Readers write: Team owner earnings, senior workers, and chestnut tree recovery
See what our readers have to say about our sports players鈥� salaries cover story and on-the-ground interviews about seniors entering the workforce.
See what our readers have to say about our sports players鈥� salaries cover story and on-the-ground interviews about seniors entering the workforce.
Team owner earnings, Part 2
In Colleen Hartmon Bollom鈥檚 letter regarding the May 13 cover story, 鈥淒o they make too much?,鈥� she brought up the important issue of taxpayer subsidies for professional sports teams.
This is a topic that writer Phil Taylor and I discussed during my interview for the article, but it didn鈥檛 make it into the final version. These subsidies clearly help to inflate player salaries and owner returns.聽
While I would dispute the monopolistic claim that Ms. Bollom made in her letter, I do wholeheartedly agree with her point that teams should not seek out or receive such subsidies. Even if one were to think that the state has a role in providing industry subsidies in certain cases 鈥� for example, to provide public goods 鈥� professional sports teams are not public goods and teams do not need the subsidies to be viable.
Moreover, study after study shows that cities and states that subsidize their sports teams do not generally see the economic gains that are typically touted by subsidy supporters.
Shawn Klein
Phoenix
Senior workers
In the June 10 article 鈥淲here is the workforce really booming? Among the oldest workers,鈥� your on-the-ground interviews are spot on. Upper management plays the public relations game, so while they say older workers are valued, lower managers do the interviewing.聽
And, speaking from personal experience, the 鈥淚鈥檓 not going to hire my father鈥� look in an interviewer鈥檚 eyes is real and common.
Richard Szweda
Fairport, New York
Chestnut tree recovery
It was with great interest that I read Eoin O鈥機arroll鈥檚 piece in the May 20 issue of the Monitor Weekly 鈥淐an genetic modification save American chestnut? Should it?鈥澛�
As a child growing up in Massachusetts, visiting my grandmother鈥檚 farm in the foothills of the Berkshires, I saw large stumps 鈥� the skeletal remains of the once-mighty American chestnut trees in her grove. It was with sadness that I learned of their demise, caused by a devastating blight decades before.
It is good to know that researchers are working to develop a blight-resistant strain of these trees. Through the efforts of these scientists future generations may once again enjoy the splendor of the 鈥渟preading chestnut-tree,鈥� as described in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow鈥檚 poem 鈥淭he Village Blacksmith.鈥�
Andy Rockwood
Peoria, Arizona