Milton Friedman's advice to countries exiting from communism apparently was privatize, privatize, privatize .

So we decided to privatize many of our enterprises.

The tweet said that he was considering to privatize Tesla with 420 per share and had obtained financing.

First, everywhere there is a sense of disgust at the way the recent boom seemed to privatize gains while the subsequent bust socialized losses. A few rich individuals appeared to gain and all taxpayers to lose.

This is somewhat reassuring. Much evidence points to the affair originating not in a systematic nationalization project, but rather in the Kremlin s perception that Khodorkovsky aimed to use his wealth to privatize the Russian state itself.

In this way, decisions about whether to privatize services which affect basic human rights, like water, education, health will be made with the voice and vote of those most affected by the results of those decisions.

Unjust structural adjustment programs, ODA conditionalities and unfair trade agreements pressure undeveloped countries to privatize public services in ways that do not benefit the poor, limit the exercise of national sovereignty, and reduce the democratic involvement of citizens in their own water management.

Open up regulated professions pharmacies, notaries, and taxicabs, for example and inefficient suppliers will be driven out by more productive firms. Privatize state enterprises, and the new management will rationalize production (and shed all the excess workers who owe their jobs to political patronage).

The government has announced plans to privatize state owned companies, improve conditions for small firms, and continue increasing individual freedom of choice in the case of human services. It has also abolished the wealth tax (after the previous social democratic government had already abolished the inheritance tax).

But the Greek government is being asked to privatize with a gun held to its head. Privatization at fire sale prices, with most of the proceeds used to pay down debt, will not put Greek parliamentarians or the public in a mood to press ahead enthusiastically with structural reform.

Eurozone leaders demanded that Greek public assets be transferred to a Treuhand like fund a fire sale vehicle similar to the one used after the fall of the Berlin Wall to privatize quickly, at great financial loss, and with devastating effects on employment all of the vanishing East German state s public property.

With higher risk, there is a chance that, 40 years from now, many individuals will find themselves with less than they need to retire. But if one really thinks that free lunches exist, there is still no reason to privatize government could get the additional returns by investing in the stock market itself.

And, by galvanizing local governments to privatize local SOEs (as well as housing and some public services), Zhu s reform hastened China s incorporation into the global economy. China s state owned economy is far less bloated today the central and local governments have fewer compatibility problems the country s fiscal position is strong and relative macroeconomic stability prevails.

These problems are not America s alone, for they are inherent to all efforts to privatize social welfare. As Americans and others look at this Gordian knot of public policy problems, we should learn one thing from the example of Tony Snow the vision of an ownership society espoused by Bush is simply not plausible.

All of this illustrates what is wrong with the World Bank, even aside from Wolfowitz s failed leadership. Unlike the Chinese, the Bank has too often forgotten the most basic lessons of development, preferring to lecture the poor and force them to privatize basic infrastructure, rather than to help the poor to invest in infrastructure and other crucial sectors.

To ease the constraints on household income, China needs more rapid exchange rate appreciation, liberalization of interest rates, and a much sharper increase in wage growth. More importantly, China needs either to privatize its SOEs, so that their profits become income for households, or to tax their profits at a far higher rate and transfer the fiscal gains to households.

When the Georgian authorities announced plans to privatize the Inguri Power Plant and renew construction of the long stalled Khudoni Power Plant, slated to become Georgia s largest, RAO UES immediately began staking out a dominant role for itself in both projects. The combination of massive pressure from the Russian side and silence from the West could leave Georgia s entire power system both gas and electricity in Russian hands.

Beyond the economy, Lee has been faced with charges of appointing officials with questionable ethics and of heavy handed leadership (his nickname is Bulldozer ), which is reflected in efforts to push through a controversial cross country canal system and an unpopular proposal to privatize the healthcare system. Furthermore, Lee s hard line approach to North Korea very different from that of his predecessors has resulted in a popular backlash.