“Countrywide” Redux: The Age of the Sovereign Sub-Prime Loan Remember sub-prime loans, the ones being handed out like candy to apparently penniless Southern Californians (and Nevadans and Floridians and . . )? With such features as “negative amortization,” whereby the Buyer could opt to re-pay as little per month (or nothing!) as they wished, with the...Read More
Late to the Game — On Purpose Want to get a BIG discount on Twins tickets AND free parking*? Start by picking a holiday weekend (this one) when lots of fans are out-of-town. Then, pick a makeup game added to the schedule for a rain-out earlier in the season — in this case, the Twins...Read More
Beyond “Fair Trade” ** What is beyond “Fair Trade?” Fair Trade products delivered by bicycle. Which Minneapolis-based “Peace Coffee” claims it does. Demo’ing its (very tasty) product at the local Whole Foods over lunch hour, I pressed the company’s sales rep whether that policy applied equally in January as in June. He insisted it did. The...Read More
If you wanted a good picture of the economy at any given moment, you could track such statistics as monthly unemployment, housing starts, the University of Michigan confidence index, the Consumer and Producer Price indices, etc. Or . . . you could just watch Wal-Mart’s stock price. When the economy slows or contracts — or people fear...Read More
Thornton Wilder Got it Wrong Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America; North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God. –Letter addressed to Jane Crofut; “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder It turns out that one of my favorite literary quotes...Read More
Not to Be Confused With Eating on the Run OK, so I’m not a dietician or nutritionist, and don’t have a speck of data to back me up. And gourmands would be appalled by what I’m about to suggest. But, here goes anyway: Maybe one of the factors in America’s obesity epidemic isn’t just what...Read More
