Money suffers a really bad year: any problem that money will solve is not a very big problem.

• Author: Hall, Robert
• Position: MARKETING SOLUTIONS

I DON'T KNOW IF YOU HAVE NOTICED it or not but money has had a really bad year. Conventional wisdom has been that money can buy almost anything we want or need. Yet just when we seem to have become convinced of that as a society, it lets us down. Now who would have thought that in the midst of all the other bad news that money would fall apart on us?

My most recent example is from the fount of all societal learning--sports. The Texas Rangers won the American League pennant this year with a payroll of $55 million over the New York Yankees who, as usual, led baseball in payroll costs at $206 million. The San Francisco Giants, the eventual World Series winner, with a $98 million payroll, won the National League pennant over the Philadelphia Phillies who had the fourth largest payroll in baseball at $142 million. In pro football, the Dallas Cowboys, who have the largest payroll in the NFL and the most expensive new stadium ever, won one game in the first two months of the season. Now in the long run, the larger payroll teams seem to usually perform better, but lately when it comes to pro sports, money seems to have taken a sabbatical.

Political spending is off the chart

Politics is another arena where money just doesn't seem to buy what it used to. The amount of money spent in the recent midterm elections is off the charts. The Center for Responsive Politics estimates nearly $4 billion was spent on midterm elections in 2010 compared to $2.8 billion in 2006. At this writing it is estimated Democrats have outspent the Republicans slightly but lost a significant number of seats in the U.S. House and Senate. In a number of races, outlandish spending did not appear to translate into more votes. For example, in California, Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay was estimated to spend more than $160 million in the governor's race, outspending the winner Jerry Brown six to one. In a number of races, the spending looked more like an out-of-control arms race than prudent spending.

In 2010 education has been the focus of much discussion including a popular documentary movie "Waiting for Superman." While spending (in 2006-2007 dollars) per student has doubled since 1970 according to the U. S. Department of Education, the graduation rates nationally fell to 68.8 percent in 2007 according to a 2010 analysis titled "Diplomas Count 2010." In 17 of the top 50 urban areas around the country graduation rates are below 50 percent and in urban Detroit less than 25...