more rewarding to buy companies than to build them. As regulators have unshackled their charges and allowed them to roam free, the game is changing and so are the players. Look at what is happening in financial services. Banks must pay market rates for deposits that once came free or at the relatively low passbook savings rate. Extensive branch systems, once a prime asset, now can be a liability. Citicorp isn't as worried about Chase or the B. of A. as it is about new competitors playing by somewhat different rules such as Sears, Prudential-Bache, and American Express. Not all managements in the regulated industries were prepared to cope with the harsher climate of deregulation. They learned the hard way that in setting prices it is helpful to know what the good or the service costs! While the changes and the challenges are immense, I have every expectation that the private sector will - on balance - give a good account of itself in the days ahead. Corporations have developed reasonably sophisticated systems that bring the best people to the top. Between companies and even industries in the competitive atmosphere of this changing world, there will only be two types of top managers - the quick and the dead. My concern is more on the public sector where the rules, for better or for worse, are made. No matter where you look around the world, governments don't work very well. Perhaps this is not so surprising in Black Africa or certain countries south of our borders where literacy is low, tribal customs divisive, and there is no common language or religious or ethnic backgrounds to bind the 8