Let's start with resignations

I would feel better about a bailout for the auto industry and financial institutions if their executives took a lesson from the noble Romans and Japanese, and fell upon their swords.

The idea of resigning because of failure seems just as foreign to executives. Instead, they fly around on their private jets, finding excuses and asking for billions of taxpayer dollars to cover their mistakes.

Along with the CEOs, we need the resignations of a whole lot of corporate board members who hired these execs at obscenely inflated salaries, which were totally unconnected with performance, and then gave them even more obscene severance packages for running the companies into the ground.

Face it, these types just don't get it – and they never will. Bright as they are, they are as unable to grasp the nature of today's crisis as Herbert Hoover was unable to understand the nature or severity of the problem in his day.

Does anyone believe it is possible to forge a solution to the problems of Wall Street without a new crop of executives with a new approach – and a new definition of service?

– Lawrence Smith, Auburn

Concentrate on conservation

Re "Going green carries very heavy price" (Page A3, Nov. 16): Dan Walters, thank you for having the courage to expose Assembly Bill 32 for the bad idea it is. The concept of "renewables" is in vogue with our politicians and our citizens, but in fact, it will be very expensive and negligible in effect. We would be far better served by concentrating on conserving petroleum-based transportation fuels, using technologies that we already have.

I believe that with proper incentives for fuel-efficient vehicles (perhaps a high gas tax, the revenue from which is rebated to every taxpaying resident of California, something along the lines of Alaska's oil royalty rebate), we could decrease consumption. The key here is to rebate all the tax back to the people.

Also, the supply of natural gas in California is limited by the capacity of two existing pipelines. We desperately need liquefied natural gas terminals. Private industry has struggled mightily to construct such facilities (most notably offshore in Southern California), only to be frustrated by environmental opposition and regulatory morass. These facilities must be built to reduce utility bills for California business and residential customers, and to provide low-cost natural gas to fuel vehicle fleets.

– John Hancock, Granite Bay

Overcome the money-changers

Being born during the final days of Warren Harding's administration gave me a front-row seat to the Great Depression, and I find symptoms of the present economic crisis synonymous. We again have a few avaricious capitalists filling their pockets with little concern for the public.

The oblivious Congress and Bush administration are now in a panic, closing the barn door after the horses are out. Their solution of resorting to forms of socialism to save the capitalist system is temporary.

Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover believed in a laissez-faire form of government prior to the 1930s Depression. Likewise, President Ronald Reagan dismantled our antitrust laws and promoted deregulation. The financial barons quickly took advantage of these freedoms as government and the public silently watched. When the belly is full, the eyelids close.

President-elect Barack Obama may be a catalyst, but he must overcome the power of the money-changers before any lasting change occurs. The present recession may be the first stage of a deeper economic problem. Our financial system must be reconstructed, but many of Obama's team, who were risk-takers, blocked efforts to regulate credit derivatives and will be investigating themselves.

– Don Cooks, Nevada City

The hard-working are paying

Re "Applicants facing cuts, fewer choices" (Page A1, Nov. 28): Facing a 30 percent increase in foreign students and a 10 percent decrease in college admission spots, plus an apparent trend to accept more disadvantaged over higher-scoring applicants, tell me how my 4.0 middle-class daughter is going to get into college?