| Mar 30, 2016 | Economy / BusinessBillboards must be living creatures, for they appear to propagate like breeding rabbits. They spread everywhere, growing to enormous sizes while shouting corporate messages at us. Some even watch and track us with their digital eyes. Now, though, rather than...
| Mar 23, 2016 | Economy / BusinessIf you take the word “free” and rip the “r” out of it, what do you get? Two things, actually: You get a “fee” — and then you get mad. This is happening to millions of airline passengers who are discovering that the advertised price...
| Mar 16, 2016 | Economy / BusinessI’ll feel empowered when ExxonMobil convenes its upcoming annual shareholders meeting. Oddly, that’s because I’ve sold all my stock in the company. Shareholders like me and some major institutions, including New York State’s $178 billion pension fund, have urged...
| Mar 15, 2016 | Economy / BusinessThe “human resources” departments of huge corporations are known for issuing helpful bulletins to employees, such as this old joke: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” Beatings of workers these days take the form of slashing wages and benefits,...
| Mar 9, 2016 | Economy / BusinessAubrey McClendon’s 2013 Chevy Tahoe ignited after he slammed into an Oklahoma City overpass at high speed. Flames charred the brazen oil and gas executive’s body so badly that medical experts relied on dental records to verify that he’d died. One day before...
| Mar 2, 2016 | Economy / BusinessImagine if a corporation set up shop in your community and immediately dumped toxic sludge in your local waterways and buried radioactive waste next to your biggest playground. You and your neighbors, I bet, would demand full compensation from that corporation to pay...