Remarks About U.S. Workers

The Feb. 4 front page of The Times contained articles on Japan’s premier identifying U.S. workers as the root cause of our economic problems and on the Democratic governors’ criticism of President Bush’s economic package. Japan, the Democrats and the Republicans are wrong.

Our economic problems are substantially caused by the economy’s reward of those who seek short-term gains and the penalizing of those who seek the long-term good. In the 1980s, corporate raiders squeezed money out of the corporate balance sheet and from pension funds and created huge amounts of corporate debt. Much of the cash went into the pockets of the corporate raiders.

The U.S. must still have on its books laws dating from the 1910s and from the Great Depression, designed to punish those who breached their fiduciary responsibilities by enriching themselves at the expense of stockholders and pensioners. The Feds must vigorously prosecute those suspected of having done this. Be innovative. And after they are convicted, take back their money.

If the money taken back is not substantial enough to reimburse those stockholders and pensioners who were wronged, use it as seed money for the federal government to establish a venture capital source. If it is politically not feasible to assist emerging technology directly by providing venture capital, then do it through the back door through tax incentives.

BILL FERRY, San Marino