Readers Write (April 29): Stadium, Social Security, MnSCU, health, Best Buy, Chuck Colson

Minnesota, wake up! If you want to be a player in America, you have to pay. Minnesota should not lose another professional sports team to Los Angeles. If it does, the state will be the joke of the nation. As a Packers fan, I hate the Vikings, but even I don't want them to leave. They're part of our NFC North family. Build the stadium.

DAN GALLAGHER, MILWAUKEE

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The Vikings stadium approval process (or steamroller) is certainly instructive as to how late-stage democracy works. If you're extremely wealthy, just fly a private jet to the local legislative body and threaten and cajole the "representatives," and within days the many levers of government will be pulled to ensure your uninterrupted access to the public treasury and private wallets ("Stadium plan revived with a kick from NFL officials," April 21).

ERIC LIND, MINNEAPOLIS

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The Social Security system is just another slush fund that Congress dips into in order to avoid making tough decisions to balance the federal budget. I call that a serious breach of fiduciary responsibility. The "IOUs" come due on our grandchildren's backs long after these members of Congress are dead. What will we do when this shell game is up?

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University of Minnesota Prof. Roger Feldman suggests that baby boomers should agree to cut Social Security retirement benefits now to preserve program funding ("Social security: You owe you," April 26). I paid Social Security contributions, along with my employers' contributions, for 50 years.

This reduced my wages while we also paid high taxes to fund government and public universities. If my "trust fund" contributions drew market interest rates, the meager $20,000 per year benefit could be paid out well beyond my expected lifetime.

It's a small benefit relative to my annual salary, unlike high-paid politicians and public university professors who may get close to their salary in lifetime public retirement benefits. Would they cut their salaries or retirement benefits to cut taxes, deficits or repay debt?

MICHAEL TILLEMANS, MINNEAPOLIS

With all due respect to Monte Bute's opinion regarding Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Chancellor Steven Rosenstone's Workforce Assessment Initiative, I find it hard to believe that he views collaboration between MnSCU, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce as a reshaping of MnSCU's educational mission ("MnSCU, others fall for a fad: The jobs-skills mismatch meme," April 20).

MnSCU's mission, adopted in January 2006, is to offer "higher education that meets the personal and career goals of a wide range of individual learners, enhances the quality of life for all Minnesotans and sustains vibrant economies throughout the state."

The workforce initiative hardly feels like corporate welfare; it feels like an initiative consistent with MnSCU's stated mission. Well-informed citizens understand and appreciate the chancellor's efforts toward increasing partnership and collaboration with Minnesota employers.

JEFF TIMM, LAKEVILLE

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Most people have the ability to eat a healthy diet, to not smoke and to be active. Unfortunately, too many people choose unhealthy lifestyles, resulting in an obesity epidemic that's crippling our health care system.

A sedentary lifestyle and unhealthful eating slowly and pervasively grinds away, causing diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, respiratory problems, back pain, joint disintegration, blindness, some forms of cancer and much more.

The health care mandate is eager to pay for the right to treatment without first paying for the tools to embrace the responsibility of living well.

JANET BATES, EAGAN

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I bought my first computer at Best Buy in 2000, and it lasted 10 years. I bought my second computer at Best Buy in 2010, and it only lasted eight months. My experience with customer service was so bad that I've never spent another cent in the stores.

Any group, from a band of kids in the neighborhood to a Fortune 500 corporation, takes queues from its leader, and that was Dunn's folly. He based success on opening more stores and a "sell, sell, sell" mentality -- all at the expense of customer service. That strategy may work in the short term, but it always fails in the long run.

ROB GODFREY, ST. LOUIS PARK

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Charles Colson, who died last week, was a wonderful example of repentance ("Nixon's dirty trickster dedicated life to inmates," April 22). He went from corruption to a model of integrity. He went to prison for his role in the Watergate scandals, then founded an evangelical Christian prison ministry.