To the editors:

Re Kaustuv Sen's "In Defense of Business Careers" (Opinion, Dec. 1): Almost no one would refute that long-term economic growth eventually benefits almost all consumers, but I question the extent to which the positions Sen describes (consultants, entry-level managers, etc.) aid in this purpose. In a country where more than 80 percent of corporate stock is owned by 5 percent of the population, I wonder if balancing Merrill Lynch's checkbook has any direct affect on a poor family.

Of course, a conservative economist would reply in trickle-down jargon. New businesses, higher productivity and the like are the cures for the kinks in the system Sen so repetitively pledges allegiance to. I hope I am not the first to inform Sen that in reality trickle-down provides just that: a trickle. The unfathomable abundance of wealth the upper class and the educated "elite" monger through the noble pursuit of investment banking is directly proportional to the meager scraps for the rest of us at the bottom. WILLIAM F. AUSTIN '00   Dec. 2, 1998