Punishment mentality may be to blame
Confusion on the left continues to abound. Witness Jay Bookman’s (“Trump puts elites in control,” Opinion, Dec. 18), where Bookman characterizes a 9 percent rise in the stock market since Trump’s election as somehow negative because Goldman Sachs’ (and other big banks’) stock value increases and two of President-elect Trump’s high-level appointees, who are from Goldman Sachs, are making millions of dollars off their Goldman stock. Unmentioned is that other investors, such as pension plans for millions of employees and individuals’ IRAs, are also benefiting from this market.
The “swamp” is not people making money from a rising stock market — or from a foreseen rising economy. As usual, progressives see wealthy people making money as being a problem, a problem that needs to be punished.
Ever consider that it’s perhaps that punishment mentality that causes progressive economics to fail?
GREGORY MARSHALL, MARIETTA
GOP unleashed Krakentorrent of totalitarian envy
We’re in for a rough four years, comrades.
While Trump has his choice of homes, Putin has his choice of palaces. Putin can out-Trump Trump in every comparison: possessions, wealth, influence, authority and goals. To the Donald, this is the ultimate deal.
The congressional GOP sold their collective soul to eke out a few policy and personnel changes. In their blind allegiance, they inadvertently released the Kraken of totalitarian envy, and its cruel purity is going to plant thick, deep roots in their minds. Putin’s superior political intellect will capitalize on this. His is a mind free from the fear of congressional investigative subcommittees. He’s not beholden to corporate donations. He is what every politician wishes they were, if only democracy weren’t in the way.
I fear that the future will inaugurate numerous clandestine agreements with Russia and — like every other month’s hacking scandal — you and I won’t find out until it’s too late.
EDDIE ROSS, MARIETTA
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