Tom Ault
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
Do you remember when someone mentioned chips they were thinking about potato chips, poker chips or perhaps a "chip off the old block?" Wasn't life simple then?
It is probably an inconsequential question but an answer is really needed for today's dilemma with our inability to handle situations that should be in our control. The question is: If a company is now starting to build a new plant to manufacture electric trucks, why wouldn't a company build a new plant to manufacture (automotive required) computer chips?
What good are electric trucks or cars, or gas-operated ones requiring all the special devices in modern vehicles today, if we are apparently incapable of manufacturing our own chips for our automotive conveyances? Is it time for us to become less multi-national and start thinking inside the old box where so many wonderful inventions came from for a change? Have we reached the point in time that our modern brains are no longer functioning beyond the thought of a dollar bill?
The governments of all countries can use the reasoning due to this international COVID-19 virus all things are going to suffer. Isn't it time we see through the media fog and realize this pandemic has become an excuse for everything?
Perhaps I see things incorrectly, but after a year of being blasted with the death rate, hospitalization rate, stay-at-home rate, and every other rate you can imagine, it might be time to consider we aren't fighting all diseases equally, but are being led with inadequate information.
About 7.6 million people die from cancer each year, and 36 million die of starvation. That is 20,822 per day worldwide with cancer and 98,630 per day worldwide of starvation.
U.S. disease daily death average (healthsystemtracker.org): 1. Heart disease: 2,078, 2. COVID-19: 1,899, 3. Cancer: 1,636, 4. Accidents: 553, 5. Stroke: 444 6. Chronic lower respiratory disease: 377, 7. Alzheimer disease: 327, 8. Diabetes: 280 9. Other diseases of the respiratory system: 182, 10. Renal failure: 145, 11. Suicide: 126.
Why are we not blaming heart disease on the world's problems, after all there are more deaths per year from that disease than from COVID-19? Why do we have storage bins of food just waiting for the right price when there's starvation internationally? Why are the drug manufacturers so profitable?