Public Policy

By Rob Gifford

We walk to the Amway office, past huge posters of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, advertising their new movie “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” The office is a third-floor walk-up. Six other Amway reps are already there. Teacher Hu is there as well, the man who appears to have been responsible for bringing Amway to Zhangye. They all shake my hand and welcome me, and offer me a seat for what turns out to be a meeting to encourage new salesmen to join. Each salesperson has brought along at least one friend, and we sit in the large office on chairs which have been laid out to face a speaker’s table at the front.

By Rex Holsapple

The most recent headlines from the world of public pensions are about “pay to play” and “placement agents.” Before that was Bernie Madoff, market timing, Enron and Orange County. The list goes way back. Public pensions are run by boards of trustees. (Sometimes there is only one member of the board.) What has not really been talked about is the role trustees played in these scandals.

By Dennis Keeney

The term “sustainable” is, in my opinion, the most overused, most misunderstood and most abused word in current environmental and developmental writings.

By David M. Walker

Once upon a time, it was believed that AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and even Arthur Andersen were too big to fail. However, all these firms have either gone out of business, filed for bankruptcy, been acquired by a rival or been “bailed out” by the federal government.

By Thomas H. Rosenquist, Ph.D.

I have the following brief comments about the July 7, 2009 National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines for the use of human embryonic stem cells, from the perspective of a scientist who has carried out research for 25 years in early embryonic development and the fate of stem cells and a research administrator charged with facilitating growth of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) research enterprise. I have not made any specific comments about the need for continuing utilization of human embryonic stem cells.

By Kevin Fulton

Rural areas across the country have seen steady population declines over the last 70–80 years. Census reports of most rural Nebraska counties substantiate this, and in many cases this decline has been drastic.

By William Powers

Farmers are being squeezed financially to the point of leaving their farms. Our land is incurring unacceptable degradation. Decisions regarding our food supply are ending up in the hands of too few people. Rural communities are declining in direct proportion to the loss of farmers. If family farming, our environment and rural communities are to endure, we, the citizens of Nebraska, need to be weighing in on agriculture and food systems that we want for the future.

By Curt Freese, Dawn Montanye and Kora Dabrowska

Rural communities and landowners of the Great Plains are at a crossroads. The intersection involves towns that are struggling to survive, a generational transition in land ownership, an important but uncertain future for agriculture, and prairie ecosystems and wildlife of importance to both local communities and the American public. This report examines the potential role of a nature-based economy in supporting and diversifying the economic base of the Northern Great Plains (NGP) of the United States (encompasses Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska).

By Don Hanway

It could be argued that the arts must share in the current economic misery. I would argue, though, that the arts are a necessity, not a luxury, in times of economic distress, when more than ever we are asking questions about why things are the way they are and what values make life worth living.

By Shane G. Smith, Ph.D., and Steven Teitelbaum, M.D.
Nebraska has certainly captured the attention of patients and medical researchers around the nation. With the Obama administration loosening federal strictures on science of all kinds, Nebraskans―like citizens in many other states―must now decide whether your contribution to our national pursuit of new treatments and cures will include advances made possible by embryonic stem cell research. Welcome to the forefront of the debate, and good luck.

By Todd Sneller

Unquestionably, the most important value-added product to the State’s economy is, and will continue to be, ethanol production.”

This conclusion is included in the executive summary of an economic analysis commissioned by the Nebraska Department of Agriculture in 2004.

By Douglas K. Bereuter

This year I will have the privilege of presenting the first lecture in the 2009–2010 E. N. Thompson Forum on World Issues on Sept. 14, 2009. That lecture series will focus on China, and my remarks will center in large part on Chinese soft power relationships with Asia and the United States. Soft power, a term famously coined by Dr. Joseph Nye of Harvard University, occurs “when one country gets other countries to want what it wants,” via “intangible power resources such as culture, ideology, and institutions.”

By Tom Huffaker

Climate change legislation being debated in Congress is a key part of President Barack Obama’s vision of a clean energy future. As he seeks to address climate change, the President also is clearly determined to reduce U.S. dependence on oil from countries not friendly toward the United States.

By Jane Fleming Kleeb

All we wanted were safety shoes.” This was the answer cafeteria workers gave when asked why they formed a union at their school. The workers had often asked their managers to provide them with safety shoes, and every time they asked they were told no.

By Dr. Patrick McGinnis

As we approach the second season of the current Kansas-Nebraska Chautauqua tour, the relevance of the theme “Bright Dreams, Hard Times: America in the Thirties” becomes starkly apparent. At summer’s end 2008, the U.S. economy began a sharp decline.

President Barack Obama and others are reading (many for the first time) about the nature and scope of the Great De­pression, seeking to discern possible parallels with today’s conditions, and also to take a fresh look at how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal tackled that long-ago crisis. What would FDR do if he were president today?

By Charles Erickson, M.D.

What can be done to improve the lives of the Zambians?

If there were an easy answer, it would have been accomplished years ago. Too often solutions have been thrust upon the Zambians without their input. Besides, not all aspects of Western culture are desirable.

By Senator Ben Nelson

Nebraska is beginning to feel the effects of the recession with job layoffs and business closings. The economic recovery bill passed into law, while not perfect, will help prevent a further deepening of the recession in Nebraska while tossing a lifeline to millions of Americans who are already hurt by the sinking economy.

By Sarah Chayes

Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Nurallah strode into our workshop, shaking with rage. His mood shattered ours. “This is no government,” he stormed. “The police are like animals.”

By Chad A. Novacek

As a freshly minted Peace Corps volunteer in China, I had a very superficial understanding of the country I was serving. To fill the large gaps in knowledge of that nation’s complex history, culture and perspectives, I interacted with locals and sought out a variety of reading material. Though I examined various periods of China’s 5,000-year history, no other issue proved more fascinating than the contemporary and controversial cross-strait relationship between “China” and “Taiwan.”

By Andrew C. (Skip) Hove Jr.

As December comes to a close, there is no longer any doubt or argument that the destruction of household wealth, the inevitable consequence of an unwinding of the housing bubble, and an orgy of debt of unprecedented and unparalleled proportions has triggered an intense and dangerous recession in consumer spending. This is the first consumer spending recession since the early 1990s and based on evidence that is piling up rapidly, this recession is destined to rival, if not exceed, in severity the worst consumer recessions in the last 60 years.