Maybe Addiction to Greed Is the Problem

Stockbrokers are thieves, but “the system is too deeply rooted to do away with soon”? (“Committee Urges Changes in How Brokers Are Paid,” April 4.)

Any more “deeply rooted” than, say, drug use? But we’ll spend billions over decades trying to change that behavior in vast numbers of anonymous people.

Seems as if one ten-thousandth of that effort could change the conduct of a relatively small group of people whose identities (and places of business) are already known. And there’s no problem gathering the evidence; it’s all there in the committee’s report.

It’s pretty obvious what’s most deeply rooted here: the greed and sub-zero ethical standards of the securities industry, and the self-protective instincts of its farcical “investigative committees” and the SEC.

LEN DIAMOND, Westminster