Benefits for seniors in bad fiscal shape

I’m getting sick of politicians pandering to seniors by proudly stating they won’t touch Social Security and will fight to preserve Medicare benefits.

I get it, seniors are the biggest voting bloc, but let’s be realistic. Social Security and Medicare are badly broken. I’m all for seniors getting back what they put into the system. But thanks to the soaring cost of health care, the average retiree paid $140,000 into Medicare and receives $430,000 in benefits.

We need to fix that, not preserve it. Within a generation, both Social Security and Medicare will be insolvent. In essence, they are government-run Ponzi schemes; people who invest now will never get their money back.

All I’m asking is for one person to man up, instead of sucking up, and tell seniors we need to make big changes to these entitlement programs.

Steve Dang
Kaimuki

Education should be decentralized

Our approach to education is all wrong.

History teaches us that central planning doesn’t work.The notion that we are going to use a lot of rules to create good teaching is silly.Rules are better for telling people not to do something than achieving positive outcomes, particularly when you are doing something complex like education.

What we need is decentralization and local control.Principals and teachers need to be empowered. Under the system they are building, I wouldn’t even want to be a teacher. They’re taking all the fun out of it.

Lloyd Lim
Makiki

Nondeposit glass can be used here

There is a solution to Hawaii’s nondeposit glass bottles problem ("Recyclers left high and dry," Star-Advertiser, July 26).

The company Green Day LLC takes glass bottles, grinds them to powder, mixes powder with other materials and creates stepping stones, floor and wall tiles, furniture, household items and architectural precast.

If Hawaii would utilize this company’s process, we would save millions of dollars in shipping costs, as we now ship the glass to the mainland. We’d reduce the amount in the landfill. We’d create jobs. We’d also save our land, as it wouldn’t be stripped and destroyed for making cement. Hawaii Cement wouldn’t welcome this solution, but cement would still be needed — just not as much.

Green Day LLC and Innovative Building Concepts, a local company, are bidding to the state this proposed solution.

Our state representatives need to think locally and globally and protect our money, resources and environment with this real, long-term, sustainable solution.

Debbie Williams
Kailua

Birth-control policy has consequences

With the world groaning under the weight of human overpopulation, perhaps the greatest contribution the Roman Catholic Church could now make to humanity is to reverse its policy on birth control.

If the Vatican had done so 20 years ago in Latin America, perhaps the U.S. would not now have to face the humanitarian crisis of thousands of destitute and desperate children at its Southern border.

Bill Brundage
Kurtistown

Let Egypt take over Gaza to gain peace

The Israeli-Hamas-Palestinian killing spree is an outrage against humanity.

These very different peoples do not have the ability to make peace and live in harmony among themselves. Their behavior is brutish and childish, hence the adults of our world must stop the carnage permanently.

The only heavyweight Arab country in the region is Egypt. It should take the lead and with the support of the U.N. annex the Gaza Strip.Gaza was once under Egyptian rule. It would be able to assimilate a brother Arab people easily. The result would be no more Hamas backed by Iran in Gaza but instead newly minted Egyptians.

Israel’s southern border would be secure with no more rockets to threaten its survival. Quid pro quo, Israel must then return to its 1967 borders and make a real lasting peace with the West Bank Palestinians. The frontiers would be controlled by the U.N. or NATO-type forces.

Thomas Gambino
Kailua

Airline’s labor deal set bad precedent

As a retired mechanic and former union representative at United Airlines, I would never have put my membersinto a right-to-work-state situation.

For years, the unions have fought hard for job protection, benefits and decent wages that are the same across the system. We have never negotiated for one individual city alone when it involved pay cuts.

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz and the local International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers leadership are taking credit for saving jobs on the outer islands by negotiating a 20 percent pay cut, but they fail to realize the consequence of opening the door for future cuts to other work groups at United here in Hawaii or in any other city in the U.S.

I have worked at United for 43 years and have never seen anything like this before. Our contracts provide for job protection options that should have been exercised.

Roger Apana
Kakaako

Sushi rule about bacteria, not dirt

News reports indicate that sushi chefs object to the requirement that they must now wear gloves when preparing sushi.

They have commented that they know that their hands are clean because they can feel dirt.

The issue is not the presence of dirt but millions of bacteria on their hands. Japanese chefs are not even permitted to wear rings because rings harbor bacteria.

Larry Gardner
Waialae-Kahala