Brian Gongol
A flurry of news this week: First, when Bill Gates plays teacher, why does he use a chalkboard instead of PowerPoint? Perhaps because the chalkboard works every time. If you fail to make Gates-style money in Vegas, it might be a good idea not to punch out an airliner window to relieve your frustration. That could be worth 20 years in the Federal pen.
Money, though, (or at least the wealth it represents) is the solution to some of life's problems -- like saving lives in natural disasters. The recent earthquake in India and Pakistan killed far too many people, but it's really the poverty there that is to blame. Not once in the last half-decade has an earthquake in any relatively prosperous country killed more than 100 people. Disasters don't kill, poverty does.
Fortunately, some brilliant minds are at work trying to help lift the world's poor out of poverty: People like this year's World Food Prize winner, who worked outside the scope of government to help lift people out of poverty. We need other brilliant minds to work on problems like the return of whooping cough.
And, once again, the law of unintended consequences: How a ban on big trucks could be a hidden tax for consumers and a nasty blow to the environment.