CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM: According to the instructor what were the primary causes of the housing boom and bust and subsequent economic collapse? Why is it a bad explanation to blame "greed on Wall Street,"unbridled capitalism" or "speculators"? Why reasons did the instructor give that the repeal of Glass-Steagall (which separated out lending and investment banking) was only a catalyst and not a cause of the global recession?

Why does Milton Friedman say that no one on earth can make a pencil? What is this statement intended to illustrate? What is the Penn & Teller video meant to say about wealth "redistribution."

Define collectivism (socialism/communism) and capitalism.  According to Steve Forbes, what events in the 20th Century gave rise to the idea that collectivism works? Why is this a misinterpretation of history? How did the election of Ronald Reagan affect attitudes in the U.S.? How does Forbes defend capitalism against the charge that it is immoral? How does he argue that philanthropy and capitalism are flip sides of the same coin? According to Forbes, why is it necessary to let capitalism's inherent disruptiveness run its course? Why does he argue that capitalism is the friend of the environment? What are Forbes' three collectivist myths and five principles of prosperity?

What is the point of Bill Burrows' "Taxing Parable"?

What is money? What is the market? How is the price of an item determined in a market system? What did Adam Smith mean by the "invisible hand of the markeplace?" Rather than fine tune the machinery of the economy and make it run more efficiently, how do governments more typically create market distortions and depress production? How does the instructor argue that corporations have no power over you unless it is actually given to them by the government? Who in society does he suggest is most guilty of "greed?" Why? Why does he warn to beware of college professors? What did Founding Fathers such as Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison believe about property rights? Do the wealthy inherit most of their wealth or earn it in some way? Why is inequality the natural consequence of freedom? Who pays most of the income taxes in America? Who doesn't pay?

What were Karl Marx's criticisms of capitalism? What is the communist slogan which describes how economic goods should be distributed? What is class struggle? Who are the proletariat and bourgeosie? Why didn't the worldwide violent revolution of the working class take place as Marx suggested, but only isolated worker's revolutions in countries like Russia, China, Cuba, Spain and South America? What does the instructor mean when he suggests that communism is not "scalable?" Which, if any of the major goals of the communist manifesto have been implemented in America today? What did the instructor mean when he said socialism and capitalism exist on a continuum? What does the Russian writer in Pravda ("American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper") have to say about current U.S. Economic Policy under Obama?

What is laissez-faire capitalism? What is "crony" capitalism? Why is crony capitalism phoney capitalism? Why is it more accurately called "crony socialism" or "crony fascism"? How is it different from what Walter Donway describes as "making money"? What are the three ways government can fund its spending? What effect does each have on the economy? What is the Federal Reserve? Why are economic issues moral issues?

Define the following terms: What's going on in Greece, Portugal and Spain and other European countries, and how might this activity is a harbringer of things to come in this country? What brought on Greece's problems and how is the U.S. emulating them? What was the point of the whimsical Clarke & Dawe video about the sovereign debt crisis? To whom is this money owed? What ethical issues does deficit spending on the scale currently being practiced raise?

WORLD POVERTY : How is the absolute poverty in developing nations different from the relative poverty of modern, industrialized countries like the United States? What is the Singer solution to world poverty? What are his examples of Bob and his Bugatti and Dora and her television set supposed to show? How does socialism drive global poverty? What solution does Charles Krauthammer propose? What evidence is there that this solution is working?