FIRST PERSON/OPINION Via e-mail: Economic and political commentary have no place in a motorcycling publication, but because Sam Fleming peppers his articles with such drivel, I feel compelled to respond even though I know you won’t publish this e-mail. His latest comment is in the August issue (Pirelli Diablo Rosso II Tire Intro, “A Modern Industrial Fairy Tale,” Roadracing World, August 2011, pages 18-21), where he blames the economic collapse on evil bankers. Rather than blame the delivery mechanism, I would ask him to place the blame by answering these questions: -Who created an official government market for bad mortgages? -Who spent $140 billion (so far) to prop up the official government market? -Who encouraged (actually threatened) banks to make loans? -Who employs tens of thousands of people who scrutinize bank operations? -Lastly–and as a general proof of my point: Who spends $3.6 trillion a year and only collects $2.6 trillion? Eric Brown Atlanta, Georgia Roadracing World Editor John Ulrich responds: To put Mr. Brown’s complaint in perspective, Sam Fleming’s work does not appear in every issue, and Mr. Brown is complaining about 42 words, or approximately one column inch of text, in a four-page article covering 320 column inches and published in a 132-page issue of the magazine which contains 10,560 column inches. The section of text containing the reference Mr. Brown objects to reads, “It was a lucky switch because in 2005 Pirelli sold its cable division to Goldman Sachs, the same bankers who would cause the global financial crisis in 2008 and cost tens of millions of people their jobs and unrecoverable financial losses.” Readers may find the following news report interesting: ~http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/report-goldman-probe-widens-133416507.html~