LETTERS
Recruiting Ads
Each week when I get the Orange County Business Journal I am
convinced that we live and work in the best place in the entire country.
I was “pleased” to see in the Nov. 3 edition that the Journal is “doing its share” to improve the local economy by taking ads from out-of-state economic development agencies (idahoworks.com, page 19) extolling how good things are in their locale.
This “island-sized” ad should have produced about $5,000 in revenue for the Journal, which I hope will be placed in a “relief fund” for the displaced employees of businesses that move to Idaho after reading it.
While we are not happy about the current state of affairs in California and are working with other business organizations to try to correct some of the tax-and-spend attitudes in Sacramento, we certainly don’t think the answer lies with supporting the moving companies.
Michael D. Neben
President/CEO
Anaheim Chamber of Commerce
Unemployment
I want to make some comments about Howard Fine’s Nov. 10 story, “Employers Face
Higher Unemployment Charges.” I have worked in the employment services industry for 24 years, and I currently place veterans into employment and training.
First of all, if the employers of this country would have taken a hard look at sending all the work to other countries we would not be in this mess. I think every employer who sends American jobs overseas to increase their profits and send the product back to this country for Americans to buy should be taxed three times the normal rate.
Regarding the weekly benefit amount of unemployed workers, who drove up the cost of living in Orange and Los Angeles Counties? Certainly not the unemployed!
Regarding the unemployment fraud in California, you can thank former Gov. Pete Wilson. He wanted to contract out unemployment insurance to his buddies which would have undermined this system; when he discovered he was not going to be able to accomplish this he changed the EDD system to set it for failure and fraud in order to discredit state workers and a system that has been highly successful for over 70 years.
The information I have given you is solely my personal opinion and not that of the Employment Development Department, State of California.
Bill Thormahlen
Garden Grove
Baseball
We Americans have a global problem. No, we’re not
talking Osama, Iraq or European relations.
We’re talking baseball.
We who invented the game, we who gave the world the spitball, the infield fly rule and the DH controversy, we won’t be playing our game at the 2004 Olympics.
That’s because on Nov. 7 we lost a “must” game in the Olympics qualifying tournament to Mexico, 2-1.
“I don’t think it’s a setback for U.S. baseball,” rationalized Major League Baseball executive Sandy Alderson. “I think it’s a validation of the internationalization of the game.”
Okay, sure, blame it on foreign competition. But what’s to be done?
First, bring back Tommy Lasorda! In 2000 the U.S. team managed by the ex-Dodger skipper and Hall-of-Famer Lasorda took the gold at Sydney,with a team, like this year’s, comprised mainly of professional castoffs and Major League wannabes.
Second, make Lasorda’s job a lot easier. Get Major League Baseball to follow the lead of the National Basketball Association in its willingness to have its stars compete in the Olympics. Baseball balks at the idea because, unlike with basketball, the Olympics interrupts its season. One equitable solution might be for the U.S. Olympic Committee to have the right to tap the services of only one or two willing players from each big league roster. Think of it as an “amateur draft” in reverse.
Third, we need to strengthen our baseball programs at all amateur and professional levels. We’ll do it the American Way, by importing as many outstanding Latino and Japanese players as we can find!
Finally, we American baseball fans must acclimate to changing global realities. When the ball doesn’t bounce our way, we need to console ourselves with an updated adage:
“Wait’ll next Olympiad!”
Michael Arnold Glueck
Philip Gold
(Glueck, of Newport Beach, is a writer and baseball enthusiast. Gold, of Seattle, is a historian.)
