Sir, Anatole Kaletsky is engagingly frank about his recent performance, admitting that he has “been wrong about so many aspects of this crisis”. But it appears that he has not learnt from these mistakes. His current prescription — “the country can borrow its way out of debt” — while no doubt sound traditional economics is nonetheless dangerously misguided (“Punish savers and make them spend money”, Jan 8).

His remedy simply seeks to re-establish the status quo ante, a model of excessive borrowing producing illusory economic growth, which has been shown to be unsustainable. His proposals are admirable if you buy his objective, but it is the wrong objective. We need a new model for sustainable growth and he should turn his undoubted talents to helping to devise it.

David Comer

Langton Green, Kent

Sir, I found it difficult to decide between the arguments in favour of Keynesian spending and those for prudent saving. Since Anatole Kaletsky has given us his opinion that the answer is spending, the matter has become crystal-clear. It must now be obvious to everyone that the answer is saving.

Peter Breuer

Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex

Sir, Now, there’s a bright idea — tax savings. Guaranteed to bring down the entire banking system, as every saver in the land queues up to demand his or her money back, in full and in cash.

C. J. Gibbins

Abingdon, Oxon

Sir, I am a pensioner. My working life extended to 53 years during which I saved to provide for my retirement. Should Alistair Darling take Anatole’s Kaletsky’s advice, the seven million savers like myself will almost certainly ensure that new Labour will lose the next election by a landslide.

C. G. Stapleton

Holywell, Cambs

Sir, Savers have accumulated their savings over a lifetime, prudently not spending everything that they earned. The majority of savers will also have paid tax on the income from which their savings have been derived, so taxing them again must surely offend the most basic canon of taxation. It is excessive borrowings and not prudent savings that are the root cause of the economic crisis; the real issue is not the cost of money but the paralysis within the credit markets, which needs a different type of remedy.

Roger Price

Hartley, Kent

Sir, Perhaps Anatole Kaletsky would like to explain to my 85-year-old mother how she could make more “productive” use of her lifetime’s savings other than by trying to live on the interest, and why she should be punished for doing so. Banks used to make a profit by using deposits productively second-hand. That is why they pay interest: to bring in funds to be lent. If they don’t do either then they are no longer banks but state-sponsored rentiers.

Far from encouraging productive capital, Mr Kaletsky’s prescription would have us converting cash to valuables, hoarded, and hidden to keep them safe from predatory tax farmers. Printing money is also a well-tested means of encouraging the same sort of behaviour.

Guy E. S. Herbert

London NW1

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