The opposite.

Editor,

Monetary policy alone cannot bootstrap an economy out of a depression, and austerity is the exact opposite of what the global economy needs. Lowering interest rates in the hope that unemployed people will borrow themselves a job is well intentioned but wishful thinking.

The employer of last resort is the government. Putting wages in otherwise unemployed workers' pockets would increase demand and improve business. When businesses recovered and tax receipts therefore increased, the money you borrowed to stimulate the economy would be paid back.

But a now murderous ideology about not taxing an imaginary job-creating superior race one cent to keep supposedly inferior people who are economic parasites alive has captured the minds of millions of uninformed voters.

And here we are: cutting spending when it should be increasing, firing government employees when more should be hired, lowering taxes on unproductive capital when they should be raised.

Re: "Wall Street Joins Global Stock Plunge After Fed Move" (9/23/2011)