I'd strongly suggest that folks take a few minutes to read a couple of articles in the current issue of Newsweek magazine. I subscribe to it and was immediately drawn to pick it up from the mail pile to read the cover story: The Capitalist Manifesto: Greed Is Good.

The article was written by Fareed Zakaria, the talented writer and host of the excellent Sunday afternoon show on CNN called GPS. In this Newsweek article, Zakaria reviews the history of capitalism, how it has been the most successful economic force in the world for hundreds of years, how the current financial crisis is not significantly different from many others experienced in the world in history, and how and why he thinks that capitalism must survive and thrive again. Zakaria "tells it like it is", but puts things into a perspective that few writers have done that I've read. The article won't make you feel good about what has happened to our economy, but it may make you feel a bit better about what we all might hope for in the future. But there's a big IF, and Zakaria tells us what the "if" is at the end of the cover article. An excellent read.

In the same issue, there's an interesting article on how a small group of members of Congress have been influential in moving the Obama administration in a direction regarding the economy that even the "best and brightest" weren't headed at the outset. The article is entitled, The Insurgents: The Secret Battle To Save Capitalism It describes how a stange combination of Congressional bedfellows has banded together in an attempt to influence administration economic policy. An interesting look at the behind-the-scenes efforts by members of Congress that we often don't give them credit for.

I wish I could provide direct URL links to these articles, but Newsweek won't permit that. So, if you navigate to http://magazine-directory.com/Newsweek.htm , follow the steps below. I might add that you'd better navigate there quickly, as I think the URL will always lead you to the current issue of the magazine, which will have different articles, of course. At that point, both these articles may be available in the Newsweek online archives, but I can't assure that. Anyway, just do the following...

• Navigate to http://magazine-directory.com/Newsweek.htm
• Just a little way down the left-hand side of the page, you'll see the image of the cover with The Conservative Manifesto "clickable" title below. Click on it to take you to the cover article.
• Once you navigate to the cover article, you will see the title of the second article I recommended, The Insurgents: The Secret Battle To Save Capitalism. Click on it to read that article.

Good articles. One key point that he fails to bring out is the impact wall street had on this problem. Used to be business could plan longer term. In recent years it was all about quarter to quarter profits and this was driven solely by wall street and the impact failure had on stock price. It is difficult to manage a business that will delivery quality products and services when every three months you have to show profit improvements or you company value falls dramatically. That process helped our auto makers fail and Japan auto makers to succeed. Banks also felt this wrath when quarterly profits fell. Many good CEO's have been fired because of the short term (3 month) decisions that had to be made to satisfy the wall street profit hungry crowd.

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I'd strongly suggest that folks take a few minutes to read a couple of articles in the current issue of Newsweek magazine. I subscribe to it and was immediately drawn to pick it up from the mail pile to read the cover story: The Capitalist Manifesto: Greed Is Good.

The article was written by Fareed Zakaria, the talented writer and host of the excellent Sunday afternoon show on CNN called GPS. In this Newsweek article, Zakaria reviews the history of capitalism, how it has been the most successful economic force in the world for hundreds of years, how the current financial crisis is not significantly different from many others experienced in the world in history, and how and why he thinks that capitalism must survive and thrive again. Zakaria "tells it like it is", but puts things into a perspective that few writers have done that I've read. The article won't make you feel good about what has happened to our economy, but it may make you feel a bit better about what we all might hope for in the future. But there's a big IF, and Zakaria tells us what the "if" is at the end of the cover article. An excellent read.

Great article, thanks for sharing. His comments on morality were right on, however I think it is unrealistic to expect that companies and politicians will act with their consciences. I think when there's money or power involved, morality seems to go out the window in many instances, as we have seen with Enron, Tyco and others. I'm not sure what the answer is - at the very least it seems like we need an oversight body to establish professional standards for audits and ethics and to regularly review firms to ensure that they are meeting these standards.