A miracle in Los Angeles: The Dodgers unloaded Bobby Bonilla's salary. Hard to figure the Mets' thinking, but with GM Steve Phillips (perhaps permanently) on leave for personal reasons, their front office is in tatters . The Dodgers were ridiculed last summer for trading Paul Konerko and Dennis Reyes for reliever Jeff Shaw, who threatened to leave town after the season. Now Shaw has decided to stay and Konerko and Reyes will spend the next five years bouncing around the majors like pinballs (Konerko's latest move: Reds to the White Sox) .In my view, management now has no choice but to teach values. Business leaders in the United States have shunned talking about values, because they seem to suggest a religious or moral outlook. This implication is not necessarily the case.

A: A downgrade is a warning to buyers of bonds and other debt that the chance that they won't get their money back has increased, however slightly. In theory, downgrades should lead to higher borrowing