Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/308196
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151ext. 112 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS I'mbeginningto think home ownership is overrated. My house is in a picturesque set- ting on the edge of the countryside. It sits high on a hill, surrounded by lush green grounds and many trees. My near- est neighbor is a football field away. That's the good news. The bad news is that I am in a bit- ter battle with the creatures that surround my property. Every evening when I get home, a robin comes roar- ing out of the lattice under my porch roof. I yell at the bird to stay away, but she doesn't appear to understand cuss words. Because every night I pull down the hay and other nest- ing materials that female robin stuffs up there, and every morning she puts double that amount back. Of course, the robins are mi- nor considered to some of the other woes of home ownership I have suffered. A few years ago, just after moving back to this house and kicking off major renovations — I had rented it out for 14 years — my outside lights were temporarily not working. One night, in the pitch black, I was navigating a path to my back door, when I was stopped dead in my tracks by an angry, grunting creature. My imagination ran wild. A bear? A wolf? An IRS agent? I backpedaled to the car and turned on the high beams. It was a buck protecting his ter- ritory during rutting season, apparently. He wouldn't let me pass for 20 minutes. I have since wired the house, at some ex- pense, with halogen spotlights that turn on when I arrive home. I hired an excavator, at greater expense, to clear trees and shrub- bery from the yard to hopefully push the critters fur- ther into the woods. And I armed myself with a BB gun, a harmless and effec- tive tool for warning critters to leave or receive a little shot to the backside. But for every challenge I solve, there are hundreds of others. Clever raccoons defeat al- most every method I try to keep them from popping the lid of my garbage can and dec- orating the yard with its con- tents. The fact of the matter is that owning a home in the country — heck, owning a home any- where — can be a real hassle and a great expense. It is not for everyone. So maybe it's not the end of the world that U.S. home own- ership, as of the last quarter of 2013, was down to 64.8 percent — the lowest rate in nearly 20 years. Factor in the people close to default and that num- ber is closer to 62 percent. Compare that to 2004, when home ownership peaked at 69 percent — before the housing collapse of 2008. The fact is, owning a home is not for everyone. It's a lot of work and a lot of headaches. And though it has some up- sides — owning a home makes one more aware of the cost of things, such as taxes, which makes one more likely to support lower taxes and more common- sense government programs — it has many downsides. Consider, according to a Forbes article by Kelly Philips, that some of the world's struggling econo- mies — Russia, Italy, Greece and Spain — have higher home own- ership rates than we do. Conversely, countries with traditionally strong economies, such as Germany, Switzerland and Japan, have lower home ownership rates than ours. In any event, I have bigger worries right now than home ownership data. I have to clean hay out of my lattice before robin eggs are laid or I'll get dive-bombed every time I enter or exit my house. TomPurcell,authorof"Misad- ventures of a 1970s Childhood" and "Comical Sense: A Lone Hu- morist Takes on a World Gone Nutty!" is a Pittsburgh Tribune- Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom at Purcell@ caglecartoons.com. Tom Purcell U.S. home ownership for the birds The fact of the matter is that owning a home in the country — heck, owning a home anywhere — can be a real hassle and a great expense. YesonMeasureA Editor: Tehama County, Measure A is truly a grassroots effort. It was started by citizens of this state who have fought and endured the ever-encroaching mountains of regulation, taxation, water and land confiscation perpetrated upon them over the last few de- cades. Many of our Tehama County property owners are now paying a new fire tax that was foisted upon us. With our three votes, our representatives, we say no. With the southern counties' votes, their representatives, they say shut up, sit down, pay this tax. We have no representation. In my opinion the opposition to Measure A is in opposition to the citizens. They need relief. They pay the bills. They must be considered. Those who oppose may be concerned about their state or county paid jobs. I would like them to consider the citizens who will still have need for ser- vices. In my opinion, we will still need many of your services and your expertise. California will still have to pay you your pen- sions earned. You may end up loving your work in the 51st state. All of the scare tactics be- ing employed at this moment may be addressed at the next historic and exciting constitution convention of the 51st state of the union. Please feel free to participate. Be part of this great nation's his- tory. — Michael Smith, Paskenta Proud to be from California Editor: If California were a country, it would have the ninth largest economy in the world. Besides being very diverse and beautiful, California is wealthy and innova- tive and has world class univer- sities, jobs of the future, is rela- tively corruption free and works to provide a good life to every- one who lives in our state. If any state has a chance of solving the problems we all face, it is Cali- fornia. Will separating from Califor- nia save us? Not very likely. We will not get the public land the supporters of Proposition A keep promising us, so we can sell it to whomever is going to buy it to pay all of our costs. Why would Cali- fornia give us property and build- ings bought by the whole of Cal- ifornia? Why would the govern- ment give us land owned by all the citizens of the United States? Because we are a poor, semi- rural county, California subsi- dizes us. It pays 94 percent of our county expenses and 80 per- cent of our school costs. These dollars provide our neighbors and families with good middle class jobs and bring millions of dollars into our county, which helps support our businesses. Jobs, financed by the rest of California, which provide ser- vices we need such as the High- way Patrol, the courts, school employees, professors, assis- tance