Excellent analysis on the excessive power of Moody's Investor Services to coerce corporate and now US government behavior, as well as the failure of Moody's and others to assess risk of market failure.

I also agree with your criticism of our national imperial state, especially the sinkhole that is our occupation of Iraq, and argument for single-payer health care.

One problem with your analysis is that in proposing to wipe out the federal deficit, you ignore the obvious: the federal government should never strive to balance its budget in the middle of an economic downturn. That way lies madness, as the government piles on to the economic contraction.

Instead, the federal government should aggressively put money into the pockets of those who will immediately spend it; that is, those at the bottom economically who need it most.

As the cascade of cards that is our current relatively unregulated financial and securities markets unravel, the federal government will be called upon to bail out major banks and brokerages in order to prevent economic collapse. While doing so, the government should revive and create new regulatory safeguards to prevent this from happening again.

Brian Polejes

San Diego, CA

Moody's is only one part an open conspiracy to destroy the American government, tear apart the social safety net, attack civil rights and reduce the American worker's middle-class lifestyle to wage slavery. Everybody has sold out to big business and the multinationals. The mainstream media has sold out and has been turned into a propaganda machine for these interests. Lou Dobbs remarked the other day that big business owns the Republican Party and has a controlling interest in the Democratic Party. While this should not be a revelation to anyone who pays attention, it was neatly said. The Bush Administration reminds me of the corrupt South Vietnamese government we tried to prop up, or a Banana Republic controlled by a right-wing dictator who sells his country to the highest bidder. It will collapse along with the economy, and the American people had better be ready to retake this country by the ballot box or other means. If the collapse doesn't happen before the election, we will be dealing with a Democratic Party in which big business has a controlling interest--the enemy will not go away just because of the election. Since I am mathematically challenged and never got past the Communist Manifesto, I have never been a Marxist, but Karl M. must have covered this situation in his writings. You should not be surprised.

Pervis J. Casey

Riverside, CA