Face masks at McKale
I have season tickets to UA women’s basketball and have yet to sit in our seats — we are surrounded by people not wearing masks, so we find a less populated area to sit. During baseball season, we were mandated to socially distanced seating, and monitors ensured the spectators kept their masks on — and this was outside. People agreed to wear masks and should be ejected if they don’t!
Susan Hansen
Northwest side
Inflation
When I earned my degree in economics in college we were taught that inflation is the general rise in prices in an economy. We were also told that inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods and has the exact same effect as a tax on income.
According to data from the web site of the Federal Reserve bank of St. Louis, the U.S. M2 money supply grew in January 2010 to January 2020 from 8.4 trillion dollars to 15.4 trillion dollars, a 6% annual increase. However, for 2020 alone the M2 supply of money grew 26% and in the first nine months of 2021 it grew at an annual rate of 13%. This is much higher than a desired rate of 1 to 2% above the growth of GDP.
Since government controls the supply of money, there is no doubt that our current inflation is the result of deliberate government action.
Randy Park
SaddleBrooke
Empty chairs this holiday
This month, Arizonans will come together hoping to have a ‘normal’ holiday season. But as we gather to celebrate family, friends and faith there will be more than 23,300 empty chairs at our dining tables.
Chairs filled before by grandparents, moms and dads, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, cousins, close friends and maybe even a child that has been killed by the COVID-19 virus.
The COVID-19 vaccine became available last year, and many deaths could have been prevented had Arizona Republican politicians not downplayed the seriousness of this virus. Through their comments, executive orders and legislative acts they have sought to undermine the two public health measures proven to reduce COVID-19 deaths — the wearing of masks in public and getting vaccinated against the virus.
These political positions are best described as heartless. When lives are unnecessarily lost to COVID-19, our economy is not better off, and families are not stronger nor more stable.
Michael Byers
East side
Social Security and Medicare
As a blue-collar worker for 45 years, l didn’t mind paying into the Social Security fund, as we knew it would help the folks that paid into it from the time it was introduced by Franklin D. Roosevelt, to help them retire with dignity.
Social Security is not a gift from the government. It is paid for by hard-earned dollars. The fund was doing so well that the Johnson administration decided to allow other agencies to borrow from the fund with the promise of repaying it with interest. That has not happened.
Now the Biden administration has discovered billions of dollars to distribute to all kinds of agencies for free. No evidence from our government seeking to give extra aid for eye, hearing and other ailments, to our long-term senior citizens who need it the most. Yet our government administrators now threaten to raise Medicare premiums, reduce Social Security benefits and possibly tax them again.
Ted Crisboi
Southwest side
Basketball games unsafe
With ever increasing cases of COVID, going to basketball games at the UA is becoming unsafe. I religiously wear my mask. A young couple sitting in front of me, maskless, started yelling for their friends facing me and spewing there germs all over the place. All you have to do is order a huge bucket of popcorn, and that allows you go maskless. There are dance cams, smile cams, everyone is maskless. When will we take this seriously?
You are told when you walk in you must have a mask. Guess what happens when you get to your seat. In the next several weeks, if COVID gets worse in Pima County, we might not be able to go to games. Your freedom, what about mine? We are all tired of this pandemic, it will never get better for us if you do not take the proper precautions. Please wear your mask, it is only for two hours.
Andrew Kunsberg
East side
Exclusive housing for well-to-dos
Re: the Dec. 19 article “New apartment complex commands $3,000 rents.”
After reading the article on the latest high-rise apartments downtown, I thought how very exclusive Tucson has become for those who can afford over $3K rent! I also thought, “When will nice housing units and high-rise apartments be affordable for low-income retired seniors and others who barely get by on their low income?”
And when I say low income I don’t mean $1,000 rent. Low income means the hardworking retired (and still-working retired) seniors and other longtime Tucsonans who have contributed greatly to our Old Pueblo but get by on a very limited income. It is we who want, and deserve, to live in very nice, affordable and comfortable dwellings.
The “Old Pueblo” has become Tucson, California. Come on now — build for us in our beloved Tucson, Arizona.
Nancy Reid
North side
