Letters: Dec. 24, 1984

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Battered Banks

To the Editors:

Your report on the troubles now confronting American banks [ECONOMY & BUSINESS, Dec. 3] points up the risks of deregulation. Generally, deregulation is laudable, but it never should have been applied to banks. Deregulating banks cancels out the valid reasons for having some form of cost, safety and volume control over the money supply. Deregulation in this case will become a monster and a lighted fuse.

Alton R. Dahlstrom Rossland, B.C.

The problems in the banking industry may adversely affect all Americans. Nevertheless, I derive satisfaction from watching the bankers suffer. For so many years they treated customers with disrespect. Now, with increased competition, perhaps bank officers will realize that being polite makes good business sense.

Gregory R. Weaver Chicago

Your story presented a one-sided view of the banking business. No mention is made of the efficient manner in which the industry moves billions of dollars daily or of the major technological advances banks use to hold down costs and reduce needless float.

Nancy D. Halwig Evanston, Ill.

I do not understand your indignation over banks' earning money by charging for services. In the retail business we call that making a profit.

Robin A. Fisher Rochester

Your story quotes a financial consultant as saying, "Banking is going into the free-enterprise system out of a protected environment." Free enterprise is what is ruining the banking industry. It has killed the safeguards and ended the longest period of bank stability in our history. Banks are different from other businesses. They are supposed to be a safe repository, an alternative to the mattress and cookie jar and a stable pool of cash that can be called on to fuel the nation's economy. Banks should be the underwriters of the nation's financial security.

Milton A. Bergson Skokie, Ill.

It is strange that some people find fault with the increasing use of automatic-teller machines. I find them as warm as some of the tellers, more accessible and usually more efficient.

Richard J. Woodland Solon, Ohio

Your analysis of the banking problems between American lenders and Third World borrowers is doubtless admirable, but for me incomplete. It fails to mention Ogden Nash's "One rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it,/ Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless they don't need it."

Robert Krause Binningen, Switzerland

Man of the Year

Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, a brave and noble voice from an almost forgotten continent.

Anna Mary Meehan Shrewsbury, NJ.

Indira Gandhi, the late Prime Minister of India. She was a giant who made her opponents, detractors and critics look like pygmies.

Ramesh Chettri Bombay

The Viet Nam veterans represented in Sculptor Frederick Hart's monument. Theresa C. Girardi Fond du Lac, Wis.

Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega Saavedra and all the Sandinistas.

Walt Windsor Baltimore

The African woman, who bears Africa's economic decline most heavily.

Hume A. Horan

U.S. Ambassador to Sudan

Khartoum