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A variation of Murphy’s Law, which states, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” is the Law of Unintended Consequences. Both are used often as humorous warnings against the belief that we are in complete control of anything.

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A good many investors are scared, and who can blame them? So far this year, the S&P 500 Index is down 6.5 percent, foreign stocks are off nearly 10 percent and housing prices have yet to reach bottom. There is a little good news: The Dow Jones Equity Real Estate Investment Trust Index is up 0.6 percent year-to-date, and the S&P 500 Index generated an average annual return of 0.4 percent over the past decade. Wait, is that good news or bad news? As we’ve all said many times, it could be worse.

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As I write this article, S&P has just downgraded the credit rating of the U.S. by one notch, the Dow Jones Industrial Index just suffered a terrible week, falling more than 600 points, and Congress agreed to a budget deal pushing meaningful deficit reduction decisions into the future. Clearly, something is wrong, and something has been wrong since near the end of 2007. We are rapidly approaching the start of the fifth year of economic malaise.

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Most of us like to joke at least occasionally about where our federal income taxes go. The joke is either that no one knows, or that they are wasted. I’ve had fun with that sort of dark humor too many times to count, most recently with a friend who is well-educated. I was surprised by her reply to my attempt at humor. “Why don’t we just take part of the money from the largest category of federal outlays – the money we are spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – and use it to solve the deficit problem?”

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Part of Gov. Snyder’s plan to improve K–12 public education outcomes is to revise the state’s outdated tenure laws. Most people agree that changes are needed to better prepare high school graduates to compete in a global economy.

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The one-year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is approaching quickly. Also known as the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, it was signed into law by President Obama on July 21, 2010. Can you name a single provision contained in the act? If not, you aren’t alone. Yet, the act will have a greater impact on the U.S. financial sector than any federal law since the early 1930s. It affects virtually every business and consumer in the country.

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I recently ran into an ex-student who had been in a course I taught a few years ago. He mentioned I advised the class there was no need to be overly concerned about the national debt.