Gramm’s grim assessment

Re “A week McCain may wish to forget,” July 12

I suppose John McCain deserves some credit for his denunciation of Phil Gramm’s idiotic commentary on the state of the economy. What is even more troubling, however, is McCain’s poor judgment in his selection of Gramm as an economic advisor.

Gramm is a millionaire who is totally out of touch with reality. During his tenures as a U.S. representative and a senator, he presided over some of the worst economic disasters in U.S. history, including the deregulation of savings and loans, which led to bailouts at taxpayers’ expense; banking deregulation, which led to the current mortgage crisis; and let’s not forget his influence to have his wife, Wendy Gramm, ascend to chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in which she was able to aid Enron’s rise to power. She later joined Enron’s board of directors.

I guess the “maverick” can’t really separate himself from the Republican mantras of deregulation and privatization, even though both have been colossal failures in the past. Unregulated capitalism encourages greed, corruption and injustice.

Dan Pellow

Westchester

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I think Gramm has it right: The U.S. is a nation of whiners. We whine that there’s too much regulation, then we whine that the government isn’t doing enough to protect us. We whine when we can’t drive the behemoth we want, and we whine that the weather is getting worse. Let’s face it, we’re soft and pudgy and more than a little bit spoiled.

Vice President Dick Cheney let us down, and we can’t just go shopping anymore. We are going to have to actually adapt. Horror of horrors.

Kevin Wilcoxon

Riverside