Newspapers and Bias

I am always amazed at the reach of our Helzberg School to the local business community. This week, the School (thanks to Turner White and John Meyer) put together quite a panel of local journalists to discuss the role of the media in the election -- part of the HSOM's Center for Leadership and Ethics speaker series. The subject of bias was discussed.

Mark Zieman, a recent alum of our Executive Fellows, spoke earlier today to our current Fellows class on the state of the newspaper industry. Zieman is a good person to talk about it -- he was 10 years editor at the KC Star and is now for the last year or so Publisher for the Star. Mr. Zieman talked to the class about the challenges of the industry, pointing out the profound impact of things like the internet and the economy on the newspaper business.

The issue of bias also came up in the discussion today. In fact, the topic brought on a debate between Randy Schwering and I on that topic and others, which made me think on the current politcal issue of elitism . . .

Flu Shots

Political partisans often throw barbs of anti-Americanism at their opponents. Often this is directed on topics of war and about how America is represented in the world. Many rightly argue that simply criticizing our country is not anti-american nor unpatriotic.

But Americans seem to be non-partisan in their dislike of laws that mandate their individual choices, especially regarding their health. New Jersey passed a law--from the state's public health commission--mandating all pre-school children must get a flu shot to attend any of these schools. The response has been predictable. Reports the AP, "Opposition to the policy is vehement."

Said one of the organizers of the rally against the vaccine law, "This is not an anti-vaccine rally — it's a freedom of choice rally." Americans tend to value individual choice more than the more abstact public benefit . Efforts to take choice away from families on vaccines may be the real anti-Americanism.

Insanity of Markets

After the crazy week we just had, I wonder the same thing as this person in his op-ed in the NY Times. Despite the genius of the market it does lose its equilberium sometimes. Like it did this week. So where does the fault lie -- with the markets or the government? And there are many opinions on both sides -- here is one defending the market -- which makes it hard to know the answer.

I have some ideas. The problem with markets is very simple: people are involved. Markets are by intent impersonal, set up to allow actors to pusue their own self-interest. People are smart and ingenious and will try to outsmart the market [way oversimplified here because the market is more than just . Amazingly, the market is quite resilient but sometimes gets too far out of whack. Those in charge of regulating these markets (people, again) try to get it out of whack. These regulators "acting for the people" are trying to balance competing goods. These goods are inevitably political and ideological.

Often these prescriptions are counterproductive to the market or the market is counter to them. For example, a strong belief in equity (sometimes called justice) leads to government action that mitigates inquitable market effects. An impersonal market will always be inequitable from the perspective of certain actors at certain times.

I suspect people are distrusting the market right now -- trillions of dollars of stock value have vaporized, much of it retirement money. The question is will we move towards more government control and intervention? Fortunately, I have a lot of colleagues here in the Helzberg School who can help me understand finacial system that is so out of whack (and affecting everything else) right now.