The Highroad

Harrell’s hardware store, located near my home in Austin, Texas, is the opposite of a big-box chain store. It’s an unchained, small-box store with a knowledgeable staff willing to help customers figure out how to do most any project. Harrell’s slogan is: “Together, ...

Bob Dylan once sent a two-word lyric to Ben Harper, a talented songwriter he admired. “Well well,” was the lyric, and Dylan challenged Harper to make a song of it...

Attention, men. Yes, you —you with the Y chromosomes—it’s time for some man-talk. Specifically, we need to address how you dress...

Let’s review the rap sheet of Wall Street banks: Defrauding investors, cheating homeowners, money laundering, rigging markets, tax evasion, credit card ripoffs...

One difference between top executives and worker bees is that those at the top can lower the pay of those down below, while simultaneously raising their own pay. If you wonder what’s causing America’s rapidly-widening income gap, there it is...

Such energy powers as BP, ExxonMobil, Halliburton and Koch Industries have gone crackers over fracking...

Let`s talk chicken. I don’t mean clucking and cockadoodledooing, but the power of the bird. Most people hear the word “chicken” and immediately think: “Dinner!” Some commercial interests in Georgia, however, think: “Money!” So they’ve launched a campaign to put the ...

Grim-faced military officers and ashen-faced politicians describe a horrific “war zone,” with “hundreds of people murdered” and “citizens under attack around the clock.” Some of the politicos say that the situation is so dire that it “may require our military...

As CEO of JPMorgan Chase, this ruling mogul of Wall Street must now cope with the recently enacted financial reform bill, which imposes a host of new regulations meant to rein in the rip-offs, frauds and other excesses of Wall Street bankers...

"The carbon-based free lunch is over," crowed the speaker. "Breakthroughs on climate change and improving our society's energy efficiency are within reach," he declared, to the enthusiastic cheers of environmentalists...

In the infamous Enron scandals of a decade ago, unregulated energy hucksters created an array of dummy financial funds so they could evade public scrutiny and perpetrate fraud. To disguise the scams, the funds were given such names as Chewco and JEDI...

At last, America’s political leaders indicate that they now feel the pain of the poor and of the millions of working families slipping out of the middle class...