Letters to the editor, May 5, 2008

Corporations need to follow golden rule

I found Dr. Reeb’s commentary of April 16, 2008 concerning class warfare very interesting. I may have missed his point, but he seems to equate corporations as if they are citizens. As citizens they are being persecuted by the government with unnecessary and unneeded rules and regulations.

These corporations are run by people who are usually citizens of the United States, but in the case of international corporations could be citizens of other countries. In most cases these people start out as honorable and upstanding people, but not always and they don’t always stay honorable and upstanding. There would be no need for rules and regulations if they always stay honorable and upstanding. If they treated their customers, their employees, their stockholders, their friends and neighbors as they would want to be treated, there would be no need for rules and regulations.

Dr. Reeb wrote of John D. Rockefeller. What he failed to mention was that John D. Rockefeller got greedy and his company became a monopoly, which resulted in rules and regulations concerning the oil industry. Standard Oil was finally broken up into 33 smaller companies in 1911.

We have a similar situation today. Chevron Oil merged with Gulf Oil, Texaco and Unocal. I remember when some of these mergers took place, they put out the word that if they were larger they either would or could keep the price of gasoline in California lower. If you control production, refining, transportation, and marketing, then you control the price of the product. Another recent merger was ExxonMobil. Both Chevron and Mobil at one time was part of John D. Rockefellers Standard Oil Company.

Dr. Reeb writes about the government’s hindrance by regulations in the drug industry. In President Bush’s first term, he was opposed to importing cheaper drugs from Canada. He said “the drug may not be safe,” so he was opposed to importing them from Canada.

Now some of our drugs are being imported from China and I have yet to hear any concern from President Bush. We know a lot of products from China have been proven to be unsafe. I would ask Dr. Reeb if he feels safe taking medicine from China.

I didn’t know the recent housing problem in the U.S. was caused by the regulation that banks and lending institutions had to provided low-cost loans to poor credit risk customers. I was under the impression the problem was caused by poor credit risk customers who would take out a loan at a specific percentage rate and a few months later the percentage rate was raised so the homeowners monthly payment doubled or tripled and the owner could no longer afford to make their payments. It’s true the customer in many cases was made aware this could happen, but was also assured that it probably would not happen.

So, I would ask Dr. Reeb, whose fault is it that the government has instituted the rules and regulations that causes these problems for companies? Or do the companies who try to flout the present rules and regulations cause their own problems not only for themselves, but for the companies that try to do the right thing?

Lonnie F. Swartz
Barstow