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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Thanks for your response Meg. But I'm not so sure, having
perused Amazon's editorial on the book just now, that he is going in the
same direction (at least as I am) here. Rather it seems he is prescribing
what "other folks" should do like "us" so all would be well with "our" current
system. I don't think so... It must be a goodie to some people
though. I logged on to our local library site to reserve it and found I am
number twelve on a waiting list of twelve (even Boomeritis only has a list of
ten!). Given the editorial I'm not too hopeful (see excerpts below)
... </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><EM><SPAN class=serif>It's become clear by now the fall of
the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in most places around the globe
hasn't ushered in an unequivocal flowering of capitalism in the developing and
postcommunist world. Western thinkers have blamed this on everything from these
countries' lack of sellable assets to their inherently non-entrepreneurial
"mindset."</SPAN></EM></FONT><EM><FONT face=Arial>. In this book, the
renowned Peruvian economist and adviser to presidents and prime ministers
Hernando de Soto proposes and argues another reason</FONT><FONT face=Arial>...
</FONT></EM></DIV>
<DIV><EM><FONT face=Arial></FONT></EM> </DIV>
<DIV><EM><FONT face=Arial>...No, the real problem is that such countries have
yet to establish and normalize the invisible network of laws that turns assets
from "dead" into "liquid" capital. In the West, standardized laws allow us to
mortgage a house to raise money for a new venture, permit the worth of a company
to be broken up into so many publicly tradable stocks, and make it possible to
govern and appraise property with agreed-upon rules that hold across
neighborhoods, towns, or regions. This invisible infrastructure of "asset
management"--so taken for granted in the West, even though it has only fully
existed in the United States for the past 100 years--is the missing ingredient
to success with capitalism, insists de Soto...</FONT></EM></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Let's see what other responses we get re some "Q4"
discussion...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Winston</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>