A strikingly unhealthy climate

Is privatization the answer for Britain's troubled Royal Mail? We look at comment on this topic as well as on solutions to climate change and Barack Obama's healthcare plan.

Postal problems

Postal workers at Britain’s Royal Mail are on strike. According to The Economist, the main cause is the impact of new communications technologies on the postal service. Privatization is the best way to protect the post office, the magazine’s editorial writers say.

... Private postal operators are, by and large, better positioned to cope with falling demand than state-owned operators are. ... Opponents of selling off postal services say that private-sector owners will bleed them for profit rather than investing in their future. That’s not what’s happened at Deutsche Post, TNT Post [Netherlands] and Belgian Post. They have invested for the long term — the first in acquisitions at home and abroad, the second in far-flung foreign expansion and the third in automation. ...

The way to Copenhagen

Next month, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference. Heading into the conference, the Financial Times calls for a pragmatic approach to the problem of climate change.

... [S]cepticism of the reality of climate change is either unfounded or, when warranted, does not mean nothing needs be to be done. We cannot be certain (until it is too late) that continuing to emit carbon at our current pace will lead to disaster; but we do know that if we do, the chance of a catastrophic outcome is high enough to make insuring against worst-case scenarios the rational response. Surely the financial crisis has taught us that a low-probability tail risk is still a risk. ... In order to prevent catastrophe, it does not matter how or by whom the reduction is achieved: it is the world as a whole whose emissions must peak in the next decade and more than halve by mid-century ...

The worst bill ever

More than one US president has been unable to provide the country with a national healthcare programme. The Wall Street Journal believes Barack Obama will also fail. Not only that: its editorial writers think the health bill is the worst piece of legislation ever presented to the US Congress.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she’s prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that’s what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped [on 29 October], which President Obama hailed as a “critical milestone”, may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced. ... Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of “change”, but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making healthcare even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. ...