“South African entrepreneurs have discovered a stunningly large and lucrative market: Africa’s poor. By providing services that the developed world takes for granted, the entrepreneurs are making money -- and making lives easier.” Megan Lindow reports from Cape Town on Seeking Riches From the Poor. [Wired News]

From MSNBC:

Hayek’s words from “Why I am Not a Conservative“ have a certain topical ring:

Bruce Bartlett, a supply-side economist who has written on the Austrian School, has reversed himself on the Iraq war.

Then: “Iraq is clearly the most terrorist-friendly nation on Earth. The fact that Iraq’s people deserve liberation is also important — even if it makes me sound like a Wilsonian liberal, something I have always hated. Still, that is where I stand.”

Many of my fellow Austrians have shown the outsourcing of the production of goods and services in the marketplace to be beneficial to society at large.The same cannot be said, however, for subcontracting foreign policy. Indeed, the American government’s propensity to outsource certain aspects of its military activities to regional governments or local non-state organizations has rendered Washington’s already reckless and aggressive brand of adventurism all the more dangerous to the world and America itself.  

The Wall Street Journal today features a review ($ paid site) of Laurence Kotolikoff and Scottt Burns’ book The Coming Generational Storm. The book is an expose of the myth of the purported retirement and medical benefits that seniors are allegedly going to receive. The review, Todd Bucholz, notes:

Sometimes, however, Americans use more care because they think it’s free, or almost free. And that’s one big reason why health care hasn’t become Wal-Mart-ized. When you buy that DVD player, you whip out your credit card and pay with your own money.