Roger's latest column in The Dartmouth

My son Roger has his latest column in his college newspaper. The piece starts this way:

It has been nearly three months since Occupy Dartmouth set up camp in front of the Collis Center. Despite bitter cold and some harassment, members of Occupy remain determined to stimulate discussion about political and economic inequities. While student protesters can be commended for making the world’s troubles their own, they are mistaken in pointing blame at corporate greed and free market capitalism.
Corporate greed is not in itself the problem. Greed will always be with us so long as people are pursuing their own separate interests. The beauty of the free market is that it tends to harness greed for the benefit of society. In order to earn money, corporations must provide goods or services that others value. Although there are legitimate concerns about misleading advertising and environmentally destructive practices, self-interested corporations do make amazing contributions to society.
The main problem is that government intervention often keeps the market economy from working. Contrary to popular belief, the recent subprime mortgage crisis was not so much a product of corporate greed as dangerous government policies. More than 70 percent of weak or subprime mortgages were held or guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other government-controlled institutions. The government’s intervention helped poor people achieve the American dream of owning a home, but it also contributed to reckless lending to unreliable borrowers. . . .

Read the rest available here.