PRICES

UNFETTERED FREE TRADE LEADS TO PROBLEMS

Creighton Goldsmith, in his Hymn of Joy to the free market (Letters, Sept. 19), knocks down that hoary old straw man, the Soviet Union. I don't know anyone who believes that state ownership is the way to go.

A quote attributed to Winston Churchill: "Capitalist democracy is the worst possible system of government, except for all the others."

This means that capitalism needs some curbs to prevent our federal government from enriching the few at the expense of the many. The last time there was a gas crisis, a federal excess-profits tax persuaded the oil and gas companies not to overdo it.

Mr. Goldsmith quotes Adam Smith to bolster the idea that unfettered free trade is the be-all and the end-all of the economy. But Adam Smith also said in "The Wealth of Nations": "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

ENROLLMENT

HSTA'S TOP BRASS SHOULD BE DOWNSIZED

Roger Takabayashi, president of the Hawai'i State Teachers Association, is absolutely correct:

"We can solve the current teacher shortage crisis by compensating teachers for the important work that they do, improving the conditions of work and developing a true public commitment to make public education a top priority in our state. Hawai'i's children deserve nothing less" (Letters, Oct. 19).

And we wait anxiously for his action plan. Is HSTA strong enough to take on the state's largest public-sector union by calling for drastic downsizing of his constituent's management staff? The media are telling us that public school enrollment is down ...

EDUCATION

SHAME FOR SPINNING OUR DISMAL RECORD

I read with interest the front-page article on Oct. 19 showing that reading scores for Hawai'i's eighth-graders are the lowest in the nation, virtually unchanged from 2003. We rank in the bottom eight states in all test results.

Yet, in the same issue, in a letter to the editor, Roger Taka-

bayashi of the HSTA states that eighth-grade reading scores are up 16 percent and fourth-grade reading scores are up 24 percent. How can that be?

I give the majority of our teachers credit; they work in crowded classrooms, with insufficient supplies and sometimes without textbooks. But, come on, Mr. Takabayashi, tell it like it really is. Your positive spin lacks credibility if we are indeed ranked at the bottom or near the bottom in the nation.

How sad that the DOE — and all involved, educated people, I would assume — still cannot come up with an plan to better educate our children. As usual, the powers-that-be spin the facts, make excuses and posture while our children continue to be shortchanged. Shame on you! Our children should come first — period.

KAMEHAMEHA

JUDGES OWE HAWAI'I EXPLANATION OF RULING

I'm a 1990 Kamehameha Schools graduate; going to Kamehameha was perhaps the most positive opportunity in my life. It turned me from an extremely shy intellectual from a blue-collar family into a confident young man. I've since done and seen things that I never would have thought possible had I not gone to Kamehameha.

The recent ruling of Judges Jay Bybee and Robert Beezer in Doe v. Kamehameha Schools puts a bad taste in the mouth. Kamehameha is a private institution that takes no federal or state money and was founded in good faith with private funds. The fact that there are no sovereign lands for people of Hawaiian descent makes the Kamehameha Schools that much more necessary as the one and only possible source of reparations for the centuries of injustice wreaked upon the natives.

I'm curious as to the motives or reasoning of Judges Bybee and Beezer since I see neither logical justification nor precedent for this judgment. Could The Advertiser please urge the judges to explain themselves to the people of Hawai'i, to whom they owe an explanation?

CONSTITUENTS

PUBLIC MUST SPEAK OUT AGAINST HARBIN

It may be true that Bev Harbin was selected to fill a vacancy in the House of Representatives without a clearly planned agenda in the governor's office. What seems to be missing in this travesty is the reaction of the public now to be represented by a person not fit for any public office.

Former Rep. Ken Hiraki had been an exemplary political figure. A longtime Democrat, he served quietly and effectively for at least 10 years, and there was never a hint of scandal to offend his constituents.

Surely Rep. Hiraki's constituents should speak out on this matter. It is their district Ms. Harbin will misrepresent and their needs that will be considered in the coming Legislature.

Ms. Harbin may respect the vocal opposition of the public in her adopted district and resign because her public has spoken. Obviously, she has the gall to ignore Sen. Dan Inouye and leaders of the party she said she has been a secret member of, and even the embarrassed governor, but can she ignore the public in the district Rep. Hiraki served with distinction?

CHARACTER

KUDOS TO WHISTLEBLOWER FOR MAKING WIE SHINE

Michael Bamberger did us all a great service. His belated whistle-blowing presented Michelle Wie with her first great challenge as a professional athlete.

She met this challenge with extraordinary grace and maturity, demonstrating judgment and strength of character far beyond her years. She offered no excuses or long explanations. What a marvelous role model for youth! How proud her parents and sponsors must be!

Thank you, Mr. Bamberger; you have enhanced Michelle's reputation, albeit at the cost of your own.

