dirt diggers digest

April 19, 2013 - While terrorism and gun violence dominated this week's headlines, the tragedy at a Texas fertilizer plant points to another danger that for most of the population is actually a more significant threat: industrial accidents.

March 28, 2013 - A watchdog group has compiled a list of banking's "dirty dozen" corporate criminals, and Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America makes the cut with billions paid out in penalties and settlements for various crimes.

March 18, 2013 - Florida and Mississippi are separated by only 100 miles, but they are worlds apart in their current approach to the disclosure of economic development subsidies.

January 23, 2013 - The North Carolina-based banking giant, including two companies acquired in 2008, has done so much harm in the mortgage and mortgage-backed securities markets that banishment would be the appropriate punishment -- yet it is taking a new run at the U.S. mortgage business.

November 2, 2012 - Holding corporations responsible for the consequences of climate change is not a new idea. Yet it is one that all too frequently gets drowned out amid the bloviating of the climate deniers, much of whose funding comes from the very corporate interests they are working to get off the hook.

September 21, 2012 - From arranging their affairs so they get checks from the IRS rather than writing them, to their reliance on government contracts, U.S. corporations show a serious dependency on public assistance.

August 31, 2012 - The Romney campaign had a strangely inapt group of messengers promote the theme of Ayn Rand-style entrepreneurship at the Republican Convention: GOP governors who have presided over deals in which huge sums of taxpayer money have been handed over to large corporations.