Economist Milton Friedman’s 1970 New York Times Magazine essay, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits,” was one of the impetuses that started a movement that has taken our economy on a rapid turn toward maximizing profits over people, money over values and “me” over “us.”
I have seen the worst of this mentality during my decade working at a multinational corporation. So often our goals in search of “efficiency” were at the expense of others’ livelihoods, putting the values-driven and business-driven parts of me at odds.
I feel this is the same conundrum we so often face as a nation: my interest vs. our interests.
I am supporting Sen. Elizabeth Warren because I feel she is the best person to tackle the issues of corruption and wealth inequality in our culture.
We see this debate enter into our political discourse when we talk about topics like education, wealth inequality and health care. I see a lot of Warren in myself.
We both made missteps in our youth and didn’t attend college at an early age like many of our peers. She was able to afford commuter college working part-time as a waitress.
As the son of a single mother who was raising three boys on a secretary’s pay, the price I paid for an affordable post-secondary education was more than two years in Iraq.
I agree with Warren: College should be free. I don’t believe the price of an education should be 3% of one’s life in a war zone, or a lifetime of crippling debt.
This profit-over-people mentality, which is so prevalent in our culture, imposes a misguided view that profits equal prosperity when everything that actually matters in our life revolves around values, connections and compassion.
Warren’s empathetic leadership style and track record of accomplishment are exactly what we need at this moment to bring us back from the brink and create the values-driven economy we deserve.
SPENCER BATCHELDER
Claremont
Recently, CPV Sullivan Wind LLC leased 800 acres on Green Mountain in Claremont “with an eye toward building and operating a wind-power farm” (“Land deal could mean a wind farm coming to Claremont,” Jan. 12).
This site is about 14 miles from the 12-turbine Lempster Wind Power Project. If we assume the new project generates the same power as Lempster does, then that’s 24 megawatts — or 10,000 homes — worth of wind power.
Sounds like a great number, until it is put into perspective. The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, which closed a few years ago, could generate 620 megawatts, enough to power 250,000 homes.
There are currently three wind power projects in New Hampshire and five in Vermont. Generously assuming full output, the total potential wind power generation combined is about 320 MW — barely half Yankee’s final capacity.
Taking a look at solar, if we give the also-generous assumption that peak summer generation applies all year, Vermont offers a total of about 338 MW of power from solar, and New Hampshire about 99 MW.
Combining all existing solar and wind power across both states, we get 757 MW of peak, ideal-condition power generation potential. Taking a more realistic account for variation, let’s call it 500 MW.
This deserves restating differently: The 1960s design Yankee plant, when it first opened, generated the same 500 MW of power. New Hampshire’s circa-1970s Seabrook Nuclear Plant, meanwhile, is generating 1,246 MW, 2.5 times all those solar panels and wind turbines in our states.
We’re pumping exactly the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere — zero — whether we’re taking it from one nuclear plant in 1972, or from the combination of every single solar panel and wind turbine across Vermont and New Hampshire in 2020. Yet our energy requirements have more than doubled.
Well intentioned environmentalists and politicians, especially Progressives, who write off nuclear, would be well served to consider how much carbon-free energy we could safely generate with 2020s nuclear power technology.
DANIEL WORTS
Windsor
We have been incredibly lucky. Somehow the mistake some poor Iranian mortal(s) made this month resulted in only 176 dead (“Western leaders say missile hit plane,” Jan. 10). Imagine the destruction if some poor mortal(s) of whatever nation made a similar mistake — and lit off an atomic weapon, thus starting a worldwide nuclear war. As CNBC noted last March: “There are about 14,500 nuclear weapons in the world. Nine nations are members of the world’s nuke club. The U.S. and Russia own the majority of the world’s nuclear weapons.”
JIM HUGHES
West Fairlee
I really appreciate the variety and the quality the Valley News has maintained in its new, leaner version. To be able to read relevant Washington Post and other wire service stories and local news and opinions in one newspaper, all delivered to my door by your wonderful carriers, makes my day. Thank you.
MARCIA HERRIN
Enfield Center