Football team thanked
for helping farmers market

Thank you, Otto Zeman and the Riverside Brookfield High School football team.

The Brookfield farmers market sponsored by the Brookfield Chamber of Commerce and hosted by the Village of Brookfield has set as its goals the development of destination shopping for organic and sustainable food products in a community setting.

This has been and is a joint effort that has seen a coming together of high-quality vendors, community nonprofit groups, environmentally friendly projects, presentations from our local library and Operation Save Our Troops to service our troops abroad with items of need.

Our market has been the recipient of an Illinois grant to help promote local farmers and their products, has received recognition among the farmers markets of Illinois and, most recently, been ranked in a national contest as one of the top 100 farmers markets nationally.

It’s been a large and rewarding effort to reach these goals. Helping facilitate the success of the market has been the cooperation of one of the most helpful and respectful young men that I have ever been fortunate enough with whom to come in contact, the RB football team. Through the efforts of Otto Zeman, these young men have helped with the setup and take-down of the market, earning the gratitude of the chamber and the village.

All vendors have expressed their appreciation of the friendly cooperation and help they have received when they found themselves in need of help. This appreciation has been expressed by the nuns of Notre Dame as well as the local orchard vendor showing his appreciation with a supply of peaches and apples.

As director of the Brookfield farmers market for the Brookfield Chamber of Commerce, I join Chamber of Commerce President Betty LeClere and Chamber of Commerce adviser Michelle Ryan in extending my most heartfelt thanks to Otto Zeman and the RB football team for their extraordinary efforts in helping to make the market a success for the community.

Patricia Weber, director-market chair, Brookfield Chamber of Commerce

Financial statements in
papers serve no good

Congress forcing banks to have financial statements printed in newspapers is beneficial to newspapers and no one else.

Congress is nuts for coming up with the idea that this proposal creates transparency. I was a national bank examiner for several years and covered five states to make sure that Mrs. O’Leary’s $10,000 TD, savings account, $1,200 DDA, checking account, was safe, up to $250,000 at least, for when she wanted it. The banks were intended to be safe and sound, liquid and profitable.

The reports were very intensive covering well more than what appeared on a financial statement. These were sent back to the comptroller’s office and made available to senators and representatives and many more high-ranking staff people on very important committees. We all know what good that did and does now.

The banking regulations state that banks must provide any one who walks into a bank and wants a statement of condition, a very condensed financial statement, must be given one or as many as he wants. They are done on a quarterly basis — otherwise, what good are they to a prospective depositor with more than $250,000? The U.S. government apparently had such little confidence in bankers to make good business decisions that an insurance company was created to protect the likes of Mrs. O’Leary’s deposits.

Now, the problem with financial data that is now available from banks on the printed statements of  condition in most every lobby is that one out of every 10,000 people can read them. OK, maybe more than five people in Danville, Tuscola, Cobden, Ludington can read statements of condition.

I am one who can read them, but from that simple financial statement, one can not determine the banks strengths or weaknesses. One can compute ratios — OK, back to one of 10,000 — but has no clue as to the make up within the short-term and long-term categories. No, House Resolution 2727 will not help bank depositors — consumer or business — but may feed the ego of congressmen.

John Hill, La Grange

Medicare more efficient
than private insurance

Maybe your “opinion editor,” Jerry Moore, would benefit from doing a stint as a “fact editor,” since his position on single-payer health insurance seems to be largely fact-free.

He says, “the single-payer concept would run into a major problem in this country: the gross inefficiency of government-run programs. Public officials have an appalling record when it comes to overseeing taxpayer funds.” He offers no examples whatsoever, much less examples relevant to health payment reform.

The fact is that Medicare, our only example of a federally funded national health insurance program for the general public, runs more efficiently than private insurance (3 percent administrative overhead as opposed to 25 percent and up for private insurers).

The other fact worth mentioning is that Medicare is government-funded, not “government-run.”
The government does not run Medicare any more than it builds its own bombers.

It contracts out the administration of Medicare to private insurers, which is probably one reason that some members of the over-65 population aren’t aware that their health insurance is provided by the government.

Those private insurers can run Medicare more efficiently than they run their other businesses because they don’t spend vast amounts trying to get someone else to pay each bill or looking for excuses to cancel the insurance of customers who make the mistake of getting sick.

I have dealt with Medicare on behalf of my parents and with private insurers on behalf of myself and the rest of my family. Give me Medicare any day.

Elizabeth Gardner, Riverside