Scholar Current Events class #3

Today's discussions were very interesting.  Everyone had found something interesting to talk about in the news.  Some of the topics were: the Greek debt crisis, where they received a 50% write-off of their debt as another form of bail-out; a woman in Africa who is successfully using a self-help method of charity instead of simply handing out free food, reminiscent of what Pres. Uchtdorf talked about at conference; the Occupy Wall Street protests.  Someone told us about an anti-occupy wall street protest where they say they are the 55% who pay taxes.  (My google searches have not found this yet.  Can someone send me a link?)

We discussed the Manufacturing Consent movie a bit, where Noam Chomsky talks about how a lot of the media bias is inherent in the system.  Ron Paul is a close second in the number of Republican straw polls he has won, but no mention of this is made in the media, because Ron Paul is unpopular with the people who buy advertising. 

Another example is how public trading of stocks creates a business system where profit is the only thing that matters.  Casey asked a good question, "Doesn't the invisible hand take care of that? The bad companies die off."  This is true, but the problem is that the market defines "good" as "profitable", and "bad" as "unprofitable", and there is little consideration of other ways to define good and bad.  The owner of a private company has a lot more leeway in determining what constitutes good and bad for his company, but the CEO of a public company has to answer to anonymous stockholders, for whom profit and stock price are the only considerations.  This lead to a discussion of how the United Order works.  We are accountable to the bishop for our stewardship, but we legally own everything we have stewardship over.  Lack of ownership promotes lazyness and poor management.  Lack of accountability allows corruption to occur.  But stewardship under the United Order incorporates both ownership and accountability.

Assignments for this week are:

1.  Continue reading or watching the news.

2.  Prepare a short written essay on something you found interesting, and be sure to explain why it is interesting.  A paragraph or two is good enough, but more is acceptable if you want.  Turn it in at the beginning of next class (Nov 11).

3.  Read the Thousand Year War, Preface though chapter 8.  (or more if you want to)

4.  Fill out the states map I handed out.  Circle any states you needed help identifying.  Bring it back next class.