I was amazed to see such naivety on the question of financial risk assessments from your deputy editor (25 July, page 3).
He says that the sector needs to encourage risk-taking and ambition among bosses. But it should be obvious to anyone who saw the crash of the early 1990s, that any board of directors should appraise the risks of any major project.

One only needs to look at the number of construction and property firms that have disappeared in the past 30 years after failing to do proper financial risk assessments to realise how fundamental this is. Many firms have taken risks that are far too big for their financial strength.

Alternatively, one can read Rudi Klein (25 July, page 67), who I fear is looking increasingly like the prophet in the wilderness, describing the consequences for the industry of such hubris.

On a more personal level for many of your readers, your main news item on the deepening pensions crisis states that money purchase schemes transfer "some of the investment risk" to employees (25 July, page 11). In fact, money purchase schemes transfer all of the investment risk to employees, so that nobody in the scheme can be sure of what they will be getting as a pension until they start to draw it.

Let us have more realistic risk assessment of the finances that affect us, whether they are the large commercial risks taken by the industry, or the smaller-scale but personally crucial risks we take on our own account.

Postscript

George Mathieson, George Mathieson Associates, London.