Dagget,

For a clear indication of the nonsense you are regurgitating you need look no further than the arrivals lines at immigration for first world countries VS third world countries. Even a one eyed socialist would have to admit the flow is ALL one way. This NOBLE SAVAGE myth that there are enormous numbers of happy peasants earning less than a dollar a day is ridiculous.

The ugly truth at the heart of socialist anti privatisation theory is that people can't be trusted to do the right thing. They need public utilities and gov'ts and unions and all sorts of other organisations to do it for them. Economic liberalism at its heart puts trust in people to know, and do, what is best for them, instead of having large gov't deciding what is best for you.

So, Paul.L,

Who told 65% of the Bolivian public to vote in support of Evo Morales on 10 August?

Who told 79% of the NSW public to be against privatisation of its electricity assets?

Dagget,

how about you provide the sources for your claims of 79% support for non-privatization in NSW.

Bolivia.

AS IF Bolivia is a good model of how to run ANYTHING. That country is the poorest in South America, has massive cocaine problems, has issues with US sponsored coca eradication programs, and has huge ethnic rivalries that are creating problems. 2/3rds of Bolivias people are subsistence farmers so I'm pretty sure that macro economic literacy is quite low.

But stealing land/businesses from rich people and giving it to poor people has always been popular with the masses. Its old fashioned pork barreling and it is clearly working. Being the head of the Coca Growers organisation and being a full blood Indian probably hasn't hurt his cause either. And of course portraying himself as the nations saviour from the predatory behaviour of the great Satan (the US) has also been quite a useful rhetorical device. Funnily enough the Bolivians like the money they are making from growing coca and are not inclined to stop any time soon. So it makes it rather easy to vote when your leader tells you he's going to protect your right to grow coca.

If you are attempting to suggest that people everywhere are opposed to privatisation and that this somehow has relevance to us in the first world you are striking out.

The relevance of Bolivias experience to our own is HIGHLY limited, if not nonexistent. Furthermore, privatisation of SOE's has occurred accross this country. I'm yet to hear anyone sane suggest the buy back of these SOE's. NOR have I heard the ridiculous charge that the general public are victims of theft. This is blatant socialist propoganda, no matter how much you would like to pretend otherwise.

Paul.L,

If you had followed the issue of privatisation as well as your strident advocacy in favour of it would suggest you should have, you could not have failed to notice, throughout recent years, evidence of overwhelming public opposition to privatisation. I note that you have not acknowledged the fact that privatisation rejected by the NSW electorate in 1999 and was not put to the electorate by Costa and Iemma in 2007, even though it is impossible to believe that the thought only occurred to them since the election.

In regard to the 79% opposition of the NSW public to privatisation, check out:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/poll-adds-to-string-of-bad-news-for-iemma/2008/06/29/1214677850292.html
... The weekend poll found 79 per cent oppose power privatisation,
even when reminded that the Government's rationale is to invest
more in public infrastructure. ...

Anyhow, Paul.L, how about responding to my direct questions before you attempt to lead us off on further tangents? I made the point in my previous post about popular opposition to privatisation in response to your claim:

"Economic liberalism at its heart puts trust in people to know,
and do, what is best for them, instead of having large gov't
deciding what is best for you."

The overwhelming evidence, as revealed by "The Shock Doctrine", is that it is free-market fundamentalists such as yourself who do not put their "trust in people". In 1973, having made no headway whatsoever in winning electoral support for their program in Latin America, Milton Friedman's Chicago Boys backed a number of bloody military coups. Henry Kissinger notoriously defended his own role in bringing about the Chilean coup of 1973 as being necessary to protect Chile against the "irresponsibility" of its own citizens.

This pattern has been repeated ever since, including in Iraq as I have shown above.

In regard to Bolivia, don't you think it odd, if 'free market' policies implemented since 1985 were so beneficial, that Bolivians would, in 2005, elect a socialist President pledged to reverse those reforms and that a fortnight ago 65% reaffirmed their support for him in the face of a concerted campaign to destroy his government?

Whoops!

Looks like I neglected to put the word 'reforms' at the end of my last post in inverted commas.

Part of the neo-liberals' misinformation strategy, of course, is the Orwelling re-labelling of their sociopathic policies as something good and positive. So, their plans to run down government services, reduce taxes on the rich, destroy legal protections for workers, steal publicly owned assets, impoverish the elderly and welfare recipients, etc have been dishonestly referred to as 'reforms'. As people can see, even those opposed to the neo-liberal agenda, such as myself, are capable of falling into the trap of using their language.

My apologies.

daggett,

I take it that you meant to type "Orwellian" and not "Orwelling"?