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Transgender flagdecision is unfair
Re: “Transgender flag to fly throughout year” (Page B1, March 25).
I was surprised and disappointed to learn that the Santa Clara County government has announced that the transgender flag will be flown at the county government building year-round.
That decision is wrong. It is wrong because it is unfair. No group, class, culture or religion should ever receive special treatment or separate rights. In America, groups do not have rights. Individuals do.
Is it fair for one segment of the population to be recognized by the government and have a designated flag flown outside a government building year-round? What about the others? Are they not deserving too?
This decision does not promote unity, it does the opposite. It fosters resentment. Right now, a dozen different groups are wondering, “Why do they get their flag flown at the county building, when we don’t?”
Pete CampbellSan Jose
Trump needs to learnbasic economics
Since Ronald Reagan was president, most Republican leaders have followed the principle of free market economics. This theory, promoted by Milton Friedman in his book “Free to Choose,” is that economies prosper best when controlled by supply and demand, not limited by government regulation.
Once Donald Trump tried to interfere with the free market using tariffs, other countries immediately rebelled. Richard Nixon tried to control inflation with wage and price limits, and these failed almost as badly.
I hope Trump’s failure doesn’t send us into another Great Depression, which deepened in the 1930s after the last attempt to raise tariffs. Maybe he needs to go back to college and study economics instead of limiting dissent at schools like Columbia.
Bill GrahamSalinas
Shame on U.S. firmsthat send jobs away
Re: “Trump’s new tariffs test Apple’s global supply chain” (Page C7, April 4).
Shame on Apple and other American companies for moving production to countries with cheap labor. American industry and the union workers are the biggest losers while the shareholders and the CEOs make obscene profits.
The top 1% of U.S. business leaders accumulate these large amounts of wealth because of this outsourced cheap labor. The average worker struggles to find a job that allows them to afford the high cost of rent, food and utilities. This is one reason many American men have given up the job search.
The American way of doing business needs to change if everyone is going to prosper in the future.
Patricia Marquez RuttRedwood City
Tariffs fly in faceof economic reality
President Trump’s tariffs are a “ruin-thy-neighbor” effort, a philosophy he thinks is wise, even brilliantly wise, but it isn’t.
God bless Trump, for he needs a blessing. He should go to an economic church and listen to the sermon. Perhaps he will learn something and will change his behavior, but do not hold your breath that he or his advisers will do this or are even capable of comprehending long-known economic concepts.
In the meantime, everyone’s economic situation will worsen, especially those of retirees and low-income families. What a crying shame.
When you add in the large number of government workers being laid off (by Elon Musk, Trump’s unelected oligarch co-president), the situation in the U.S. only gets worse. Especially cruel and onerous is laying off aid workers, educators, researchers and veterans.
Normal citizens, grab your life vests. The American ship is sinking.
Larry DorshkindRedwood City
Column exposesthreat tariffs pose
Re: “How tariffs destroy what makes America great” (Page A7, April 4).
What makes America great are columns like those by David Brooks.
Brooks starts by including the Bay Area with the most innovative places in world history. He references other writers, too, discussing places, networks and channels for ideas. He continues with the importance of America’s great universities that include foreign students. And, finally, Brooks outlines the values that make America so great — in a word: cosmopolitan … having roots in one town, but “treasuring and learning” from others.
I’ll practice what his column preaches tonight by “putting myself in an unfamiliar situation” — ballroom dancing with a Bay Area and Asian vibe.
Jerry SheahanSan Jose
Tariffs will targetU.S. consumers
The only thing the new U.S. tariffs on other countries will do is raise prices for consumers.
A looming trade war is not a good thing. There’s even a tariff on Lesotho, a fairly poor African country. All this seems so unfair.
Hopefully, President Trump will change his mind and see that the tariffs will cause inflation and less spending.
Celeste McGettiganSan Jose