Prosecution of Michael Milken

It is interesting to compare Benjamin J. Stein’s column “With Friends Like Mike Milken . . . His LBO Advantage Is Cut From the Hides of Workers” to Paul Craig Roberts’ column “Junk Bond King Victim of Envy, Legal Lynching” (Op-Ed Page, April 12).

In a nine-paragraph article, Roberts devotes one glowing and superficial paragraph to analyzing the effect of Milken’s machinations in the junk-bond market. The other eight paragraphs amount to a rather shrill and unsubstantiated outpouring of “moral” outrage at those who would dare attack poor billionaire Mike Milken.

In comparison, Stein devotes his article to a close examination of the impact that a leveraged buyout has on a company--particularly on the employees. As Stein correctly points out, leveraged buyouts are achieved through the use of “high-yield bonds and other devices to finance takeovers of companies by their managements or by outsiders.” This then requires the acquired company, now loaded with debt, to take draconian measures to streamline its operation in order to service the debt. In other words, while Milken and the lawyers get rich, workers are “laid off, cut back, and disenfranchised.”

One can only wonder at the underlying motivation for Roberts fuming “moral” indignation and consuming concern for Milken and his total lack of compassion for the real victims of leveraged buyouts--the workers.

LARRY SIEGEL

Hawthorne