Proposition Three: Sufficient social investment is dependent on prevailing political and economic ideology Neo-liberal economic and political ideology call for reduced taxes, a dismantling of welfare state structures, increased individual responsibility for social consumption, deregulation of the private sector, and reduced governmental spending. Those who see global public health structures as incapable of meeting the public health challenges spawned by globalization, find the major culprit in neo-liberal policies weakening the public sector (7) . Adoption of necessary regulatory regimes may be viewed as a kind of social investment. The unwillingness of the U.S. and China to participate in Kyoto for the reason that to do so would threaten continued levels of economic development is a testament to the power of neo-liberalism. The endorsement of the protocols by Russia this week (in addition to the relative advantage this gives Russia within the accord group) is a measure of its relative irrelevance to the current politics and economics of Russia.