Three things wrong with the Royals

Royal woes

There are three things wrong with the Royals.

▪ Money: The Royals gave a lot of money to a few players like outfielder Alex Gordon. Those players are happy and have it made. They are not playing very hard.

▪ No money: The Royals did not give a lot of money to a few players like first baseman Eric Hosmer. Those players are unhappy and are not playing hard. When your players don’t play hard, your team loses a hundred games or more.

▪ Ned Yost: Ned is too cozy with his players. He has warm, fuzzy nicknames for each of them and does not want to hurt their confidence, like the night he let the young second baseman with the worst batting average in baseball strike out with men on and the game in the balance instead of sending up a pinch hitter.

Then the next day he sent the kid to the minors.

Owner David Glass needs to bring in a baseball guy who knows how to play the game and run a major league team or the season is lost.

Participation in the playoffs and the World Series will be but a fond memory

Richard W. Dahms

Country Club, Mo.

Tax realities

Henry Ford was a smart man. He stated that he would pay his factory employees enough money that they could buy his cars. Smart.

John Maynard Keynes was smart also. He discovered that if people didn’t have money to spend, business wouldn’t invest. To prove that theory, just examine any Third World country. Lots of demand, no supply.

So we are now proposing tax cuts for the rich in a country with part-time jobs and stagnant wages. What do you think is going to happen to that money the wealthy will be saving? If you answered “create jobs,” you should go back to school.

The next act in this play is later this year when the conversation turns to Social Security and Medicare. The same people who are proposing tax cuts will tell us that we can’t afford those programs.

The amazing thing to me is how these people proposing these opposite ideas can do this with straight faces. They think we are so dumb that we will keep buying into trickle-down economics. Even David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget for President Ronald Reagan, doesn’t believe in that anymore.

John Chapman

Gladstone

Free speech

I don’t know whether Charles Hammer is Catholic, but given that he has written at least two columns denouncing the guidance provided by local Catholic leaders before the November elections, he must have more than a passing interest in the faith. (April 26, Page 22, “Homosexuality, medical marijuana and other biblical ‘sins’ are none of our business”; Feb. 22, Page 22, “Inherently evil acts”)

Hammer seems especially upset that the bishops on both sides of the state line counseled local Catholics on the church’s stance on homosexual marriage, abortion, euthanasia and other issues. I hope Hammer is not suggesting that religious leaders should not be allowed to instruct the faithful, as the articles by the bishops appeared in the diocesan newspapers. These newspapers are generally sent only to people who have registered in local parishes.

If Hammer wishes to debate church teaching on abortion and other issues with the bishops, he should write a letter to the editor of either The Leaven or The Catholic Key. If he thinks faith leaders should be muzzled when they profess teachings that he disagrees with, I would remind him that Catholic clerics and lay people have the same right of free speech that he does.

Chris Kennedy

Shawnee

Airport plans

I may be an ignorant Wal-Mart employee, but instead of demolishing Kansas City International Airport to make a single terminal, why doesn’t Kansas City demolish the center terminal and refurbish the outer two? That way the airlines would have more room for the planes, and travelers would have the convenience of the two leftover terminals.

And who knows — Kansas City might save a little money.

Roger Carmack

Olathe