Posted By:  zephyr Posted On:  Jul 1, 2008	Salvador Allende: His Example Lives On
Reflections of Fidel: HE was born one hundred years ago in Valparaiso, in southern Chile, on June 26, 1908. His father, a middle-class lawyer and notary, was a member of Chile’s Radical Party. When I was born, Allende was already 18 years old. He was pursuing secondary studies in high...... [view]

Posted By:  zephyr Posted On:  Jun 19, 2008	The Elephant and The Ant
REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL: IT would seem there's no topic worthy of addressing that would not bore our patient readers, after the “Round Table” program of June 12, which dealt with the new edition of a book published in Bolivia 15 years ago, featuring now a prologue I wrote. During this...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Jun 6, 2008	Sri Lanka's retarded Oil policy
Now maybe it's just me, but it seems to me that the Sri Lankan Government's oil policy is a bit retarded. Let's summarize, First, theres' a tax Petrol (VAT, excise duties, so on) Some reports puts the proportion of the tax at about 37% of the total selling price which now stands at Rs.157...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  May 28, 2008	The biggest Big Government
Karu Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka's Minister of public administration has confirmed something I've been saying for a while on this blog : Sri Lanka has the world's largest government . That's in addition to having the largest cabinet (literally) and having an enormous legislature. Here's an LBO...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Apr 17, 2008	Our Socialist Ways
Today the Sri Lankan government announced price controls on rice. From the Daily Mirror : The government in a move to control the escalating prices of locally produced rice imposed maximum wholesale and retail prices from midnight yesterday. A gazette notification to this effect was issued...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Mar 25, 2008	My Socialist Experiment
When I was growing up, this idea that 'our country was poor' puzzled me. How can we be poor I thought, the government print the money don't they? So how can they have all the money and still be poor? After days of thinking over this, I came to the conclusion that perhaps printing money costs,...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Mar 11, 2008	How J.R. Ruined Everything
If you are a socialist, that is. The chart below from Gapminder shows increasing incomes per person at accelerating rates after president JR Jaywardene liberalized the Sri Lankan economy in 1977. Certainly, this isn't good news for the lefties. ( a still pic from gap minder, an awesome...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Mar 4, 2008	Only in Cuba
One Cuban young woman complains to another. "He lied to me! He told me that he was a luggage handler! It turns out, he's nothing but a neurosurgeon!" Apparently luggage handlers in Cuba make more money in one day than some doctors get in a month. Heh. Arnold Kling has more on the life under...... [view]

Posted By:  ascendency Posted On:  Feb 25, 2008	Strike before the climate’s hot
18 months ago NASA scientist Jim Hansen said we have “ no longer than a decade, at most ” to hold global warming to a manageable range. If business as usual continues, Hansen said, “we would be producing a different planet.” What Hansen doesn’t mention is...... [view]

Posted By:  ighih Posted On:  Feb 25, 2008	Strike before the climate’s hot
18 months ago NASA scientist Jim Hansen said we have “ no longer than a decade, at most ” to hold global warming to a manageable range. If business as usual continues, Hansen said, “we would be producing a different planet.” What Hansen doesn’t mention is...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Feb 17, 2008	End of Chávez
It seems, like others who try to follow his ideology in a democratic set up, Hugo Chávez's run of popularity is slowly coming to an end. According to The Economist, during the last 5 years of the Chávez presidency, the proportion of households below the poverty line increased by 11 percent,...... [view]