“But just because Governments don’t regulate the important areas properly, doesn’t mean they don’t regulate other areas excessively!”

I don’t see how I can argue with that – well said!

You asked for it Jonesy!

mongu,

I think you missed the point I was trying to make. The way I see it Liberalism, as it was growing into a true ideology, spent so much of its time making sure there were no government controls on business and on people’s lives that it forgot to control business’ impact on our freedom. Also, Liberalism could never forsee how powerful large corporations and multi-nationals would get and therefore could never come up with a philosophy for their regulation. This is why not even the US government can control the large multi-nationals which are registered in the US – they can simply pay for a congressman’s election campaign (or the president’s) and weasle their way out of any problems. Moreover, companies like Lockheed Martin or GM Motors are among the largest lobby groups in the US and anyone who knows anything about US politics will know how important lobby groups are.

Liberalism wasn’t designed with this in mind and has created an atmosphere conducive to it. Ironically, these large corporations are now impacting on the freedoms of more incividuals that any government is and the Liberal Democracies are in no position to stop it.

Jonesy,

“PS Ink. Could you have provided a more vague photo!?”

I have some with out me in them at all!

Thanks for the info.

Come on guys – help me out here…. Jonsey? Arthur??

Mongu,

Basically I think what you’ve highlighted with the Zambia case-study is that when looked at from any one point of view the actions appear to be justifiable. however, when the system is viewed as a whole it becomes clear that it propogates the impovrishment of poor countries and further increases the wealth and power of the rich and powerful ones.

Liberalism is all well and good and but even liberals agreed that controls had to be put in place to control government in order to protect the individual. Applying liberalism to economy is a whole different ball-game. Nobody puts any kind of controls on large corporations, well, not ones that they can’t get around by funding a senator’s election campaign. Liberalism – great. Liberalism applied to economics – sucks.

Not giving any prizes out just yet…

Anyway, I have a feeling you won’t get it so: I’m at the Yugoslav Aviation Museum (no idea what its called now) at Surcin – i.e. Belgrade International. Atrthur, you were within spitting distance with your guess mate.

EDIT: The chopper is of course a Mi-4.