Letters to editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Monetary issue causes dilemma for reader

I seek wisdom, and would appreciate if you would publish my problem. I am hoping someone can answer this problem. I have contacted: the SEC, the Treasury, the Mint, UNLV, and all avenues of the internet. No responses.

The monetary in the U.S. uses decimals. $1.00 is 100% of a dollar. A dime is 10% of a dollar, a tenth of a dollar. A penny is 1% of a dollar, a hundredth of a dollar. A mill is 0.1% of a dollar, a 1/1000th of a dollar. Everyone should be OK up to this point.

My question is: what do we call 1/10000th of a dollar. That would be 0.1% of a mill, as in $0.0001. The stock exchanges, the treasury, all quotes involving money are given to 4 places to the right of the decimal point. We need to name this critter.

Thus far, no one has even responded with a “Go take a hike!” The internet continues to go back to the mill, but this involves tenths of a mill. At one time, mills were discarded, not worth the time, nor the money to keep track of, until some guy in a bank directed the discarded mills to his bank account. Someone realized that whole lot of ‘little, worthless mills’ were fattening that guy’s pocket.

If anyone can answer this dilemma, I would like to hear from them.

Wayne P. Brotherton Sr.

Assumptions elicit response from letter writer

Here we go again! First off, Mr. Culshaw, I am not a “he.” I am a woman and not sure why you would assume I am a man other than the fact that you tend to assume a lot of things … like… I never said my claim came from the “infamous phone call transcript” as I had not seen the transcript when I pointed out your misinformation. Nor did I get it from Nancy Pelosi. I got it from watching Mr. Trump on TV stating that he “urged” the Ukrainian president to look into the corruption in his country by Biden right after telling him how much we do for Ukraine - right from the horse’s mouth.

I used the phrase “dig up dirt” to make a point, not to quote Trump. You claim complete knowledge of the phone call since you read the transcript - one that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman stated, was missing parts of the discussion where Biden was mentioned. Again, your research turns out to be wrong - best you not rely on anything that the Trump administration can get their hands on.

Perhaps you should spend more time watching MSNBC than your “actual new sources” one of which is FAUX. MSNBC doesn’t censure their coverage like FAUX does. The information that FAUX leaves out is the stuff they don’t want you to know so they can continue to be the fear machine of media. Heaven forbid you know the truth.

I really don’t know why you are so resistant to the truth or are so consumed by Pelosi, or by me, quite frankly. Pelosi has not caused a fraction of the damage to this country that Mr. Trump or FAUX News has. You’re on a sinking ship, so best you hold your breath … hopefully that will keep your (false) assumptions to yourself.

As I said before, I will continue to write here as long as those, like you, continue to misstate the facts or, like your latest, make false assumptions.

CJ Stevens

Explain how that mileage tax will work again

I have a car that I use just for trips. It has approximately 34,000 miles on it.

Of the 34,000 miles, miles driven in Nevada are likely to be under 1,000 miles. That would be leaving the state and returning to come home.

If they plan to tax mileage, how is it going to work? Nevada miles were under 1,000 miles, on a 34,000 mileage car.

It even gets worse when going to California – six miles to the California border, then 600 miles in California, then six miles home, a total of 12 Nevada miles, on a 700-mile trip.

Will somebody explain how this will work? I don’t believe I should pay a mileage tax in Nevada for miles not driven in Nevada.

I do realize this is a pilot program, but I think everyone knows why they will attempt to find a fee or tax on mileage somehow.

Karl Jakob

Adjustments needed in Social Security program

Mr. Epstein’s PV Times letter in the Oct. 23 issue seems to justify laws and policies that are best questionable as being fine because some well-known Republicans support or supported them. The trouble is, math and facts don’t care about anyone’s feelings.

For example, in 1935 when the good-intentioned law of Social Security was enacted, the ratio of payers to payees was 159 to 1. Since that time it has shrunk to less than 3 to 1. It was touted as pension for widows when the life expectancy for men was 61 years old.

Today the “Ponzi” scheme would be in great financial shape if there weren’t all the add-ons through the years and they made (a change) to retirement age to about four years above life expectancy age.

I’m very aware abruptly ending such programs would impoverish and devastate millions but as more time passes and no adjustments are made to this and other entitlement programs, changes to salvage will eventually become unbearable.

Ever since forms of democratic governments were invented, politicians, even with the best of intentions, have been great at making promises to get elected or re-elected.

And the governed share some responsibility for many times having the short-term realization that supporting the right people and getting them elected, they essentially vote themselves a raise, which can eventually end up devastating people they care about in the future.

Daniel Webster said, “It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions … There are men in all ages … Who mean good to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be a kind master but mean to be masters. They think there needs to be little restraint on themselves … The love of power may sink too deep in their own hearts!”

It was a warning.

David Jaronik