Keep KOCE-TV a public commodity Channel 50,...

Keep KOCE-TV a public commodity

Channel 50, KOCE-TV, should remain a public service TV channel,

not the spokesman for religion. It’s bad enough that several theaters

in the area have been bought by churches. We don’t need religion

forced down our throats -- we should choose it. I resent having a

Mormon poem on my food tray when I fly Alaska Airlines. Next time I’d

like a Jewish poem, not that I’m religious, but I would like that or

agnostic poem or something else.

LYNN MERLES

Costa Mesa

Do sales defy globalization?

It was heartening to read in Daily Pilot on Friday that the

communities of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa remained largely

untouched by the country’s economic slump. Economics, long known as

the “dismal science,” is usually off radar until it impacts home,

hearth and wallet. And since our economy is consumer-driven, if

shoppers stop shopping, we’re in deep trouble.

With the loss of a manufacturing base in the American economy,

with our imports exceeding exports in that we are purchasing mainly

foreign goods, our dollars are headed for an Asian holiday,

strengthening the economies of China, Japan, Singapore, etc. The

outsourcing of white-collar, good-paying jobs puts at risk 14 million

workers in the United States. How would one advise a son or daughter

to be assured that after four years of college (with its

ever-increasing tuition) that upon graduation, the diploma-promised

job is not already in the Far East or some part of the Third World?

Noted conservative Republican economist Paul Craig Roberts states

that any job that can be transmitted via Internet or satellite can be

moved to a cheaper labor force. Jobs moved abroad bring down wage

levels in the United States. Corporations have moved offshore to

avoid paying U.S.A. taxes; a cheaper labor force means paying lower

salaries (15 cents per hour in Indonesia) paying no benefits or

Social Security, and gaining a longer hourly workday. Sounds good for

making a profit, but what happens to all the American workers? Are we

simply a marketplace and no longer a nation?

The alphabet soup of World Trade Organization, North American Free

Trade Agreement, International Monetary Fund, Free Trade Agreement of

the Americas and the World Bank needs to be examined as to how trade

groups and agreements support, or do not support, the American

economy in terms of jobs for our citizens and the value of our

dollar. For the only thing that seems to be going to Mars is our

national debt and deficit! The globalization genie is out of the

bottle and not going back in; we have to learn to live within this

economic revolution, and it means a lot more than just going

shopping.

On Friday and Saturday, Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade

Watch, will be speaking at the Newport Beach Public Library as part

of the Martin W. Witte Distinguished Speakers Lecture Series. Her

lecture is titled “The Era of Corporate Globalization: The U.S.

Economy, Your Job and Our Democracy.” It is a first spoonful of

understanding the impact of the alphabet soup of trade policies.

Tickets are available on the library website.

JACQULYN BEAUREGARD

DILLMAN

Newport Beach

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Jacquelyn Beauregard Dillman is the co-chairwoman

of the Distinguished Speakers Lecture Series, which is sponsored by

the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation.