bomb the United States with giant RC model airplanes carrying weapons of mass destruction, evoking images of mushroom-shaped clouds. How about we really investigate the Bush Administration’s rush to war with Iraq?

We are increasing our involvement in Afghan-istan because some folks there supposedly planned the 9/11 attack. Let’s really investigate 9/11 and really question why we are still in Afghanistan.

And then there is the American military-industrial complex. What an incredible insanity to maintain military expenditures that outweigh every other nation on this Earth combined. Let’s investigate that.

Finally, let’s really investigate those corporate criminals who have probably destroyed this nation by finally unraveling the middle class.

Joe St. Clair

Grover Beach

Pay for war

A recent item in your “Flashback” section pointed out that in 1943, my grandparents had rationing (Feb. 7). Their generation gave things up to support the war. My generation gets tax breaks during our war on terror.

It seems to me that we should be sacrificing and paying for our war efforts. If we are not willing to pay for our war, we should not be entitled to have one.

Lloyd Reeves

Los Osos

Problems we face

The Associated Press photo of Central American migrants on top of a freight train somewhere in Mexico needed few additional words to describe a very sad sight (Feb. 4).

One cannot help but feel compassion for people so devoid of opportunity in their own countries that they have to risk their lives seeking work in the United States. On another front, our inability to deal with the worsening problem of illegal immigration is also sad.

The photo suggests that the problem is not easing, that migrants from other countries are heading north in greater numbers. When does the problem become unsustainable? When 30 million are here? Forty million?

Many think we are on the verge of bankrupting our local resources with the number of illegal immigrants here now. A recent letter to the editor underlines the problem. The writer laments the fact that a DUI checkpoint yielded no DUIs, but more than a dozen citations for undocumented people driving without licenses (“No DUI arrests?,” Feb. 3).

Richard Rogers

Templeton

Poop plan stinks

We continue making major cuts in education and yet have hired dogs to sniff for poop on the Carrizo Plain in order to send it to Washington, D.C., for DNA analysis to protect the kit fox in the presence of renewable energy (“Fox hunt’s goal is poop, not pup,” Feb. 4). OMG.

We are endangering our own survival (education, energy, etc.) to protect the kit fox. That truly is insane. Besides, there’s plenty of poop already in Washington, D.C.!

Bill O’Neil

Atascadero