Volume 67, Issue 7

An Interview with a Leading Figure in the Accounting Department, Dr. Joel Hochman
by Jessica Strick

Assistant Professor of Accounting Dr. Joel Hochman is one of the accounting department’s most seasoned professors.  Few, if any, accounting majors have graduated Yeshiva without enrolling in multiple courses with him.  And for good reason: Dr. Hochman brings a unique set of credentials to the table.  Aside from receiving a Yeshiva education that predates his current teaching home – the Sy Syms School for Business –Dr. Hochman is one of the few people to hold a CPA, and a  J.D. as well as semicha, which he obtained around his teaching load, from Yeshiva’s affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanon Theological Seminary.  He also speaks fluent Arabic. 

Is International Finance Intended for Me?
by Commentator Staff

In the upcoming spring semester, the Finance Department will offer a course entitled “International Finance.”  Last time around, fewer than ten students decided to enroll in the class.  Are students uninterested in the international economy? Does we really feel impervious to the global markets?  If we do, we probably have some rethinking to do. 

Yeshiva Represented at Business Today International Conference
by Ari Yasgur

Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Princeton and the London School of Economics. These renowned and illustrious institutions, as well as many others are only some of the remarkable answers I received when I asked fellow attendees of their current academic status.  One might wonder where I encountered such a plethora of bright, young college students. The answer is at The 28th Annual Business Today International Conference.

A Monopoly on Integrity
by Professor Mehl

As a student in our Yeshiva in the early 1970’s, my Rebbe, Harav Dovid Lifshitz Z”TL, related the following story about his Mechutan (in-law), Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetzky, a story which was later printed in a biography on Reb Yaakov.

Bush Chooses New Economic Team
by Michael Rosner

Last week, President Bush appointed a new economic team to lead the country out of recession, choosing three distinguished Wall Street veterans as SEC chairman, chief economic advisor and Secretary of the Treasury. Those who had formerly held these positions had been forced to resign in order to stem the perception that the President was not doing enough to reinvigorate the sagging economy.

The Book That Could be Worth a Million Dollars to You
by Noah Davis

“Think and Grow Rich”
By Napoleon Hill 
Ballentine Publishing Group, 1976, reissued 2002
Paperback; $7.50; 233 Pages

As young children, we all remember the after school cartoon Ducktails and the eccentric lead character, Scrooge McDuck.  Oh how exciting it was, watching McDuck swim in his stadium sized vault overflowing with money.  We all watched and imagined, replete with envy, what it would be like to swim in our own pool of cash.  Early on, like much of the media, Ducktails was shaping our malleable young minds; the seeds of capitalism were being planted.  More than a decade later, we are still daydreaming, yearning for that unattainable swimming pool of riches.

The United Airlines Bankruptcy: Who’s the Real Culprit?
by Jacob Sassoon

Whoever thought that the airline industry could be influenced by politics as it is right now? This writer didn’t. In what seems to be a political move by the White House, President Bush has rejected a plea by United Airlines for taxpayer aid to keep the company out of bankruptcy court. The impending layoffs and Chapter 11 filings give the impression that the government is going to take a laissez faire attitude, and let the airline industry as a whole decide on its own winners and losers.

The Telecom Upheaval: Adventures in the Twilight Zone
by Dr. Peter M. Sperling

Just about every conscious person knows that, after a long period of economic expansion in the 1990s, the U.S. economy experienced a relatively mild recession and has been inching its way into recovery (we hope!) over the past year or so.  Some sectors of the economy remain battered, however, and are likely to remain so for some time.

Can’t Get a Job, Start a Business!
by Professor Lawrence Bellman

The state of the economy is the linchpin that often drives undergraduate business school offerings.  The cyclical nature of our economic environment often creates new business start-up opportunities that affect the thinking of the entire business community.  In the 1996-98 timeframe, investors risked early stage financing, and entrepreneurs tossed their hat in the ring to start new businesses.  This atmosphere encouraged business schools to develop and enhance entrepreneurial courses and programs with the goal of increasing enrollment of more undergraduate students who could choose entrepreneurship as an alternative to the traditional courses of instruction.  In these economically prosperous times, students are offered the choice of a high success probability, whether entering traditional employment sectors or starting their own venture. 

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