Letters to the Editor | Oct. 7, 2022

It seems Wall Street is again rebounding (“Stocks claw back more ground,” Oct. 5). Precipitous drops followed by rallies are relatively common. “Investor worries” magically become “renewed investor confidence.” Why does this happen?

Say your institution controls $1 billion. If you sell enough stocks, others will notice, panic, and sell. When prices are sufficiently depressed, your confidence suddenly returns and you buy back in, causing others to follow. You sold high and bought low. A certified formula for success.

Had you invested $10,000 in the market 10 years ago, today you’d have significantly more. Yet, if you were uninvested for just 40 days during that time, today you could have nothing. The pros are supposed to be clear-eyed and emotionally constrained. They should know most of this volatility is contrived.

It’s not actually that simple. But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck ...

Greg Berry, Royersford

One of the more remarkable features of SEPTA’s City Transit Division is its network of interconnected streetcar routes. For this reason, it is unfortunate that uncertainty surrounds the promised return of streetcars to Route 15, in spite of the substantial subsidies that streetcar routes garner from the Federal Transit Administration.

Streetcar operations remain suspended on Route 15. With buses still plying the route, rehab of the streetcars sidelined from it proceeds at a snail’s pace.

The crux of the problem is the total absence of leadership, be it from the mayor, the city’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability, SEPTA’s general manager, or its board of directors. If streetcars are ever to return to Route 15, stakeholders must lose no time in restating their preference for them to their elected officials.

Major Sclarenco II, president, Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Public Transportation, Philadelphia

Once again we find ourselves in the middle of another election season. This is when politicians and their staff work hard and truth takes a vacation. Our vast internet provides a trove of information and misinformation, with negatives a best seller.

Thus our senses are bombarded with facts and fictions about good guys and bad guys. An open secret to a successful campaign is to tell the public what it wants to hear and show it what it hopes to see.

On Election Day, voters will line up to make that final decision. Some are the regulars who automatically follow the party line. Some will be so numbed by the ads and money requests that they will choose “none of the above” and stay home. Finally, swing voters will try to make an intelligent choice, which reflects that emotional image of what they believe to be best. This is the final test of democracy, beyond all the hype and confusion — that the people will see and make the right choice.

C. Tom Howes, Havertown

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