In a letter to the editor, a reader wrote, “Government spending is always more wasteful than private spending because of government’s lack of competition” (Star-Advertiser, Jan. 11). That is certainly what large corporations would like us to think, as they buy up utilities all over the world on the cheap and then raise prices.

Governments can easily be made to look bad because they operate under closer public scrutiny than corporations. Corporations can easily bury their mistakes in deceptive accounting, externalize the costs of their activities, and leave the public to foot the bills for the damage they cause. The story of Exxon’s 40-year climate deception on your editorial page is an obvious example (“From science to spin,” Star-Advertiser, Insight, Jan. 11).

I am all in favor of capitalism, but that is not what we have in the U.S. and most other Western countries at present. What we have is a welfare state for large corporations.

Neil Frazer

Kailua

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