INITIATIVES NEED TO UNITE FOR STATE'S SAKE

Over the years there have been very well intentioned, but all too often unrealized, economic expectations for our beautiful Hawaii. The mayor properly highlighted the 2011 APEC meeting as an opportunity to underscore Honolulu as the Geneva of the Pacific.

However, at the same time the University of Hawaii seems to de-emphasize its international commitment with unfortunate budget cutbacks related to its international programs. Further, we read about the shortcomings of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

It is time all of these initiatives come together in a coordinated fashion for the betterment of the state. The best mission or business plan accomplishes little without proper coordination and follow up among all interested participants.

RANDY HARRIS | Honolulu

ECONOMY

SET INFRASTRUCTURE THEN GET OUT OF WAY

UH economists have questioned the efficacy of the high technology tax credit. We shouldn't be surprised by these findings.

Whether we are talking about a high technology tax credit, a grant program for hurricane clips or a federal stimulus bill, these ideas all suffer from the same basic fallacy. They don't accept that the market is big and powerful and it is very hard to move it. To move the market to any significant degree requires more money than it makes sense to spend.

We should go back to the idea that government should provide the infrastructure and fiscal, tax and monetary policy that would allow the market system to operate in a robust fashion and then get out of the way. Control is often an illusion, but particularly when it relates to government control of the market.

LLOYD LIM | Honolulu

BULKY TRASH

END PROGRAM, MAKE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE

Up until the "bulky item pickup" program started years ago, many neighborhood streets were fairly clear of junk. However, the junk on neighborhood streets has become worse.

In the perfect world, the program might work. But, since it is human nature for people to interpret "rules" in their own way, the program will continue to falter. Since the city's phone recording of pickup dates and locations is long and confusing, I'm certain that people calling the hot line are in turn bewildered and confused. People will continue to dodge the rules by dumping items at night when nobody is looking, or in obscure or isolated areas throughout each month.

Even if fines were imposed on property owners for dumped items on the wrong dates, outsiders will indifferently dump their items on other people's property, thus putting the burden on those who are innocent of the problem.

Is it time to discard this program and make people responsible to properly take their own bulky trash to the dump, or to local needy organizations who can use them. Taxpayers should not foot more of the bill to discard more of everybody else's bulky trash!

JOHN BURNS | Aiea

AFGHANISTAN

WHERE IS CHANGE OBAMA PROMISED?

What is it about the water in the White House? It seems that once a new president gets elected, moves in and drinks the water, his brains turn to mush and he becomes a clone of the previous occupant, pursuing the same mistaken goals.

President Obama is a case in point. Obama's Dec. 1 announcement of his plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and to escalate the war there — in the name of supposedly ending it sooner — is double-speak and disastrously wrong. Obama, in explaining his decision, has apparently decided to continue the bone-headed Bush doctrine of preemptive war by asserting the U.S. has the right to make war anywhere to prevent a possible future "terrorist" threat.

Where is the change we voted for — and that Obama promised? His decision on Afghanistan will waste billions more and continue the cycle of death and destruction. This will become Obama's war and will doom the possibility of any real change. We need to go back to the streets and bring both these wars to an earlier end than is proposed by Obama, his misadvisers and the Pentagon brass.

JOHN WITECK | Honolulu

CITY HALL

COUNCIL LOYALTIES SHOW ON B&B ISSUE

On Dec. 16 a vote will be taken at the City Council that will either kill the bed-and-breakfast bill or open the door to commercialization of our once-quiet residential communities.

Council members who support commercializing of our residential communities will have to go against the elected Neighborhood Boards, including Neighborhood Boards 2, 3, 5, 24, 27, 28, 31 and 32.

For council members to support commercial zoning, they will also have to go against the Planning Commission, which is unanimous in its opposition to B&Bs in residential neighborhoods.

Why would a council member go against the elected neighborhood boards and the Planning Commission to create a commercial activity that no one wants in their backyard?

The Dec. 16 hearing is going to reveal who our council members actually represent. Do they represent the public interest that is opposed to this commercialism, or do they represent special interests like B&B operators?

This is going to be a very important vote for them, and a very important vote for all of us to watch and remember.

BOB HAMPTON | Hawaii Kai