Rut of Oppression
I am disappointed with the media and particularly The Sun for Democrat-bashing. When it comes to economic policy and in the face of futile efforts by the Federal Reserve Board to achieve overall and balanced economic stability, Democrats like Sen. Paul Sarbanes are the only hope that the populace has for fair legislation.
The continuous flow of assertions of economic vigilance from The Sun is without reason and is reminiscent of difficult-to-accept state-run propaganda. Perhaps future generations will think of this time as the age of misinformation, a time when conventional wisdom adhered to a set of unworkable principles that were followed by professionals and supported by media.
I don't think our nation's economy will founder on this debacle, but certainly the populace will feel the devastation of oppression before a concerted effort is put forth to reform the theories that perpetuate it. I find it distressful that:
1. It has never been clearly proven that inflation, the main concern of the affluent, is controllable, in the sense that government interest rate manipulation can make a difference without redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich.
2. If inflation were controllable, the most fundamental need would be for reliable economic data. Now the economy is gauged by ill-conceived data that might not be applicable and are of doubtful veracity. For example, the growth of our work-force is about 250,000 per month, which negates the claimed job creation and adds to a growing number of unemployed that, if counted, would put the unemployment rate at about 10 percent.
3. The Fed has lost control of interest rate hikes and must follow the wishes of financial markets. It will hike rates, as usual, until the next recession looms -- probably in 1996. It will always claim to be pre-empting inflation.
Mature and orderly economies such as ours, despite the bungling of central banks, operate within a narrow, natural inflation range, which is linked to certain circumstance and needs no reaction. We see temporary inflation in developing countries, or when a radical change in govern
ment takes place. Other disruptions are when extraordinary shortages of a crucial commodity are played on, frenzy-like, in frivolous markets.
At some point, the populace, with the help of consumer advocates and prudent legislators, will advance to equal distribution of our nation's wealth, wherein there will be incentive to strive for success in the work force. We will climb out of the rut of oppression, even if it takes a court challenge.
Vincent A. Henderson
Towson
Unhappy Author
I am writing in response to a review of my book, "Seized," that appeared in The Sun Aug. 26, 1993.
"Seized" considers temporal lobe epilepsy, a common but little known neurological disorder, as a medical, historical and artistic phenomenon.
Your reviewer, Daniel Grant, erred in assuming that I diagnosed TLE in various historical figures. As a journalist -- not a physician -- I would be presumptuous, at the very least, to diagnose any disorder in anyone.
Every diagnosis of TLE mentioned in "Seized" was made by a physician. Most of these diagnoses are in the medical literature, either in journal articles or books.
Dostoevsky, van Gogh and Flaubert, for instance, were all diagnosed in their lifetimes by their doctors. In the cases of more distant historical figures, such as Saint Paul, Saint Joan and Moses, TLE was diagnosed in the past decade by physicians in taped interviews with me, in articles, or in books.
Eve LaPlante
Boston
Navy Decision
We read with interest the story of the return of the remains of Navy Captain John R. Dunham (The Sun, Sept. 16), who was a "navigator on a U.S. reconnaissance plane shot down by a Soviet fighter in 1952."
Does anyone but me think it is alarming that a Navy captain, a four-striper, a flag officer, who by his rank indicates the education, training and experience normally associated with commanding a battleship or aircraft carrier, was acting as navigator on a routine reconnaissance flight?
If the plane did, indeed, violate Soviet air space, perhaps the fault can be laid to the Navy for selecting one so vastly overqualified and so far beyond navigation school for such a mission. A very poor utilization of manpower qualifications, to say the least.
Richard G. Ballard
Sparks
Working Diplomat
Whatever one thinks of the terms former President Carter negotiated with the Haitian junta (editorial, "Winning the Haiti Gamble," Sept. 19), the most striking thing about the whirlwind weekend may have been that while Jimmy Carter was busy averting a military invasion, Secretary of State Warren Christopher was reportedly screening a new Robert Redford movie.
When The Sun says "by no means should he be brought inside," do you mean Mr. Carter or Mr. Christopher?
Patrick Butler
Bethesda
Cancer Risks
Your Sept. 15 article on the discovery of a gene, which when defective is related to the incidence of breast cancer that runs in families, neglects a very significant item of information.
While a large percentage of the women with this defect will develop either breast or ovarian cancer, other press reports point out that only five percent of breast cancers appear to be attributable to the influence of heredity.
Not an easy point to make, but surely necessary to put the situation in perspective.
Ronald B. Leve
Ellicott City
World Trade Organization Isn't Government
The China Post reprinted Lyle Denniston's informative article on the current prospects in Congress for the proposed World Trade Organization.
I was in Taipei when I read it, and I have these comments to offer.
The WTO is not "world government" as Jesse Helms supposes, nor is it a loss of U.S. sovereignty as Laurence Tribe contends. The WTO cannot pass any laws or impose any taxes. There are no world "courts" in the WTO.
It can authorize a member country to take a trade countermeasure (raise a tariff or impose a quota) in response to a trade dispute, but countries do that now (including the U.S. under section 301), with or without any authorization from anyone else.
The WTO authorization makes for a more orderly process of trade rules, but it is not the exercise of some world power.
Nor is there any loss of sovereignty. Neither the WTO nor any other country can force federal, state or local governments to change their laws.
If the WTO decides that one of our laws violates a WTO trade rule, then our trading partners may take a limited trade countermeasure against the U.S., but our laws stay the same unless or until we in the U.S. decide to change them.
Saying that the WTO would be world government is like saying the International Olympic Committee is world government. It overstates reality.
The fact is that the GATT is no longer effective.
It has been very successful since 1947 in lowering tariffs and encouraging a huge increase in global trade and economic prosperity. But tariffs are no longer the barrier to increased trade.
We need a permanent institution like the WTO, first, to administer fair trade rules, and, second and more importantly, to incorporate decent labor standards and tough environmental protections into production and trade practices.
Mr. Denniston wrote that GATT "does its work largely by consensus," but it would be more accurate to say that GATT does not work today because expecting consensus among 117 nations is unrealistic and a recipe for inaction.
Decision-making under the proposed WTO looks first for consensus, but lacking consensus there is decision-making by voting.
Frankly, my reading of the WTO agreement tells me that only unimportant things can be decided by a simple majority vote.
Important matters require a two-thirds or three-quarters vote, and really important matters require a unanimous vote.
Specific trade disputes between member governments are decided by panel reports that are automatically adopted by the WTO unless there is a consensus -- unlikely -- not to adopt the report. This gives international trade rules teeth, but no panel report can make us change our laws.
Finally, the proposed WTO agreements are not a treaty that becomes the law of the land.
If Congress approves our membership in the WTO, it will do so by passing, on a majority vote in both House and Senate, our own set of U.S. laws implementing the WTO agreements.
This, as much as anything else, illustrates that it is U.S. law that counts at the bottom line.
Francis J. Gorman
Baltimore