The Rent Bubble: Coming to a Neighborhood Near You

Among the lesser-reported impacts of the Great Recession, during which time millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure, is the continuing surge in rental housing demand. Demand has inflated rental rates in already costly markets throughout the country. But rental price inflation is not just a problem hitting high cost of living regions in …

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The Buzz About Bees

As if we needed to add to the strain of the already-perplexing Colony Collapse Disorder that continues its silent kill of European honeybees worldwide, a late-year news item from Bloomberg portrays a New York judge taking a delinquent EPA to task for turning a blind eye of approval toward Bayer's latest bee killer, environmental advocates say. Why care? Because those honeybees pollinate our crops. So the honeybee goes, so the human population goes. Do we really need another bug spray — another nail in our own coffin? It's time we got schooled in the art of smart consumerism. It's a new year, a new decade, and it's not too late. Self empowerment, anyone?

Joe the Plumber: The Real Untouchable

Curt Eysink is an unpopular man. Less than three months after assuming his post as executive director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, he told a panel charged with overhauling the state's higher education system: "We're producing a workforce that we cannot employ in Louisiana." The apparent problem? Too many four-year college grads and not enough low-skill and vocational trade workers. …