Dear Editor,
The rich can't handle their money
It is clear that members of the 1% class do not know how to act responsibly with their tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly disposable income.
They invest in large corporations rather than small businesses. They invest in American companies who have moved their operations to China. They impose usurious interest rates on the working poor.
They invest in news media conglomerates that distort reality, and food conglomerates that sell harmful products and services. They invest in energy companies that do little during the climate crisis.
The luxury class invest in industries that are popular with Americans, but destructive to democratic character, like professional sports, superficial entertainment, gambling, vaping, social media, and video gaming.
They fail to invest in public education, having no need for it. Instead, they use private schools and later pay bribes to get their children into private universities. They resist investing in public health care, welfare, and criminal justice programs, because they have their own exclusive world of services to care for them apart from the rest of society.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
To the editor,
While private funding for cultivated meat is surging, public investment is tepid. This needs to change. For those who aren't familiar with the concept, cultivated meat is grown from animal cells, without slaughter. It's better for the environment, public health and animal welfare.
Recently, the Israeli cellular-agriculture firm Future Meat raised $347 million in a Series B funding round, with the the help of ADM Ventures and Tyson Foods. The company claims it can make cultivated chicken breast for $7.70 a pound, a significant reduction from $18 a pound six months ago.
Unfortunately, private funding means privately-owned research. Such secrecy holds back development of the field as a whole. We need public funding for open-access research to help bring cultivated meat to market as quickly as possible, at a competitive price with slaughtered meat.
More legislators should follow the lead of U.S. Representatives Ro Khanna, Susan Wild, Julia Brownley, Deborah K. Ross, Nanette Diaz Barragán, Veronica Escobar, Haley M. Stevens, and Nydia M. Velázquez, who called for increased federal funding for alternative-protein development.
Jon Hochschartner
Granby, Conn.