to our aged and disabled, fire fighters, highway construc- tion, licensing and on and on. As the supporters of Mea- sure A have said, this is like a di- vorce, but it is a very dangerous divorce. We are trying to divorce our fellow Californians who are assisting us with their tax money. If California just paid us a simple share of our taxes, we would be horribly poor. Isn't our future brighter sharing in the re- sources the state of California provides? —Sue Gallagher, Los Molinos Bikini Barrel Racing Editor: I am writing to express op- position to Bikini Barrel Rac- ing and to encourage the Round- Up Association to strongly re- consider scheduling this or like events. The Red Bluff Rodeo is both well recognized and popular and this event does not represent the true spirit of rodeo or the skill needed. It exploits the women racing, is not as safe and is meant to sell sex, beer and more attendance. Is this the way Tehama County and the Rodeo Associa- tion want the rodeo to be repre- sented, promoted and remem- bered? I do thank the directors for considering and rethinking how we want to promote and have the Red Bluff Rodeo represented. —Gail Locke, Red Bluff State of Jefferson Editor: I find some people really do not know anything about the State of Jefferson but write in our paper all the crazy things about it. First funding will come by the property taxes all staying here in our county and not Sacramento. So our schools will do just fine and in short time we will get our schools teaching and not testing all the time. Also our sheriff will be able to do his job with more help so we will have safer streets and parks. We will have equal represen- tation in our new government, which now in California we have none. Now look at us now, Gov. Brown plans on taxing us on the speed rail, which none of us will be able to afford to ride, then the water tunnels he wants to build to take all our water south, how great are we doing now? I don't hear people against the State of Jefferson ever saying anything against welfare in Cal- ifornia. Why don't we have jobs and why are the jobs leaving Cal- ifornia every day? Hey, I think we need a change. We can't vote to change Califor- nia so what have got to lose try- ing something different. At least give our kids a better future. — June Cooper, Red Bluff Your opinions Cartoonist's take Last week World Bank econo- mists predicted that China would soon displace the United States as the world's largest economy. The fact that this one-time economic basket case is now positioned to surpass the US is one more sign of the damage done to American prosperity by welfare, warfare, corporatism, and fiat money. Some commentators have pre- dicted that China's reign as the world's largest economy would not last long. This may be true. While China has made great strides since adopting free-market reforms in the 1970s, China is still run by an authoritarian government whose economic policies distort the mar- ket in order to benefit state-favored industries. What many of these commenta- tors fail to notice is that the Amer- ican government pursues many of the same flawed policies as the Chi- nese. For example, because of the increase in regulations, subsidies, and bailouts, many American busi- nesses are putting more resources into manipulating the political pro- cess than producing goods and ser- vices desired by consumers. Many big businesses even lobby Congress and the federal bureaucracy for new regulations on their industries. They do this because big business can more easily absorb the costs of complying with the new regula- tions that force their smaller com- petitors out of business. China is regularly criticized by American protectionists for subsi- dizing its export industries. How- ever, the US government does the same thing via programs such as the Export-Import Bank. China is also criticized for manipulating the value of its currency to make its exports more attractive to for- eign consumers. This may well be true, but China is hardly unique in this respect. Throughout its his- tory, the Federal Reserve has ma- nipulated both the domestic and in- ternational economy, often working in partnership with foreign central banks. The Federal Reserve's inflation- ary policies benefit big banks, po- litically-connected businesses, and big-spending politicians at the ex- pense of the American people. Anyone interested in helping im- prove the American people's eco- nomic situation should focus on changing America's monetary pol- icy, not China's. Ironically, many of the same politicians who denounce China's monetary policy benefit from Chi- nese purchases of America's debt. If China stopped making large pur- chases of US debt, the Federal Re- serve would be forced to monetize even more debt, thus risking hy- perinflation. So the best thing Con- gress could do to make it more difficult for China to manipulate the global economy is cut federal spending. One advantage China has over the US is that the Chinese govern- ment does not waste money on a hyper-interventionist foreign pol- icy. The United States govern- ment spent approximately $752 billion on the military in fiscal year 2013. In contrast, China spent approximately $188 billion. While China may be increasing its mil- itary spending, it has a long way to go to catch up to the United States. It is difficult to see how the American people, other than those who run or work for the military- industrial complex, benefit from this spending. Military spending, like all government spending, ham- pers private sector growth by tak- ing resources away from inves- tors, entrepreneurs, and consum- ers while contributing significantly to the national debt. In contrast, a return to the pol- icy of peace and free trade would allow those resources to be used by entrepreneurs to create new busi- nesses and new jobs. The only way to avoid continuing collapse is to finally reject an inter- ventionist foreign policy, stop bail- ing out and subsidizing politically powerful industries, and restore a free market in money. Ron Paul is a former Congressman and Presidential candidate. He can be reached at RonPaulChannel.com. Ron Paul Reasons why America is no longer No. 1 Tom Purcell I have to clean hay out of my lattice before robin eggs are laid or I'll get dive-bombed every time I enter or exit my house. OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Wednesday, May 7, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6