LETTERS

Re: Michael Hiltzik’s business column, “Recovery efforts stimulate whiners,” Feb. 23:

Hiltzik complains that people are “nitpicking” the virtues of the Democrat’s stimulus program. He may subscribe to the Keynesian theory of enormous government spending to invigorate the economy, but I do not.

The decline in American consumer spending is only the symptom of the real problem. We face a credit crunch. The mortgage meltdown destroyed $2 trillion or more in wealth.

This significantly reduces the supply of credit on which a modern economy depends.

Obama’s plan to run years of trillion-dollar deficits will dramatically increase the demand for credit.

History has shown that if supply goes down and demand goes up, prices rise, and in this case that means interest rates.

So, I do not think trivializing my concerns as whining is appropriate.

Michael O’Guin

Rancho Santa Margarita

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Thank you, for revealing the bellicose idiocy of Rick Santelli of CNBC as he roused his “witches” to fly, fly, fly like the wicked witch in “The Wizard of Oz,” to roar their disapproval of working people trying to make their mortgages and calling them “losers” because they need some good old American help. Give me a break!

Santelli has always shouted at the cameras as if he thought his audience was deaf. And when you talk Chicago fast you don’t have much time to think, to put a guardian at the gate of your mouth waiting for your brain to catch up.

Patrick O’Brien

San Juan Capistrano

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It’s not surprising that Republicans in Congress have suddenly become frugal with taxpayers’ dollars now that they don’t control the purse strings.

It was all right to support George Bush’s spending binge on the war as long as they could hide behind the cover of patriotism, but repairing the infrastructure, building schools and helping average citizens keep their jobs and homes doesn’t win votes from their base.

Their solution to everything, whether in good times or bad, is to cut taxes and vote no against anything that smacks of social justice.

Tom Turner

Dana Point