I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing the gloom and doom news about the economy and our future. While I try to minimize my exposure to negativity, sometimes it is hard to keep smiling and pursue optimism. My efforts to do so was emboldened by an article I received years ago by […]
Each week a free paper is delivered to our home. Each week I walk it from the paper-box to the trash can. When my dad was alive, he would recycle these papers, but with shorter hours at the recycling center and higher gas prices, I often wondered if his efforts were worth it. Now the […]
Am I the only one scratching my head over carbon credits? The whole idea of having environmentally “good” activity negate environmentally “bad” activity seems strange. Why not just focus on reducing or stopping environmentally harmful action? What if there were “water credits?” If someone dumps 100 gallons of polluted water into a river, would it […]
Are you wealthy? Your initial answer on “No” is probably the same as mine was, but I’ve since learned that I was wrong. My eyes were recently opened to a new reality concerning my relative financial well-being in this global economy. The website www.globalrichlist.com (which, unfortunately, may not be working anymore) shows how you rank. […]
In the 80s, Ronald Reagan responded to bad economic times with a tax cut. Dubbed “trickle down economics,” it masterfully did the trick, with the economy smartly rebounding, ushering in a period of prolonged economic prosperity. An alternate strategy for economic recovery is for the government to spend its way out of it—even if it […]
The recent issue of Sojourners magazine cited some sobering facts about the state of the prison system in the United States: 7.4 million people were under the control of the US criminal justice system in 2007. I’m not exactly sure what is meant by “under control,” but that is over 2 percent of the population, […]