Spare Change News

Author: Pippin Ross

  • If You Are a Millionaire You Can Be a Presidential Contender

    Barack Obama’s re-election revived the shock (conservatives) and awe (liberals) that our country actually completed the century-long transition from owning black people as slaves, to putting one in the oval office. His supporters like to believe that a (mostly) fatherless, urban minority who achieves such a high level of up-from-the-bootstraps success knows the value of…

  • Ballot Question 2: Dying With Dignity or Doctors of Death

    Until he died a couple of decades ago, Princeton and Harvard-educated surgeon Dr. Frederick Phelps was an old school doc based in the central Massachusetts city, Fitchburg. Old school doc means he made house calls. He accepted firewood and handmade gifts as payment from patients without money or insurance, and, when people asked for it…

  • Making a Better Safety Net —Wall Street Style

    [img_assist|nid=526|title=|desc=|link=none|align=center|width=400|height=400] By Pippin Ross The Statehouse’s ‘Great Hall’ is packed, like it is almost every day leading up to the moment when the Governor finally signs off on the next budget. Every group pushing for every piece of the state funding pie turns out in full force. Today, the mood is expectant, the dress code…