With all due respect Mr Goth you've got it all wrong. So wrong I don't even know where to start. You assert that in 3rd world countries, THE PUBLIC SECTOR HAS CUSHIONED THE POOR SECTOR FROM ECONOMIC HARDSHIPS.
I am a Kenyan and therefore like you come from your beloved 3rd world country.
A study of the Somali,Kenyan and any other 3rd world country economy is a case study in what governments should not do. There is not a POOR SECTOR in Somalia or Kenyan. What we have instead are very small islands of a riches in an ocean of poverty.
It should never be the role of any public sector to cushion people from economic hardships. This holds even more so for African countries like ours where a small cabal of political/economic elite hold the country in virtual bondage. How else do you explain Africa's vast riches in natural resources and also our continued abject poverty.
Until we create institutions where a regulated market economy can flourish,property rights are respected and transferable,judicial systems function independently, we Africans will continue looking for scpagoats while the problem is what we see every time we look in the mirror.
Your beloved socialism is an unattainable illusion because for it to exist,you need capital accumilation and by the time this happens, those who created the capital tend not to want to give it all up-especially to dreamers who are against capitalism.

Racing horses is the same deal, without the oil slicks.

It's like racing cars. 2o cars, 50 laps and 1 winner. You have 2,3,4 an so on. We just keep racing on Sunday to sell on Monday. You could have a race where everybody wins, you just wouldn't have a human race with competition. They must of never heard of NASCAR. Boys started out running whiskey and are still just running for the money. You can't stop them, just like you can't stop the distiller from making his article and selling it. The article is running on capital here and will keep running unless something else happens we don't know about yet. It's a safe guess that it will be here in the morning and long after that. You never know what can go wrong though. Chances are more things will go right and people will get paid. People like that idea. Even 2,3,4 and so on get paid. 1 makes out better though, so you try to be the best and don't rest.

Mr. Bashir Goth

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the above and your sense of humour. The tirades that follow still leave me smiling and, I must admit ... breathless.

"As the world has become so interlocked, investment seeking money jumped from one place to another, no one seems to have heeded the writing on the wall. The Asian financial crisis, the dot.com bust, the collapse of central governments in many Third World countries pushing multitudes of economic immigrants to the coasts of rich nations , the root cause of terrorism, the Enron collapse and even the most recent surge of oil and grain prices worldwide. Ignoring to heed such warnings and doped by the illusionary trend of whiz kids turning millionaires overnight on improvising virtual gizmos, the elites and politicians of the capitalist world decided to shift the blame to global warming and ecological disasters caused by Arab oil, African cows, poor Asian and Latin American farmers and loggers as well as the laundering and cooking of Western middle class mothers."

I am sincerely disturbed by your dillusional conclusions about the current economic down turn. These event burgeoned primarily because of wreckless banking and lending practices endorsed by a democratic congress. It was the very socialistic practices of these leaders and greed of CEOs. Even my EU colleages tell me you need more skin in the game than 20%, when buying a new house. These "American Dream" give away practices of our liberal congress have caused what often happens to "welfare" methodologies. These practices always cause disincentive for the very people they are intended to help and worse they disincentivize those that want to help. Then there are always the elixir salesmen scraping money on the edges. If in 2005 the democratic congress would have regulated loans to require more down payment rather than less, we wouldn't be in this mess. Even our Scandinavian partners know this fundamental tenent. Life like economies are a balance. You can't give people the American Dream, you have to provide them the freedom to work for it.

I totally agree with you that capitalism has run its course. Present economic crisis could be developed into an irreversible recession. If the full course of recession is allowed to run, the capitalist economic system would automatically collapse. I find it difficult for any one to stop the present course of irreversible recession across the world. As said rightly by you, a small majority of elite people have been holding huge economic powers due to manmade laws. These people have been exploitating other un-lucky and non-privileged people from all countries including those of developed countries. Too much centralisation of economic powers either in the hands of few individuals or the state could bring the situation as being seen presently. Former USSR's collapse was also for the same reason i.e. too much economic powers in the hands of the state.
I do not agree with you one point and that is the USA's present crisis is from free market economy. Let us be clear that there is no 'free' economy anywhere in the world. All we see is 'monopoly' market conditions. Monopolies are made by legislation that give privileges to a few selected ones. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, joint stock companies with limited liabilities are some such examples of manmade laws that bestow privileges on a few ones. Marx says, laws that divide people are reactionay and as such unnatural and immoral. What is immoral are not immortal. The end of such an economy is not too far. Capitalism has, as stated by you, completed its course. We will need new laws to unite people and equally share natural wealth. Each one must get a chance to be a productive person as a right. The state has as a guardian to ensure economic equality practiced. State has also to ensure 'free' competition in the economy by repealing all the monopoly laws. Today, only agriculture is the nearest approximation of free competition/market economy. The same should be made applicable to other sectors like services and industry. This would take us in the new civilisation. This was aimed at by Marx but he also got trapped in the monopoly economic powers and as such failed in achieving scientific socialism. He divided the people betwen capitalist, privoleged wage-workers, farmers, farm labour and all that. His economics was full of errors and contradictions. One would say, he did not have any economic theory to prove his thesis of scientific socialism. Marxists are now trying to find out where Marx made mistakes. However, in the case of capitalism. the errors and in-built contradictions have been known to capitalist economists right from the beginning. As a result they were and are aware of the limitations of capitalsm and virtually expecting collapse of the same. Now the time has come to witness this for all.