Madam, - The US Congress was right to reject Treasury Secretary Paulson's rash and ill-conceived bailout plan for social, political and economic reasons.
Socially, it is immoral and unjust to ask the US taxpayer to support the global financial system in this way. The net effect would be a massive transfer of income from the poor and the middle classes to the rich.
Politically, this plan would create in the US federal government a superstate more powerful than anything that has been seen in human history. Centralising power in this way can only lead to dire and unpredictable consequences.
Economically, the plan could never work. It does not treat the root of the problem, which is that big banks made bad loans. If they are bailed out, the only lesson the market hears is that it always pays to take risks, whether your horse comes in or not. At the same time, the added tax burden would feed back into financial markets through weakened consumer confidence and further mortgage defaults, creating new bad debt just as the old stuff is being purged.
Instead, a new structure for the monetary economy needs to be considered. Congress and the treasury should appoint a council of the wise to begin the process of replacing the now defunct 20th-century model of financial capitalism which something more robust.
It is not a question of standing by and letting Wall Street fail. Wall Street has already failed. - Yours, etc,
GRAHAM STULL,
Brussels,
Belgium.
Madam, - $700 billion for greed, negligence and mismanagement - the most expensive commodities ever traded on Wall Street? - Yours, etc,
LIAM Ó LONARGÁIN,
Páirc Dhún an Óir,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Bhaile Átha Cliath.