January 2009 
Kiss Wall Street Goodbye(44)
Does the public stock market actually serve a purpose? To some free-market zealots, the answer is obvious: The public markets increase liquidity, and this enables fledgling businesses to get off the ground by allowing them access to capital. Moreover, we can all reap the benefits of capitalism’s “creative destruction” and become a nation of investors (as opposed to one of actual producers). For well over a decade, the public bought this line with increasing gullibility.
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Just One More Justice
While the shaping of the judiciary is one issue a voter should weigh in casting a presidential ballot, it pays to remember that the Supreme Court is not the engine behind American government, nor is it a suitable vehicle to bring about long-term change. The elected branches of government are the real seats of power and the mechanisms that reshape society.
Pakistan: America’s Pandora’s Box?
On September 10, 2008,the New York Times reported that, back in July, President Bush had authorized ground incursions and missile attacks to destroy Taliban and Al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. As the Times noted, “It is unclear precisely what legal authorities the United States has invoked to conduct even limited ground raids in a friendly country.”