To the editor:

Today’s New York Times asked if Goldman Sachs’ contribution of $500 million to charity was sufficient penance for their misjudgments.

The article went on to mention that GS had set aside $16 billion for employee compensation this year.

Let me hazard a guess about how my South Enders would respond — NO!

I share that opinion.

There is danger when the haves and have-nots diverge by the extremes we see in those figures. No politically feasible tax increase, no tax or healthcare reform can hope to bridge that abyss.

We have lost our bearings from the 17th century Puritan first-comers who valued simplicity through our stages of let-me-try-my-luck entrepreneurs of the 1950s.

In 2009, our education, transportation and governmental infrastructures are crumbling. In 20 years, we will be well behind China and most of the rest of Asia if we continue on our individualistic, never-mind-those-poor-people path.

Do we want to be the new Haiti? The new Burma? The place where the affluent are untouchable and the poor are forgotten?

If so, we’re on the right path.

Linda Beeman

Clinton