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Wednesday, July 1, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I N I O
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Robert B.
Reich
American Voices
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone
number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not neces-
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To the Editor:
When I was mayor of our small town, one
thing I clearly remember being told from con-
ferences and meetings is that every city has the
same problems, it’s only a matter of scale. So
I find it interesting and similar that Sisters is
experiencing the same thing as Benton County.
A minority wants to build a paved path
from Albany to Corvallis. The controversy is
that it needs to cross private property of gener-
ational farmers. The fight is bitter and I empa-
thize with the landowners because wherever
there are people there is litter, vandalism, theft
and defecation even though the “wouldn’t it be
great” crowd disagrees.
Benton County Commissioner Linda
Modrell, who has recently stepped down, was
pushing for eminent domain.
It would appear that the same thinking
applies in Sisters. And frankly, the traffic con-
gestion at Tollgate is not from the folks from
Black Butte Ranch or Camp Sherman. By far
and above, the majority of traffic to Sisters is
from the valley, the coast, the large cities and
points beyond. So the proposed path would
benefit the same “wouldn’t it be great” minori-
ties at the expense of all of you and the dismay
of property owners. Good luck with that.
And I must admit, in Sisters’ case, I only
learned of this issue recently and may not have
all the facts, but it smells the same.
Chris Schaffner
Tangent, Oregon
s
s
s
To the Editor:
We should not be advocating for another
trail when there is already one in existence that
exactly parallels the proposed Sisters to Black
Butte Ranch trail. There is already a trail from
Sisters that goes all the way to Indian Ford
Creek and Campground, where it ties into the
network of Metolius Area recreation trails. It
isn’t paved, but it could easily be developed as
See letters on page 14
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Five giant banks —
including Wall Street behe-
moths JPMorgan Chase and
Citicorp — recently pleaded
guilty to criminal felony
charges that they rigged the
world’s foreign-currency
market for their own profit.
This wasn’t a small heist.
We’re talking hundreds of
billions of dollars worth of
transactions every day.
The banks altered cur-
rency prices long enough
for the banks to make win-
ning bets before the prices
snapped back to what they
should have been.
Attorney General Loretta
Lynch called it a “brazen
display of collusion” that
harmed “countless consum-
ers, investors and institutions
around the globe — from
pension funds to major cor-
porations, and including the
banks’ own customers.”
The penalty? The banks
have agreed to pay $5.5 bil-
lion. That may sound like a
big chunk of change, but for
a giant bank it’s the cost of
doing business. In fact, the
banks are likely to deduct
the fines from their taxes as
business costs.
The banks sound contrite.
After all, they can’t have the
public believe they’re out-
right crooks.
It’s “an embarrassment to
our firm, and stands in stark
contrast to Citi’s values,”
said Citigroup CEO Michael
Corbat.
Values? Citigroup’s main
value is to make as much
money as possible. Corbat
himself raked in about $13
million last year.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie
Dimon calls it “a great dis-
appointment to us,” and says
“we demand and expect bet-
ter of our people.”
Expect better? If recent
history is any guide,
JPMorgan expects exactly
this kind of behavior from its
people.
When real people plead
guilty to felonies, they go
to jail. But big banks aren’t
people despite what the five
Republican appointees to the
Supreme Court say.
The executives who run
these banks aren’t going to
jail, either. Apologists say
it’s not fair to jail bank exec-
utives because they don’t
know what their rogue trad-
ers are up to.
Yet ex-convicts often
suffer consequences beyond
jail terms. In many states
they lose their right to vote.
They can’t run for office or
otherwise participate in the
political process.
So why not take away
the right of these convicted
banks to participate in the
political process, at least for
some years? That would stop
JPMorgan’s Dimon from
lobbying Congress to roll
back the Dodd-Frank Act,
as he’s been doing almost
nonstop.
Why not also take away
their right to pour money
into politics? Wall Street
banks have been among the
biggest contributors to polit-
ical campaigns. If they’re
convicted of a felony, they
should be barred from mak-
ing any political contribu-
tions for at least 10 years.
Real ex-convicts also
have difficulty finding jobs.
That’s because, rightly
or wrongly, many people
don’t want to hire them. A
strong case can be made that
employers shouldn’t pay
attention to criminal convic-
tions of real people who need
a fresh start, especially a job.
But giant banks that
have committed felonies are
something different. Why
shouldn’t depositors and
investors consider their past
convictions?
Which brings us to Santa
Cruz County.
The county’s board of
supervisors just voted not
to do business for five years
with any of the five bank
felons. The county won’t
use the banks’ investment
services or buy their com-
mercial paper, and will pull
its money out of the banks to
the extent that it can.
The banks will hardly
notice. Santa Cruz County’s
portfolio is valued at about
$650 million.
But what if every county,
city and state in America fol-
lowed Santa Cruz County’s
example and held the big
banks accountable for their
felonies?
What if all of us taxpay-
ers said, in effect, we’re not
going to hire these convicted
felons to handle our pub-
lic finances? We don’t trust
them.
That would hit these
banks directly. Which might
even cause them to clean up
their acts.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.