Balance Sheet

Jeff Taylor from the October 2006 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

The latest round of trade talks collapses without an agreement. Blame America’s addiction to farm subsidies and Europe’s addiction to high agricultural tariffs.

Gag Order

SUNY Fredonia tells professor Stephen Kershnar to stop challenging the school’s affirmative action policies—or else. Fredonia administrators denied Kershnar a promotion, explicitly citing his “deliberate and repeated misrepresentations of campus policies and procedures,” which “impugned the reputation of SUNY Fredonia.”

Childhood’s End

A poll by kidshealth.org finds that 40 percent of 9-to-13-year-olds say they are stressed from having too much to do, and 78 percent wish they had more free time. Some 39 percent said they were in three or more organized activities, and 47 percent had one or two activities.

Boxed Out

Chicago aldermen pass a bill forcing big-box stores to pay a higher minimum wage by 2010. Wal-Mart’s response: It plans to build more stores outside the city limits.

Net Minders

The Business Roundtable, the big-business brain trust, calls in the federal government to come up with a “national policy” to help companies guard against “cyberattack.”

Market Fakers

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors imposes tougher requirements on developers to build and sell real estate at below-market prices. Previous regulations had helped drive up the price of housing. Obviously, even more regulation is just what they need to fix that.