Texas to Execute 10 Men in a Month

We spoke about this in class the other day. This is one of those hard issues that you need to think about and have an opinion on as an adult. Remember you vote for candidates that share your views on the issues. This is one of those issues. Where do you stand on the question of capital punishment?

A Call to Action

Check out this op ed from Robert Samuelson at the Washington Post. As young voters it is now your responsibility to take charge of your own future. What do you think about the author's ideas?

A Hippocratic Oath for Business People?

Over the past year the credit crisis has erased trillions of dollars in investor wealth. Peoples retirement funds, savings for college, and home equity have disappeared almost overnight. The economic downturn has now spread worldwide, with one country, Iceland, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Business executives assuredly played a part in this catastrophe.
Perhaps it is time to come up with a business version of the Hippocratic Oath, taken by doctors and medical workers. This interesting idea is the thesis of this article taken from the Economist magazine. Sound like a good idea or not. Can you think of any unintended consequences that might arise?

What happened to all my money?

editor's note - There will be two articles to comment on this week to make up for last week.

Read this interesting article about what constitutes money and what doesn't. Will the events of the past few weeks cause a fundamental change in our assumptions about the market, and how we invest our money? The Great Depression caused our grandparents to lose their faith in banks. What lessons do you think we will come away with from this current crisis?

Law of Unintended Consequences

When the government gets involved in situations, we often see that unintended and unanticipated consequences arise. A perfect example recently occurred when the Nebraska state legislature passed a "safe haven" law designed to protect mothers who drop off newborns that they are unable to care for at Nebraska hospitals. Read the article and leave your comments. Can you think of any other examples of the law of unintended consequences when the government tries to fix something but messes it up even more?