Is the IMF at Fault--or Its Clients?

Regarding the World Bank/International Monetary Fund meetings and accompanying protests (''Backlash: Behind the anxiety over globalization,'' Cover Story, Apr. 24): It seems to me that some of the protests are misdirected. While I agree that these organizations need reform in their approach to development issues, a real problem in achieving any progress is the unwillingness of leaders in most recipient countries to address fundamental reform in their own societies. These include high taxation levels, high government wages, the lack of fair business and marketing regulations, etc. No amount of benign donor assistance will change these basic social and economic issues.

Robert W. Resseguie
Arlington, Va.

The Apr. 24 cover story is immensely one-sided. Granted, the majority of your readers live in the U.S., but wouldn't they want to know about comparable workers in Mexico and other countries? Myself and several fellow divinity students visited the border region in Texas and northern Mexico over spring break. We toured the grounds of factories owned by Seagate, Converse, General Electric, and others. Yes, jobs have been created, but the plants employ people at wages that cannot sustain life as it would be defined by U.S. citizens.

Each family we visited lived in a hut with walls built from forklift pallets and sealed with sheets and garbage bags. The floors were mud and the one bed held the parents and their children. Children were scouring a nearby dump for food and items to sell on the street. NAFTA has passed the test of business interests but not human or environmental rights.

Peter Jones
Brite Divinity School
Fort Worth, Tex.

I read with dismay your editorial ''What's behind the global backlash?'' (Editorials, Apr. 24). You describe opponents of globalization as technophobes for whom ''science and innovation are seen...as threats, not solutions.'' The misuse of technology is not a movement of reactionary Luddites--the concern exists for many such as myself with technical backgrounds who recognize technology's ability to improve our lives. Yet, 21st-century technologies such as genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of abuses. We must approach technology with cautious critical judgment.

Rafael Reyes
San Francisco, Calif.

I am dismayed that while you report being ''startled'' by the figures revealed by the Business Week poll on globalization, you appear unable to acknowledge the breadth of such backlash sentiment. You point out that the environment is a high priority among the young, students, and high-tech workers. I think we can include nonstudents, workers in the Old Economy, and people of all ages. Environmental issues are here to stay as a top priority.

John Kershner
Merry Point, Va.

''It's Time to Close the Gates'' to U.S. Immigrants

Regarding ''Keeping the hive humming'' (News: Analysis & Commentary, Apr. 24) on immigration: It may come as a shock to you, but some things are more important than economic expansion. Everywhere I go in this country, more shopping malls, office buildings, and subdivisions are being built. Every day we continue to lose wetlands, forests, and prairies to development. It has gone too far. America was getting overcrowded in the 1950s. It's time to close the gates, not to discriminate but simply because the country is full.

Jon Robson
Ground, Wash.

Regarding ''Give me your yearning high-skilled professionals'' (Economic Viewpoint, Apr. 24), Gary S. Becker's argument misses the point: Companies are bringing in immigrants rather than retraining good workers. This is particularly acute in the information technology field. There are tens of thousands of U.S. IT professionals with many years of experience, but they aren't trained in the most recent technologies. Why should a company bear the expense of retraining these people when they can get pretrained immigrants?

Gary Rosensteel
McMurray, Pa.

There is a shortage of computer workers in part because of the working conditions we often experience. Many organizations expect us to put in long hours of unpaid overtime in order to meet unrealistic schedules. Silicon Valley wants to hire new grads, work them very hard for a few years, then throw them away and hire new ones. This may have worked when the baby-boom pig was working its way through the economic python, but it is a recipe for disaster now that the baby busters are coming through.

Want solutions? Bring money. Lots of it. And be nice.

Steve Hovland
San Francisco

Gary Becker missed an opportunity to highlight the difficulty foreign-born professionals face when trying to establish themselves here. Few Americans may realize that little to no financial aid is available to assist international students who wish to attend U.S.-based graduate programs. Globalization of business should lead to globalization of opportunity. In this respect it does not. Why are nearly all financing programs in the public and private sectors marked ''foreign need not apply''?

Barry Winer
Washington

Your suggestion that the cap on H-1B visas be raised or lifted to alleviate a shortage of high-tech workers is a short-term solution with long-term negative consequences (''Ease the way for skilled immigrants,'' Editorials, Mar. 6).

Admitting H-1B workers undercuts the law of supply and demand. The way to increase the pool of American technical workers is to let market forces drive up compensation. Depressing wages by the use of lower-paid immigrants can only lead to fewer Americans being attracted to technical careers.

Tristan D. Lory
Principal Engineer (Ret.)
Garden Grove, Calif.

