Assume the worst about people and you get the worst.

Rich countries have 'kicked away the ladder' by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries. Already established countries do not want more competitors emerging through the nationalistic policies they themselves successfully used in the past.

The history of capitalism has been so totally re-written that many people in the rich world do not perceive the historical double standards involved in recommending free trade and free market to developing countries.

Democracy is acceptable to neo-liberals only in so far as it does not contradict the free market.

Countries are poor not because their people are lazy; their people are 'lazy' because they are poor.

Democracy and markets are both fundamental building blocks for a decent society. But they clash at a fundamental level. We need to balance them.

If we are really serious about preventing another crisis like the 2008 meltdown we should simply ban complex financial instruments, unless they can be unambiguously shown to benefit society in the long run. This is what we do all the time with other products-drugs, cars, electrical products and many others.