Irrational escalations of commitment

Paper instructions:
After reading about irrational escalations of commitment (Ch. 6), study Wikipedia’s two entries for:
Lock-in (decision making) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock-in_(decision-making)
Progress trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_trap

Consider how these two phenomena occur in modern society, particularly in commerce, like macro-level escalations of commitment.
For both, insightfully describe a novel instance of these occurring in current events in business.
Discuss how knowledge derived from this course may help you to deal with such situations better than average managers