"The political economy of Egypt is as important as its constitutional and political system. But, as in other developed and developing nations, sometimes the emphasis is on politics, not economics, and sometimes on economics, not politics. Finding the right balance of political legitimacy, a social safety net, economic growth, and a right-sized role for government is elusive everywhere."

"On a quiet Friday morning, my wife and I came face to face with history."

"In my view, such disclosure of CEO health should be undertaken voluntarily as a matter of good corporate governance and sound investor relations. But, the SEC should also issue guidance under the securities law that, if certain conditions exist, such information should be disclosed as material (because, per the definition of materiality, it would affect an investor's decision to buy or sell securities)."

"Although the National Commission report emphasizes the importance of corporate safety culture and safety management "from the highest levels on down" as a necessary complement to regulatory reform, it never looks at the overall global organization of BP and never evaluates what board and business leaders did and did not do in furtherance of those goals."

"We have seen this movie before, and the rerun is no better than the original.  In 2009, Jobs took an unexplained leave of absence for medical reasons and returned a number of months later with a liver transplant. His medical condition should have been disclosed then.  And it should be disclosed now."

"Even in this computer age, real people inside real institutions do not need sophisticated computer techniques to steal real, important secrets."

"Critics ignore that the U.S. military has, in the past, made two momentous and largely successful transitions in the face of opposition among the uniformed force: racial integration and gender integration."

"Despite suspension over honor code violations and an ongoing investigation into his recruitment, Auburn's Cam Newton last week won the Heisman Trophy--an award meant to honor "pursuit of excellence with integrity." The award raises a dilemma faced by many organizations: In dealing with top performers, how much should leaders overlook corner cutting, rule breaking and other integrity issues?"

"At the dead center of the GC (and CFO) job is responsibility for adherence to the formal and ethical rules binding the Independence won't guarantee ethical behavior. They must be partners to the CEO, but first and foremost they must be guardians of the company on thethree essentials of compliance: prevent, detect, and respond."

The leaked diplomatic cables from Afghanistan show deep and pervasive corruption. So what else is new? Other than having this conclusion candidly expressed by American officials who thought they were writing private dispatches. The much more important question today is: What is the United States going to do about it? Much of the writing about the cable leaks has focused on the vivid official descriptions of corruption, but not on whether those descriptions are going to cause an official rethink of our Afghan strategy. They should.