Letters - Adam Smith's Way - NYTimes.com Re "At JPMorgan, the Ghost of Dinner Parties Past" (Fair Game, May 13), about JPMorgan Chase's recent report of a $2 billion trading loss: The bank's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, and other opponents of bank regulation are contradicting Adam Smith, the founder of free-market economic philosophy, who in "The Wealth of Nations" advocated rigorous oversight of banks. "Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules," Smith wrote. To depart upon any occasion from those rules in consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it. If we had followed Smith's centuries-old advice, there would have been no 2008 financial crisis resulting from reckless deregulatory policies. C. W. Griffin Phoenix, May 13