The employer's group, the CBI, recommends solutions similar to those that were made on a much bigger scale by business groups in the United States ("Growth should be focus, says CBI Scotland", The Herald, December 29).

The proposals to Washington were essentially better education, further deregulation and infinite patience – in the meantime pour public money into business.

However, on education, the US already has a huge percentage of its youth in further education – before the coming cuts – so no doubt the wrong things are being taught.

On further deregulation, it was the cult of light-touch regulation by some governments that almost collapsed the global economy last time.

The remarkable thing about such politically naive proposals is that they are being accepted; as a senior US politician remarked, you can't call time out on the global economy.

Nevertheless the lack of will to impose checks and balances on a market agenda –which unfettered cycle resulted in world war last century – shows how weak politics really is.

Ian Jenkins,

7 Spruce Avenue,

Hamilton.