Baloney.

Editor,

"Austerity" means not only that banks that engage in reckless speculation will be paid for making their bad bets, but also that these self-same banks will remain in control of the financial levers in Europe, the U.S., and the global economy.

This is wrong. Failed banks should fail, and they should be replaced with more responsible, better managed banks under tighter scrutiny and tighter control by democratic institutions. Taxpayers pay for bank bailouts anyway; and citizens and small businesses suffer under "austerity" anyway.

The only argument banks have to gobble up public wealth for their own private consumption is that if they fail, economic armageddon will ensue. Baloney. National banks, meaning banks that are owned, run, and capitalized by citizens of sovereign nations can do the job of financing industry and would recycle their profits into investments that benefit society as a whole instead of a predatory coterie of private bankers.

Rescuing rogue banks leaves the private, undemocratic power structure that created this debacle in place when goal number one should be to eliminate this cancer from the body politic.

Re: "Europe Finds Slope Ahead Is Growing Ever Steeper" (10/5/2011)