To the editor:

I read with interest the letter of Allen Welles in the Aug. 22 Journal-World regarding the “sub-prime” crisis in which he criticized the feds for protecting banks and lenders, but not providing cash to “these loan applicant victims.”

He described these “victims” as having no experience with the mortgage system and that they were not the best financially educated, having little idea that their payments were going to radically increase and the value of their home might not increase as homes have been doing in the past.

While I do not criticize Mr. Welles’ desire to help our neighbors, I think the blame for this crisis, if you will, should be aimed directly at the sorry status of our national education system, if indeed the “victims” were unable to understand the full implications of such loans. What ever happened to “reading, writing and arithmetic”?

Floyd Gehrt,

Lawrence