AltWeeklies Wire
Petty's Island, a Fin-Shaped Slice of Strange in the Delaware Rivernew
Never heard of Petty's Island? It's littered with colorful characters — Pennsylvania founder William Penn, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, a man who declared himself the island's king, and even the pirate's pirate himself, Ol' Blackbeard.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Holly Otterbein |
02-02-2010 |
Economy
How Craig Cunningham Gets Bill Collectors Off His Back: He Sues Themnew
While most Americans with unpaid bills dread the collector's call, Craig Cunningham sees them as opportunities. Many collection and credit card companies violate little-known consumer rights laws, and Cunningham's favorite pastime is catching them doing so and suing them.
Dallas Observer |
Kimberly Thorpe |
01-25-2010 |
Economy
An Hour at Gamblers Anonymous Lets You In on Years Sufferingnew
To be admitted to this stark room, with its vinyl floor, harsh lighting and a chill that says this place isn't supposed to be a comfort zone, one must be ready to admit failure. You show up at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting because you need help.
Colorado Springs Independent |
Pam Zubeck |
01-21-2010 |
Economy
Coloradans Have Long Supported the Lottery. Maybe It's Time For a Role Reversalnew
People who can't stop playing incur an inestimable social cost in broken relationships, lost jobs, prison, even suicide. The Lottery pays a pittance to help. It pays nothing for the impact of gaming addictions on cities and counties. And if and when problem gamblers finally reach out, they find appropriately trained counselors in woefully short supply.
Colorado Springs Independent |
Pam Zubeck |
01-21-2010 |
Economy
LAPD Audit: New Chief Releases a Report Showing Broad Mismanagementnew
The city may not be as safe as the 1950s like Bill Bratton often boasted, but apparently the bookkeeping by the Los Angeles Police Department is “stuck” in that decade, and a new and embarrassing audit is roiling City Hall—by explaining how bad things really are.
L.A. Weekly |
Patrick Range McDonald and Christine Pelisek |
12-18-2009 |
Economy
Foreclose on the Banks
It was widely understood at the time that the federal government expected looser credit markets in exchange for the bailout. Obviously Obama should have gotten it in writing. But oral contracts are just as legally binding as written ones.
How We Americans Spent Ourselves Into Ruin but Saved the Worldnew
Something is very wrong with the unselective manner in which folks on the other side have allowed the neocons to define the argument. It is an unfortunate habit of the left to assume that any vocal and assertive appreciation of the American contribution to human civilization must be fascist.
Metro Silicon Valley |
David Brin |
12-11-2009 |
Economy
Pay a Company to Get Rid of Your Debt by Saying it Never Really Happened in the First Placenew
You've been duped, deluded and taken for a ride. Everything you think you know about money is wrong. Federal law has never allowed banks to extend "credit," because there is no such thing as credit. At least not the way you've been led to believe.
Houston Press |
Craig Malisow |
12-08-2009 |
Economy
What the Hay?new
Suze Orman has been touted as a 'trusted national advisor' and a sensible financial guru. But after visiting a self-help seminar, why is she pushing Hay House hokum to the masses?
New York Press |
Ethan Epstein |
12-04-2009 |
Economy
Hey Obama, Where's the Justice in the Current Economic Crisis?new
Despite the president's promises of change, corporate crooks are still going unpunished for their roles in the financial collapse.
Who Took Our Jobs? Why Oregon's Unemployment is at the Top of the Charts ... Againnew
Studying unemployment figures in Oregon is like being a homicide detective in Baltimore -- there's no lack of casework. The problem is, how to piece together so much evidence. There's no shortage of theories why our unemployment is always among the nation's highest -- here are a few possibilities.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
10-14-2009 |
Economy
The New Vegas Identity: Unemployednew
Unemployment isn't just a noun anymore. In Las Vegas, it's a perpetual state of being. I should know: I was laid off from my Las Vegas newspaper job while I was writing a series about unemployed Nevadans. The irony is so sick it's funny -- even six months later.
Las Vegas Weekly |
Becky Bosshart |
10-09-2009 |
Economy
Obama is More Hoover than FDR
It's 1933. This time, however, Hoover got reelected. Can we hold out until 1937 for a president who understands that we need 10 million new jobs, and that we need them yesterday?
Meet the Rebel Economists Who Predicted the Financial Collapsenew
The economics profession has been dominated by the disciples of the late free-market guru Milton Friedman and others of the Chicago School, so named because of their prominence on the faculty of the University of Chicago. But for decades, there has been an overshadowed (and at times bitterly ridiculed) alternative group of economists who have long been warning that the Neoclassical orthodoxy was missing the boat and leading us astray.
