Retirees Feel the Pinch of Greenspan’s Cuts

Re “Greenspan Legacy Rides on a Wobbly Economy,” news analysis, July 8: I never read anything about how the many [interest rate] cuts are affecting the millions of retirees like me who have relied upon dividends and interest from our savings to supplement our Social Security.

While it is true that we don’t have young children to raise, we do spend a great deal in the economy. My income from interest and dividends on my savings has been cut in half while everything else has continued to rise. My outgo is higher than my income, and I must curtail spending. I was going to buy another car, but I can’t afford to now. I must put off purchasing new furniture and making needed repairs in the house. I will not be buying new clothes this year, and I won’t eat out or take in a show or buy that new large-screen TV. I was depending upon my savings as a cushion in case of any serious illness that wouldn’t be covered by my insurance. How many millions of other retirees are in the same boat? How many more cuts can we endure?

Lenore Ulrich

Torrance

Has the Fed chief lost the Midas touch? Or is it a case of too much credit? It is neither loss of touch nor too much credit. It is, rather, the vicissitudes and uncertainties associated with a very complex and abused system of world economics about which we know very little. The basic elements of this abuse are: American free-enterprise capitalist democracy and the right to make as much money as one can and spend it as one chooses, huckstered throughout the world; advertising convincing the individual that he “needs” what he definitely does not--the “American” image and way; and cheap natural resources and labor from Mexico and anywhere else that can supply that “way” and its convenience consumerism.

Perry Bezanis

San Pedro