Motorola Was a Convert to Cellular

Kudos for your excellent report on Motorola's turnaround (''A new company called Motorola,'' Information Technology, Apr. 17). I am particularly interested in the subject, as I was the Executive Director of the Bell Laboratories division that conceived of and developed cellular service. I was struck, however, by one sentence in the article: ''The company that had invented the cellular industry....'' This is particularly offensive, since Motorola opposed initial deployment of cellular technology. AT&T had filed for licenses to deploy nationwide in the early 1970s. Motorola was then the principal supplier of mobile telephone equipment and saw cellular as a threat. They fought long and hard against deployment. When the Federal Communications Commission finally gave the go-ahead in about 1981, Motorola joined the bandwagon and became a cellular phone supplier. That's hardly inventing the cellular industry.

Irwin Dorros
Morristown, N.J.

The Rules on Web Lotteries, Revisited

You are correct that iMustLotto.com is a free, lottery-like site that allows players three chances an hour to win $50,000 (''You may already be a winner.com!'' The Internet, Apr. 24). However, players do not have to return to the Web site every hour to see whether they have won. All winners are notified promptly via e-mail, fax, or phone.

If I may answer the question posed by your article, a few sweepstakes sites will achieve viability. Lotto sites don't stand alone. Rather, they fit into a larger corporate strategy in which it serves to have one or two sites which can draw a large number of visitors. For example, iMustLotto.com is only the first of a series of ''imust'' sites.

David C. Sanders
President
iMustLotto Inc.
Glendale, Calif.

Editors' note: The story should have read that contestants must go back to the site every hour if they want to keep playing the same number.

High-Interest Lenders Aren't All the Same

I was disappointed to see mainstream subprime institutions lumped with the likes of payday and car-title lenders in your article on ''Easy money'' (Social Issues, Apr. 24). Every year, 4.5 million U.S. families are able to borrow money on reasonable terms thanks to subprime home equity lenders. They are often the only source of reasonably priced credit available to immigrants, single parents, working-class people, women, and others long ignored by other financial institutions. The average subprime home equity loan had an interest rate of less than 10% last year--a far cry from the triple-digit rates charged by the other lenders described in the article.

Jeffrey Zeltzer
Executive Director
National Home Equity
Mortgage Assn.
Washington

Your article unfairly cast subprime lenders in a bad light. Interest rates should be determined by the marketplace. If the government forces banks and finance companies to lend money to less creditworthy borrowers at lower rates, it will only cause a rise in interest rates for those who are in the habit of paying their creditors in a timely manner.

Emiliano Antunez
President
Loan Mart Corp.
Miami, Fla.

Shame on all those ''reputable'' financial institutions that are making a killing off the working poor. Instead of pocketing 2% to 5% of those people's pay in exchange for cashing their checks, why not put that 2% to 5% into a savings account for them? By permitting only biannual or annual withdrawals, they would help these people to build up savings, while at the same time building up enough capital in the account to make servicing cost-effective.

Sheila Bair
Washington

Taxes, Health Care, and the Uninsured?

Regarding ''Bush's health-care plan: Sick on arrival?'' (News: Analysis & Commentary, Apr. 24): Even though George Bush, Al Gore, John B. Breaux (D-La.), James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.), Dick Armey (R-Tex.), and Pete Stark (D-Calif.) all support extending tax credits to reduce the numbers of uninsured, Business Week predicts that ''no one has designed [a tax credit] that works as intended.'' If it were only politicians supporting such an approach, you might have a stronger case. But think tanks as diverse as the Cato Institute and the Progressive Policy Institute all support tax credits for people who buy their own insurance.

In our mixed-up system, people in employer-based plans get tax-free coverage, while people who buy their own insurance get no tax break at all. Yet people who buy individual insurance are older, poorer, and sicker than people with employer-based coverage.

Greg Scandlen
Senior Fellow
National Center for Policy Analysis
Washington

Are Biofoods Really Scary?

Contrary to your attempt to raise alarm about unanswered scientific questions, the National Academy of Sciences' study affirmed that there is no scientific reason to treat genetically modified foods differently than other foods (''Biotech foods aren't out of the woods yet,'' News: Analysis & Commentary, Apr. 17). Another study, released on Apr. 13 by Representative Nick Smith (R-Mich.), chairman of the House subcommittee on basic research, concludes that plants and foods created by biotechnology pose no unique risks.

Robert V. Pambianco
Chief Policy Counsel
Washington Legal Foundation
Washington

The Death of a Tiger

Congratulations on your superb articles on the demise of Julian Robertson's Tiger Management hedge-fund group (''What really killed Tiger,'' Finance, Apr. 17). Here you have a man who presided over the biggest financial disaster since Long-Term Capital Management. Rather than accept the blame, he blames others for his misfortunes and even has the audacity to blame ''the market.'' Fortunately for his investors, he will have no more opportunities to cast blame on others for his inability to manage money.

Albert J. Cohen
New York