I found Robert Marcroft’s Aug. 8 Maine Voices column – with its deep mistrust of “wealthy out-of-state corporate investors” – symptomatic of why it’s so hard to build a strong, healthy economy in Maine.

I agree that Opportunity Zones need fixing. And, yes, I’d love a world where small, local, employee-owned businesses could, all by themselves, create enough jobs to stem Maine’s brain drain and secure work for despairing young people in rural areas. But we live in a global, interconnected economy, and as long as we persist in fighting this, rather than accepting it and seeking ways to shape that reality to our advantage, we are going to remain in the economic backwater.

Tim Wallace

Portland