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Keep Mining Your Own Business

In today’s Wall Street Journal, John Fund defends poor people from the self-righteous environmentalists who would deny these people the fruits of economic growth.  Specifically, John has good things to say about the movie "Mine Your Own Business" — discussed earlier at the Cafe — about a small Romanian village whose residents want a new mine built but whose non-resident environmentalist ‘champions’ object to the mine.

Here’s the penultimate paragraph of John’s essay:

"Mine Your Own Business" also contains interviews with leading
environmentalists opposing other mining projects who display smug
indifference to bettering the lives of poor people. In Madagascar, Mr.
McAleer [the movie’s host and narrator] finds Mark Fenn, country director for the World Wide Fund for
Nature, who argues that the poor are just as happy as the rich because
they smile more and that if Madagascar locals (who now earn $100 a
month) get more money "they’ll buy cases of beer, invite their friends,
they’ll throw a party . . . three, four days the money’s gone." He then
shows off his new $35,000 catamaran.

I close with the words of a song written and recorded by the late and truly great Hank Williams, Sr.: "Mindin’ other people’s business seems to be high-tone/I got all that I can do just to mine my own/So why don’t you mind your own business……"

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