Respond to crisis by selling Hawaii

When times are tough like they are now, we have to make some tough decisions and we have to make sacrifices, but we have to make the right sacrifices.

I have an idea: Instead of taking a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to buy up debt created by our unregulated financial institutions, let's sell Hawaii.

I'm sure that the Japanese or the Saudis or some other wealthy nation would be more than willing to fork over a trillion dollars for that prime real estate.

Sure, I'd hate to see it go but we didn't pay anything for it so it's not as if we made a bad investment.

It wouldn't be a total loss because we would still have the rights to our naval and air bases like we have in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay.

Once the sale is complete I'd make a change to the American flag. Instead of removing the star, I'd change the color of one star to black as a reminder to all present and future Americans that we paid a high price for greed and incompetence in this country, and we should never let it happen again.

Raymond Costello

Arlington Heights