SPEAKOUT

IN A RECENT comic, Frank and Ernest were shown standing before Gorbechev, the president of the Soviet Union, telling him, "We are here from the U.S. to teach you about the free market." This would be comical, if not pathetic in the sense that we are sending over academics, intellectuals, bureaucrats, all socialistic people who have never owned a business, run a business or met a payroll. They are people who are structured towards the centralized socialism of this country, which is destroying our free-enterprise system as sure as the killer of the goose who laid the golden egg. By that I mean, first, they tell us to cut business, who they can employ and fire, such as hiring homosexuals, feminists; they have race quotas both in hiring and in contracting. Secondly, there's a bureaucratic madhouse controlling business through building permits, planning and zoning, civil rights, OSHA, EPA, workmen's compensation, contractors under so-called prevailing wage rates, tax subsidies and so forth. In the third place, the politically correct amount of profit is determined by governmental structures, not by the supply and demand of the free-enterprise system. And the government determines benefits and leave policies and other such things in businesses. So, you see, how can anybody under such a system teach somebody else what to do with the free market?

MY WIFE AND I just received our new numbers on our Social Security. My wife netted $3 and I netted $8 a month. We sure hope our congressmen and senators don't get a larger raise than we did.

I WOULD LIKE to respond to the person who said that Reagan was responsible for the problems we have today, the economic mess. The American public is not responsible because they took Reagan's tax cuts. The problem with the economy today is the big spenders in Washington and all of the government red tape they put on businesses. This is driving businesses out. Just like the cars; the Japanese can produce better parts because they don't have the red tape we do. It's the Democrats in Congress that have spent this money.

THANKS SO very much for fixing the walk lights at the corner of Sprigg and William. Very nice. At least we can walk and feel safe. Thank you.

I HAVE DECIDED that cigarette smokers are the rudest people in the world. They'll stand beside you blowing smoke in your face, never seeming to realize that you're choking. Have you ever noticed right outside the post office, the library or mall entrances, smokers have stamped out their cigarettes on the walk or flipped their butts onto the landscaped areas without a thought that someone else must pick them up? Usually these same people have just walked past an ashtray. Have you ever ridden with a smoker in your car? After a while they always take out a cigarette and a lighter and just before lighting it they'll ask you, Don't mind if I smoke, do you? Surely you wouldn't mind since you love to breath smoke in a sealed vehicle. Smokers will light up a cigarette in your home and when the ash is about ready to drop they look around for an ashtray. Sometimes these people even dump ashes in your kitchen sink. As you shop have you ever seen a smoker stamp out a cigarette on the shiny floor of a grocery store? Or, as you're walking through a department store in the mall, you'll see a smoker with a cigarette with the ashes just ready to drop off right in the middle of the store with no ashtrays anywhere in sight. Thank you.

THIS IS IN regards to the "JFK" movie. People always ask why they didn't do something back then. What would they do? They kept it quiet to keep the peace.