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&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;Is Hollywood bad luck for the &lt;?xml:namespace prefix=&quot;st1&quot; ns=&quot;urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags&quot;?&gt;&lt;st1:country-region w:st=&quot;on&quot;&gt;&lt;st1:place w:st=&quot;on&quot;&gt;U.S.&lt;/st1:place&gt;&lt;/st1:country-region&gt; economy?&lt;?xml:namespace prefix=&quot;o&quot; ns=&quot;urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office&quot;?&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;This week, an article in Slate posed that question and aimed to answer it, citing Oliver Stone&amp;#8217;s &lt;i&gt;Wall Street,&lt;/i&gt; Darren Starr&amp;#8217;s &lt;em&gt;The $treet&lt;/em&gt; and other finance-themed content whose release dates&amp;nbsp;coincided with or precipitated economic downturns.&amp;nbsp; Slate also pointed to several television offerings now airing and forthcoming that focus on financiers&amp;#8212;including the ABC dramas &lt;i&gt;Dirty Sexy Money&lt;/i&gt;, &lt;i&gt;Big Shots&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;Cashmere Mafia&lt;/i&gt;, as well as an HBO show in the works about a hedge fund&amp;#8212;and asked, Could this mean another recession is right around the corner?&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;Also this week, news surfaced that investment bank Bear Stearns, which has been hit hard by the recent housing market decline and has closed two hedge funds, might be ready to sell a significant number of its shares.&amp;nbsp; The New York Times reported that Bear has held talks to sell an estimated 20 percent of its stock to legendary investor (and billionaire) Warren&amp;nbsp;Buffett.&amp;nbsp; The second&amp;nbsp;wealthiest person on the planet, Buffett is well known for finding&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;investing in&amp;nbsp;undervalued companies.&amp;nbsp; According to the &lt;em&gt;Times&lt;/em&gt;, Bank of America, Wachovia and two Chinese banks are also interested in buying Bear stock, which&amp;nbsp;neared its&amp;nbsp;all-time low just over a month ago&amp;#8212;which is when Buffett first reached out to Bear.&amp;nbsp; After talks were leaked yesterday, Bear&amp;#8217;s stock price rose 7.7 percent.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;While the value of Bear&amp;#8217;s shares rose, an article in yesterday&#39;s Wall Street Journal reported on the fall in value of the MBA. The &lt;i&gt;Journal &lt;/i&gt;outlined the premise of Harvard Business School professor Rakesh Khurana&amp;#8217;s upcoming book entitled &lt;em&gt;From Higher Aims to Hired Hands&lt;/em&gt;, which &amp;#8220;argues that famous B-schools, including Harvard, have lost track of their original mission to produce far-sighted leaders who can help the economy run better &amp;#8230; As Prof. Khurana sees it, MBA training has deteriorated into a race to steer students into high-paying finance and consulting jobs without caring about the graduates&#39; broader roles in society.&amp;#8221;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;Has the degree indeed become, as the &lt;em&gt;Journal&lt;/em&gt; puts it, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;&quot;&gt;a &amp;#8220;badge that lets graduates latch onto situations where they can jostle the actual managers of companies and make a lot of money for themselves in the process?&amp;#8221;&amp;nbsp; Or are business schools pushing more than &amp;#8220;greed is good&amp;#8221; Gordon Gekko-nomics and actually preparing young minds to go out into the world economies and spread good tidings?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial&quot;&gt;As always, if you have any thoughts on the subject, or others, I welcome your comments.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Derek Loosvelt

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