Money Talk Is Good

SEPT. 23, 2012

To the Editor:

Re “Don’t Show Me the Money!” (Sunday Review, Sept. 16):

It may be that our interest in money is a form of pornographic pleasure with a perverse interest in the very rich, as James Atlas suggests. But I would emphasize, as he notes only in passing, the potential value and necessity of being informed about the practices of a world most of us know very little about and have tended to trust, however naïvely, with money put aside for retirement, our children’s education or a rainy day.

This is not pornographic indulgence but essential reading. The inundation of financial news may serve as a corrective for those blindsided by the financial meltdown.

Most important, if it keeps pressure on our elected officials for true financial reform, perhaps it will be less likely that millions of innocent people, through no fault of their own, will have their lives destroyed by the actions of those who were trusted to take care of them. But of course, that may be naïveté kicking in.

LARRY S. SANDBERG
New York, Sept. 16, 2012