Japan is privatizing its postal system. If it gets through the Japanese parliament it will set a great precedent. Private enterprise has worked miracles for Japan so one hopes that other countries take note. I think Westerners should be a bit embarrassed that Japan has to show the way.

There is an interesting interview with Ghanaian economist George Ayittey here. He says that both democracy and markets were originally part of the African tradition and that abandoning them in favour of socialist ideas is what keeps Africa poor. I am sure that there is a lot of truth in that.

Wal-Mart enemies are no friends of the poor: "If a capitalist corporation gets to be a big success, it inevitably finds itself in the cross-hairs of leftist political activists who don't much like capitalism, and especially don't like large corporations. In the 1980s, General Motors found itself in this position when Michael Moore made the movie "Roger and Me." More recently McDonald's has been a target, attacked by (among other people) film maker Morgan Spurlock in "Super Size Me." Wal-Mart, now the largest business corporation in the world, could hardly escape the activists' ire. The huge retailer has been charged with underpaying and mistreating its employees, destroying communities, and oppressing workers in the Third World.... When economist Emek Basker of the University of Missouri looked at the employment effects of having a Wal-Mart move into a community, he found it actually increases employment. Nostalgia can be gratifying, but it's not a good basis for preferring fewer jobs rather than more. I suspect what the critics really dislike about Wal-Mart is not economic, it's cultural. Wal-Mart is very "red state." It's headquartered in Arkansas. It's mentioned in country songs. The crowd that likes to say it's on the side of poor Americans ought to appreciate a place whose prices make a modest paycheck go a long way. But they prefer to fight the culture wars, and Wal-Mart is their bugaboo".

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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The anti-business policies and practically all economic policies advocated by the Left are impoverishing. They waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so make the country poorer. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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