Letters To The Editor

Deregulation cost

How unfortunate Susan Page’s credit card company elected to use personal information they have to market to you, and have others market to you as well, so they may profit. Her column in the April 11 Midweek was certainly a good one.

Of course, that exemplifies minimally regulated “Free Markets” that can make Grover Norquist, Sean Hannity and Norquist pledge-signers increasingly proud. Finance companies prefer self-established codes of conduct so the “Nanny State” and liberal forces of the left don’t stifle our “freedom.” Who knows, with “socialist,” “job-killing” regulation and Obamacare-like approaches, the credit card companies might lose chances to use your information as they see fit. The company argument may be that you, as an individual, did sign off in giving them that authority. It may have been in fine print that only special interest lawyers could truly understand, but, as Ms. Page notes, it was there.

Would you really want consumers to have the rights corporations do? And should we really spend more tax dollars on regulation-writing when private companies can make voluntary agreements or write laws themselves, for free?

Note: The same issue applies to mortgages, for-profit colleges, etc. The ALEC organization, including ATT, Koch brother companies and finance companies, wrote and supported laws, including the “Stand Your Ground” laws, adopted by many states. It is the limited-government private sector at work. Do you want increased credit card regulation when we know how incredibly successful financial deregulation was for our economy before the Obama-care administration?

When I served in Kuwait and Iraq, an employee of my mobile phone company chose to give out personal information that cost me several hundred dollars in fraudulent charges. It took me about six months and 25 hours on the phone to get it fixed. Communications companies clearly deserve less regulation, eh?

K. E. Hayashi, MD,
MPH & TM, Captain
(Retired), MC, USN

The secret war

In his column “America’s Shame In Philippines,” Bob Jones exposed the genocidal colonization that killed millions of innocent Filipinos by the U.S. during the Philippine-American War.

According to a highly respected source, The Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War, the U.S. government along with historians, publishers, educators, the media played a role in removing the controversial Philippine-American War from U.S. and Filipino consciousness.

Filipino academics and scholars must fulfill their mission to educate young Filipinos and Filipinas worldwide of this horrific event.

Mel Domingo
Honolulu