Letters, 5/2: Think before voting
A new TV ad urges Nebraska voters to approve Amendment 1 in the upcoming election.
This proposal would allow public endowments to expand their investment criteria from the present level. The new level would include investments that a “prudent man (woman)” would make when investing monies entrusted to them by the taxpayers of the state.
Well, folks! A lot of “prudent men and women” invested billions of dollars in the now infamous CDOs, which are comprised of bundles of “subprime mortgages” made to borrowers from 2003 through 2007. These CDOs are virtually worthless on the market today, even though many of them carried the highest credit rating of “Triple A” by the major rating agencies in the country.
The politicians and bureaucrats will reply that they would never make that kind of a mistake while investing here in Nebraska. My response to them would be that knowledgeable people made the same statement after the junk bond fiasco of the late 1980s; they made it again after the dot-com era, so what makes us all infallible now?
Please, consider carefully when voting on Amendment 1.
David Patrick, Lincoln
Terrible drivers in Lincoln
I have driven in lots of cities all across the country and never have I seen worse drivers than I see in Lincoln.
First off, it does not help that the city’s engineers have done a terrible job as far as making traffic flow smoothly.
Most of the time, you are made to stop at each light on your journey, which jams up traffic. Add that to drivers who are yakking on cell phones and sit there for 10 seconds after the light turns green before they bother to move, and driving across town is a nightmare.
Lincoln drivers do not get the concept that slower traffic should keep to the right. You have slow drivers in the passing lane, slowing up the progress of others. Cars will often drive side by side for blocks well below the speed limit, not allowing faster traffic to pass. Most drivers drive well below the speed limit, which makes them and other cars miss stoplights that they should make if they were driving the right speed.
It’s a joke that I can drive to Omaha faster than I can drive across town and back. I am shocked that Lincoln police write any speeding tickets, because 98 percent of the cars I see are driving below the speed limit!
Jeff Richardson, Lincoln
Welcome, spring
A big thank you and sigh of appreciation to the folks at the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department. The daffodils are dazzling at the Sunken Gardens. What a treasure to see so many yellow blossoms and know of the foresight in planting the bulbs. The blooming Bradford pear trees on nearby Capitol Parkway are equally majestic.
Welcome, spring, finally!
Nancy L. Savery, Lincoln
Name the architects
The Lincoln Journal Star should acknowledge the appropriate people for the new arena project in Lincoln. The arena job as noted on the front page of the paper April 29 actually went to DLR and is in partnership on this job and interviewed with Clark Enersen and Bahr Vermeer Haecker Architects.
The architects often have renderings of projects in the paper and are not acknowledged at any level in the article or under the drawings of a particular project, which I might add takes a lot of time and effort to create.
I know journalists prefer their name to be connected with their particular photos and articles, and the same respect should be paid to the architects who are responsible for renderings.
Samantha Peace, Lincoln
This proposal would allow public endowments to expand their investment criteria from the present level. The new level would include investments that a “prudent man (woman)” would make when investing monies entrusted to them by the taxpayers of the state.
Well, folks! A lot of “prudent men and women” invested billions of dollars in the now infamous CDOs, which are comprised of bundles of “subprime mortgages” made to borrowers from 2003 through 2007. These CDOs are virtually worthless on the market today, even though many of them carried the highest credit rating of “Triple A” by the major rating agencies in the country.
The politicians and bureaucrats will reply that they would never make that kind of a mistake while investing here in Nebraska. My response to them would be that knowledgeable people made the same statement after the junk bond fiasco of the late 1980s; they made it again after the dot-com era, so what makes us all infallible now?
Please, consider carefully when voting on Amendment 1.
David Patrick, Lincoln
Terrible drivers in Lincoln
I have driven in lots of cities all across the country and never have I seen worse drivers than I see in Lincoln.
First off, it does not help that the city’s engineers have done a terrible job as far as making traffic flow smoothly.
Most of the time, you are made to stop at each light on your journey, which jams up traffic. Add that to drivers who are yakking on cell phones and sit there for 10 seconds after the light turns green before they bother to move, and driving across town is a nightmare.
Lincoln drivers do not get the concept that slower traffic should keep to the right. You have slow drivers in the passing lane, slowing up the progress of others. Cars will often drive side by side for blocks well below the speed limit, not allowing faster traffic to pass. Most drivers drive well below the speed limit, which makes them and other cars miss stoplights that they should make if they were driving the right speed.
It’s a joke that I can drive to Omaha faster than I can drive across town and back. I am shocked that Lincoln police write any speeding tickets, because 98 percent of the cars I see are driving below the speed limit!
Jeff Richardson, Lincoln
Welcome, spring
A big thank you and sigh of appreciation to the folks at the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department. The daffodils are dazzling at the Sunken Gardens. What a treasure to see so many yellow blossoms and know of the foresight in planting the bulbs. The blooming Bradford pear trees on nearby Capitol Parkway are equally majestic.
Welcome, spring, finally!
Nancy L. Savery, Lincoln
Name the architects
The Lincoln Journal Star should acknowledge the appropriate people for the new arena project in Lincoln. The arena job as noted on the front page of the paper April 29 actually went to DLR and is in partnership on this job and interviewed with Clark Enersen and Bahr Vermeer Haecker Architects.
The architects often have renderings of projects in the paper and are not acknowledged at any level in the article or under the drawings of a particular project, which I might add takes a lot of time and effort to create.
I know journalists prefer their name to be connected with their particular photos and articles, and the same respect should be paid to the architects who are responsible for renderings.
Samantha Peace, Lincoln
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