CONTRADICTION

MOPED ORDINANCES MUST BE CLEARED UP

Thank you for bringing to light the confusing and conflicting laws regarding moped parking on city sidewalks. Many of us use mopeds not only as a way to save gas, but also to avoid skyrocketing parking costs.

Certainly if a moped is blocking or restricting sidewalk traffic, it should be cited. However, as indicated in your recent article and experienced by me, the authorities and the laws are unclear as to what to do. I recently got a ticket for parking on the sidewalk and contested it in writing. The judge dismissed the ticket.

It is time for the city to look at the contradicting ordinances and fix them.

CONCERT TO GO ON

CITY MUST NOT ABANDON ITS CURBSIDE RECYCLING PROGRAM

A few weeks ago, I agreed to perform for students at the City and County's "Discover Recycling" Fair in November. Within the last week, the context of this fair has changed due to the cancellation of the curbside recycling program on O'ahu. Community events like this are extremely important to reinforce a message, but they become less significant when the message is confusing.

I will still be playing at the event to keep my promise to the students, but I don't want my participation to mislead people as to where I stand when it comes to recycling on O'ahu. I do not support the abandonment of the current program without a backup plan aimed at achieving the same outcome.

As it has been pointed out several times in recent articles, Honolulu is the largest city in the nation without a curbside recycling program. That fact should not only be embarrassing, it should be a wake-up call. I've traveled to just about every state, and Hawai'i is still the prettiest one I've seen; I hope we can keep it this way. It should be our goal, even if it is long-term, to be the leading city in the nation when it comes to recycling.

Inspiring Hawai'i's youth to be stewards of the Islands is important to me. Over the past two years, I've visited schools on O'ahu to play music for the children and to talk to them about the importance of the "3 R's" (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). We at the Kokua Hawai'i Foundation help set up and fund a recycling program at these schools. With bins in every classroom and the student leaders handling the biweekly pickups, this program is a microcosm of a curbside pickup system.

Hey, if the kids can get it together, so can we.

The issues surrounding curbside recycling are extremely complex. It takes time to build an infrastructure that can support and sustain a successful program. My hat goes off to everyone who has worked to get us to this point; we need to keep moving forward. O'ahu is ready and waiting for a curbside pickup program. Anything less does not address our urgent need for waste reduction.

We live on an island
It is a very finite space
We don't have the choice
We need to be responsible
with our waste

MINIMUM WAGE

IT'S ALL ABOUT SUPPLY, DEMAND

It is discouraging when well-intentioned people create problems. Few concepts in economics are as widely misunderstood as minimum-wage laws. Few arguments in support of them cause more misunderstanding than the sort offered by Rep. Kirk Caldwell in his Oct. 10 commentary "Raising minimum wage benefits everyone."

Minimum-wage laws cannot create the beneficial results Caldwell argues that they can. Wages are determined, as all other prices in the marketplace, by the interplay of supply and demand. If wages are arbitrarily raised without a decrease in supply or increase in demand, unemployment will result. No other outcome is possible.

Studies showing that the minimum wage went up in location A or location B, and higher rates of unemployment did not result, are of no validity in rebutting this fact. These studies on real-world locations cannot isolate the variable (i.e., an increase in minimum wages) from thousands of other factors that affect the labor market.

The typical 20-cent- to 50-cent-per-hour increase in minimum wages may not appear as anything more than a blip in a strong economy with a growing demand for labor. However, that blip by logic must always be negative. Employment may grow, but it will not grow as much as it would have without minimum-wage laws. Remember the most common factor that needs to be considered is inflation. If minimum-wage laws simply follow increases in the cost of living, no real increase in wages that would effect employment has occurred.

Caldwell is also off base in describing what he refers to as the "Labor Theory of Value." This was not Henry Ford's philosophy, but rather that of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Caldwell further confuses that theory with another communist favorite called "wages that work." "Wages that work" describes wages high enough to buy back the product — the idea that Caldwell was trying to attribute to Ford.

Henry Ford could pay a higher wage than other employers, because the efficiencies he had brought to auto manufacturing made labor more productive. The same number of workers could make far more cars. Raising wages without this increased productivity to warrant it would have put Ford out of business.

Caldwell is right in saying Ford's wage increases were good business, but in recognizing this fact, he contradicts his main argument. That argument is that wages can be successfully raised without compensating increases in the productivity of labor. It is the increase in productivity that allows more people to buy cars. That's because there can now be more cars to buy.

The market can set a "de facto minimum wage." During the labor shortage of 1990-1991, Zippy's restaurant had to bring in workers from Micronesia and pay them more than a dollar over the legal minimum wage for entry-level work. The rule of supply and demand is not affected by minimum-wage laws. The danger in setting high minimum wages is that no work (aside from volunteer work) for which the market value is less than the minimum wage can legally be done. The solution to increasing wages of unskilled labor is to create a healthy market environment, as Hawai'i enjoyed in 1991.

TRACY RYAN | CHAIR, THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF HAWAI'I