Business
Edward Mazze errs by inadvertently opening the door for the insidious consequence of socialist drift, Anthony DiBella takes his latest Business section “commentary” to the threshold of the socialist view of humanity. The humble Mr. DiBella volunteers for the task of bringing sun-shiny days to the lives of Rhode Islanders: The governor’s idea to assemble…
Sometimes the wisdom of allowing the Providence Journal Business section to indulge in “commentary” isn’t at all apparent. Edward Mazze, for example, did just fine, yesterday, until he transitioned from business and economic statistics to education with the following paragraph: Based on the number of elementary and secondary schools in a state with a little…
Jay Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald reports on a long-shot but interesting economic development project for Rhode Island…Woburn’s Terrafugia Inc. hopes its futuristic car-plane business takes off in Massachusetts. The maker of the hybrid car-plane contraption – which theoretically will both drive on roads and soar through the sky – plans to meet with officials…
Even conservatives may have difficulty finding fault with this The Federal Reserve Board moved yesterday to place new regulations on the nation’s credit card industry that would make it more difficult for lenders to raise interest rates and give consumers more time to pay their bills. If enacted, the regulations would be the most sweeping…
I know there’s no direct connection, but I couldn’t help but think of those complaints about the cost of the Iraq war to the state when I read this bit of rare positive news: A California aerospace company is scouting locations in Rhode Island in order to open a facility to build armored boats by…
Just to see what’s going on out there, I ran a Monster.com job search for the first time in years. I had forgotten how completely unqualified the ads can make you feel. That seems to be the result when corporate HR departments are given more twenty words to describe a job opening. A made-up example:…
Mark Patinkin makes a reasonable point — one that is often leveled in an accusatory tone at conservatives: Stanley O’Neal, the ex-head of Merrill Lynch, was booted for losing billions betting on the garbage now known as sub-prime loans. His punishment? An estimated $161-million sendoff package. The issue isn’t even that he didn’t deserve it,…
As an admitted antiquarian, I’ve never met an old building I didn’t think should be preserved and re-used. But that’s just me and I recognize that–beauty being in the eye of beholder–not everyone thinks that the Providence Fruit and Produce Company Warehouse (more here) was worth preserving, restoring or reconfiguring. OK, fine. But what troubled…
“A hobby that got out of hand.” That’s what Ron Voake, of Norwich, a Vermonter of the old sort, says regarding his booming business as a wooden toy maker: Mr. Voake, the owner of Vermont Wooden Toys, has been deluged with orders from customers leery of buying toys made in China after millions of toys…
On Dan Yorke a few minutes ago, Trisha Smith — the controversial owner of the Post & Naughty store in Portsmouth, whose landlord is threatening to cancel her lease if she doesn’t stop courting customers outside her store, as it were — mentioned that she has lost her day job. (The company owner, as it…