Brian Gongol
Studying finance doesn't necessarily make a person a better investor
It turns out that even among academics in the field of finance who are certain that markets are efficient, many still think they can beat the market. That's like saying you're positive that man can't fly, but you're going to build a flying machine anyway.
A merger that could push iron prices even higher
Technology is far more disruptive to labor than trade
And no reasonable person is going to be convinced that we should give up on technological progress -- it creates far too many good things. So instead of trying to throw up nonsense barriers to trade (which is what a lot of politicians are promising to do under the guise of "fair trade"), government ought to acknowledge its relative powerlessness to stop the change and instead devote our precious taxpayer resources to improving workers' skills by expanding the quality and availability of higher education. Unfortunately, that would require many of them to give up convenient scapegoats like "foreigners".
Houston may not be hit directly by Ike, but being upwind could be worse
Models of the storm surge make it look like a direct hit would be far less damaging (at least in terms of flooding) than a near-miss just to the south, since the counter-clockwise rotation of a hurricane would pull more water and storm surge up and into Galveston Bay than a direct hit. The forecast storm track puts Houston on the map of possible sites for landfall. While we're considering the effects of a hurricane in the United States, we ought also to be aware of the flooding that has pushed 2.6 million families out of their homes in India.
