Quotes of the Day

The Keys to Common Wealth
In "Common Wealth," Jeffrey D. Sachs stated that the Millennium Development Goals are to cut extreme poverty, hunger and disease by 2015 [March 24]. Cutting poverty and hunger means more people consuming. Cutting disease means more people. Working toward these goals is meaningless as long as we do not reduce world population. People need to have fewer babies. Anything else produces an endless fight with no chance of winning.
Rodger Skidmore,
Sarasota, Fla., U.S.

Please Help Yourself
As the U.S. economy closes in on a possible recession, the end of customer service will only help it slide further into one [March 24]. Companies will make more money without needing to pay as many employees, but will that really make the world better? I'm no economist, but I feel it'll just make the rich richer and put more people out of work.
Jeff Richmond,
Monrovia, Md., U.S.

I have not found one person who likes automated customer service. It's sad to see human interaction being replaced by computerized interaction. Computers cannot solve a problem, smile or tell you to have a nice day. I'm curious to know where the saved dollars are going: Are they lowering prices for the customers, or are they padding CEOs' retirement funds?
Betty Kroupa,
East Troy, Wis., U.S.

As someone who runs a company dedicated to the automation of customer-service systems, I can say with some authority that your article should have been titled "The End of Customer Service — As We Know It." Thanks to the Internet, people in many cases end up more knowledgeable about a company's product than the customer-service agents themselves. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly difficult to hire and retain employees to fill these positions, making customer service inconsistent at best. Technology, when implemented effectively, will fill these gaps and provide a better and more consistent level of service.
John Putters, President, Visionstate,
Edmonton, Canada

A Crusader Crashes
We skewer Spitzer for hiring prostitutes and hurting his family terribly. But who else was hurt? No one. Meanwhile, two high-level political executives — responsible for the deaths and terrible injuries of thousands of U.S. service personnel and tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, trillions of dollars of debt, total disruption of the Middle East and destruction of our nation's good name — sit safely in their offices, unthreatened with even impeachment and ready to escape into retirement without a scratch when their term ends. Payment for sex is apparently far worse than the losses of blood, treasure and our nation's reputation. American values? They're in the toilet.
William Majors,
Woodland Hills, Calif., U.S.

A Bridge to the Mainland?
Thank you for bringing attention to Taiwan with the report "Strait Talker," about Ma Ying-jeou's presidential campaign [March 24]. It is true that nowadays we Taiwanese care about our identity and true spirit more and more. We will never accept losing our sovereignty and, I deeply believe, neither will the two presidential hopefuls. Taiwan is a unique and beautiful country whose fate lies in the hands of its own people, not those of any other country. We are all expecting a change for Taiwan. World, just wait and see.
Vivian Wei-An Tsai,
Taichung, Taiwan

Learning from the Universities
I exhaled a profound sigh of relief upon reading "Class Dismissed" and learning that some Japanese universities have finally begun to open their doors to foreigners [March 17]. Although superficially Japan has the aura of being international, desperate measures are needed to educate the populace into accepting people from diverse national, racial and ethnic backgrounds. Such openness will be instrumental in pulling Japan away from its old legacy of national seclusion.
Mari Oka,
Tokyo