Letters
IS THE BOOM OVER?
The problem with the stock market is that it has become alienated from the real world by its own insane pace [Sept. 14]. If short-term investment in stocks became impossible, the market would cure itself of the insanity. The connection between actual company profits and stock prices now seems thin, and the notion that you invest in a company for a share of profits has almost been lost. To buy shares in a company and to keep them for less than a year can't be deemed serious. Profits from such short-term investments ought to be severely taxed. Selling stocks held for less than a week shouldn't be allowed at all.
DAVID OTTVALL
Tyringe, Sweden

With high earnings, surplus money accumulates easily, and many people think savings incidental. But no more than a hand-to-mouth existence can be maintained without profitably invested savings. So even the desperate remedy of having artificially low interest rates to stimulate business is bound to fail unless accompanied by adequate savings plans in which money is invested prudently. The universal lesson the world needs to learn is that excessive investment on credit in risky projects must be curbed. People should invest in such ideas only if they can carry the loss of the investment.
JENS MEDER
Auckland, New Zealand

I am sick of people talking about the "boom" in the U.S. economy over the past few years. What boom? There hasn't been one, except maybe for the CEOs of companies that have downsized or gone to Mexico and reaped the profits. I am the disabled wife of a man who lost his job at Rockwell in the first wave of layoffs in 1990, and I have watched him go through a series of low-paying temp jobs ever since, his morale getting lower and lower. Washington, are you listening?
KAREN SEXTON
Orange, Calif.

THE STARR REPORT
I never thought it would come to this, my own government actively distributing pornography in the guise of the report from independent counsel Kenneth Starr [Sept. 21]. To expose intimate relations between two consenting adults and call it a search for justice is the real treasonable offense.
MICHAEL HAGER
San Francisco

Monica Lewinsky may have been a willing partner, but the President lied about his "private" affairs in a trial about his alleged wrongful conduct with an unwilling partner--Paula Jones. The President lied to cover up his activities with Lewinsky, and for this he is charged with perjury, witness tampering and many other acts. His apologies came only after the polls demanded it, straining credibility. He should resign.
BILL SCHRIPSEMA
Columbia, Md.

Oh, for the day when all we had to explain to our children was why the President didn't have to eat his broccoli--but they did.
ALEXANDRA and JOHN WOODY
Wayne, N.J.

Bill Clinton was very, very wrong in his actions, as were Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, Ken Starr and many others involved in this drama. There are no heroes in the sad, pathetic tale--just human beings, some making terrible mistakes and others being guilty of meanspirited obsession. But the whole affair has been about personal behavior. And wrong though it may be, it is still something strictly personal.
A. ALICIA ALEXANDER
Hialeah, Fla.

I find it appalling that the majority of the people still want to trust a man who not only violated his marriage vows but then lied about what he did. How is it that the leader of the free world can be held to a lower standard than the citizens of the country he serves?
JOAN L. RICHWINE
Locust Grove, Va.

The actions of both President Clinton and Judge Starr are contemptible. It is apparent that the worst of the accusations that one side spins about the other are true. In order to end this political fiasco, we the people should demand the immediate resignation of these two poor excuses for public servants.
BENJAMIN J. SCHERLAG
Oklahoma City

What a rip-off! For all the money Starr has been billing the country, he could have included pictures.
ED LINDNER
Westport, Conn.

ONE WAY...AND THE OTHER
Would someone please explain this to me? If a Hindu wife stands by her straying husband, she is considered a domestic doormat; if Hillary Clinton does it, she is a national heroine.
ARVIND SHARMA
Montreal

REQUIRED READING
Since both reason and justice seem out of our reach, let us at least have poetic justice. Will the 13 most guilty parties--true representatives of America's twisted culture--please rise? President Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth Starr, Linda Tripp and the nine robed Justices of the Supreme Court, you are hereby sentenced to confinement, together, for one year in a single room of the old Custom House in Salem, Mass., where, completely disrobed, you shall read and discuss these four works: The Scarlet Letter, Notes from the Underground, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex and Civilization and Its Discontents.
BERT BENDER
Tempe, Ariz.