Readers Report
What the Internet Hath Wrought
"Rethinking the Internet" (Cover Story, Mar. 26) attempts to cover over the killing of the New Economy with the comforting thought that the Internet is now graciously improving the Old Economy. To understand the real import of the New Economy, one must understand that it was the first Schumpeterian "creative destruction" to attack the entire economic system.
Regardless of whether many New Economy companies understood it (and they didn't), such epochal change was no less threatening to the status quo powers than was Galileo's free thinking to the Church. And the Old Economy corporate inquisition has been no less brutal in suppressing it.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Me.
Your article left out one consistently successful and profitable corner of the Web: the very small business. Almost every small-time operator with a low-budget Web site has generated new customers and new income. An extra $300 or $400 a month may not warrant a mention in your story, but it can make quite a difference to many a one-person operation.
Bernard Kamoroff
Willits, Calif.
You say the Internet's impact is being felt unevenly across industries. I disagree. My business (textiles) is not an obviously information-intensive area. We used to wait days for samples to arrive. Now, we collaborate with suppliers using digital imaging over the Internet, making decisions in five minutes that previously might have taken five days. The Internet sharply improves the speed and accuracy of decision-making, and there's nothing "uneven" about that.
Dana Cartwright
President
Designer Software
Syracuse, N.Y.
For Big Labor, Politics Isn't a Hobby
"Big Labor: So out it's `off the radar screen"' (Washington Outlook, Mar. 26) describes the anti-union and retaliatory posture of the Bush Administration and concludes that "Big Labor will have to decide whether to organize another crusade to reclaim Congress for the Democrats in 2002--or focus on its day job: organizing workers."
I would submit that our "day job" in representing working families involves--in equal measure--collective bargaining and political/legislative action, as well as organizing new members to maintain strength. All of these efforts are linked, and we don't have to make a choice between political action and organizing.
Morton Bahr
President
Communications Workers of America
Washington
When You're Ready to Tell Your Broker Where to Go
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 has reduced the number of class actions ("This crash won't make lawyers rich," Legal Affairs, Mar. 26). However, the '95 act did not substantially affect the rights of public investors to pursue claims of fraud against their securities and commodity brokers. These claims are [now] proliferating in arbitration mostly conducted by the National Association of Securities Dealers, the New York Stock Exchange, and the National Futures Assn.
Theodore G. Eppenstein
New York
An Education System Desperately in Need of...
The reason America's schools are floundering is that our society does not value education as other countries do--i.e., Japan and Australia ("How to fix America's schools," Cover Story, Mar. 19). Schools and students that succeed have involved, supportive parents.
Barb Windsor
Jenison, Mich.
My children have benefited from school choice in the form of the magnet school program and have been able to attend excellent schools. However, negotiating the process is not simple. It took over a year for us to figure it out. I worry that without guidance, students (and their guardians) who might benefit most may not be aware of the options or may not know how to enroll in an alternative school.
Christina F. Casto
Buffalo
As somebody who is training to be an educator, here's what I suggest: Give tax breaks to the parents of students who do well. Assess tax penalties to the parents of students who do poorly. Then you'll see some motivated kids!
John Burbidge
Rudyard, Mont.
As a retired engineer and educator, I have found many teacher education programs, particularly in mathematics and science, unable to absorb the changes required to connect the children with the meaning, power, and excitement of these subjects. Why not do more to open up our teacher education programs to more participation from experienced engineering, science, and technology personnel and programs?
Felipe H. Razo
Calexico, Calif.
The first step in fixing America's schools is to upgrade teacher credential requirements in all states as a means of forcing colleges for teacher training to improve their instructional programs, and only allow students who are potential role models to enroll in teacher training programs.
Irving Rubin
Marina Del Rey, Calif.
Where the Tax Cut Would Help
I continue to be amazed at the economic and tax illiteracy of Laura D'Andrea Tyson ("Tax-cut truths you won't hear from the Prez," Economic Viewpoint, Mar. 26). A family of four with two children (assuming both are under the age of 17) with an income of $26,000 would owe no taxes under the current Internal Revenue Service rules. But they would get a government subsidy of about $960 due to the earned-income credit.
Paul Varley
Wolfeboro, N.H.
Laura Tyson's Economic Viewpoint was on point and much needed. However, she omits an important fact: that the marginal rate cut for the top bracket is greater than that of any other. If the best that can be done for the middle class is a 3% reduction in our marginal rate, it should follow that the top bracket should benefit by no more than a 3% reduction. This would reduce the share of the surplus that is being returned to the wealthy to more nearly approximate the 30% that they contributed--not the 40% being proposed.
Douglas Thornsjo
Readfield, Me.
President Bush's claim that the "typical family" will benefit from a $1,500 reduction in taxes (as quoted by Tyson) is based on the almost universal confusion between "average" and "typical." The average, or arithmetic mean is a measure of central tendency and is usually by far the highest, but two other measures, the median and especially the mode, are more likely to be "typical." In a group consisting of one millionaire and 19 people who earn $40,000, the median and the mode are both $40,000, but the average is $88,000.
Thomas T. Semon
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Of Bad Management and Bandwidth
I worked at Agere Systems when it was Western Electric and then became AT&T Microelectronics, then Lucent Technologies, and now Agere ("The monkey wrench in Agere's IPO," The Barker Portfolio, Mar. 26). We left a viable company, but unfortunately the board made so many mistakes that their management's decisions could be a course at [Massachusetts Institute of Technology's] Sloan School of Management on how to screw up a business in two years. Thousands of us retirees used Lucent as the backbone of our 401(k)s...and now we are stuck.
Albert C. DiDonato
Bethlehem, Pa.
The growth of the optical networking market may have slowed down somewhat, but the demand for more bandwidth is constantly growing and will not disappear. The future is not as bleak as you claim.
Michael R. Adamian
Competitive Strategies
Manager (retired)
AT&T
Bridgewater, N.J.
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Copyright 2001, Bloomberg L.P.
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