Wall Street bankers will receive the $6 billion they were owed by General Motors as secured lenders. In contrast, the Supreme Court recently denied hearing a case from an Indiana pension fund that will get far less than they were owed by Chrysler because of government intervention, even though they were a secured lender as well.

Bailouts help those at the top. Banks seem to do the best, probably because of the close connections to people who work at the Federal Reserve. Pension funds and regular citizens like us suffer. Many people argue that the bailout of GM and Chrysler will save jobs. Maybe it will for a while, but again, who really benefits?

When the government bails out a business, be it GM or AIG, they have to print and borrow money to do so. This expands the money supply, making everyone's money worth less. Imagine an auction where a painting is about to be sold for $100. What happens if you give five people in the room $1,000 more? The price will go up. Those that received the money will be able to buy the painting and the rest won't be able to afford it.

When companies get trillions of dollars, the people at the top get and spend the money. They pay for goods using the full purchasing power of these dollars. As that money enters the economy, prices rise. The purchasing power for everyone else goes down. This includes any savings we had.

People worry about Democrats taxing the rich and giving it to the poor? Bailouts are essentially wealth distribution through inflation. They take from the poor and give to the rich. The more they get, the more we pay - GM employees, too.

Craig Kohtz, Lincoln

Flag Code amended

I would like to thank your paper for the very timely article on displaying the flag by Extension educator Lorene Bartos ("Specifics of displaying the flag," June 21). It is especially timely with the Fourth of July coming up.

One thing the article failed to mention involved a change in the law regarding the use of the military salute by veterans during the flag presentation or during the playing of the national anthem.

On Oct. 14, President George W. Bush signed the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act containing a change to the United States Flag Code allowing veterans not wearing a uniform to render the military salute.

This change was sponsored by Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and clarified several things not specified in the previous revision to the code.

R. Bruce Abernethy, Lincoln

Free market endangered

It seems that government takeovers are destroying America's free market. A small well-managed company can see a case of fraud of a few dollars, whereas a large company can have millions buried under so much red tape and cover-ups that the fraud doesn't surface.

How is a private company going to compete with a government company run with its own tax money? How do you compete against yourself and survive?

Bill Allen, Blue Springs