baltimoresun.com - Jay Hancock

There's gold in those mountains of Garrett

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

J ust as they did in the 1980s, human ingenuity and Mother Nature are working together to solve the energy crisis. There is an Appalachian energy boom from West Virginia to New York, exemplified by a group of farmers and other landowners who expect to lease nearly a tenth of Maryland's Garrett County next week to natural-gas prospectors for $36 million.

A simple, honest version of the slots referendum

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

S upporters and opponents of Maryland slot machines are arguing over the wording of a slots-approval measure on November's ballot. The language goes on and on about education but says nothing about horse racing. Here's how an honest version would read:

Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac identity crisis imperils taxpayers

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

F ew chapters in the annals of corporate welfare are as impressive as the one on Fannie Mae, the troubled mortgage concern.

Build the natural gas terminal, but not at Sparrows Point

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Maryland undoubtedly needs more and cheaper energy, but we're not going to do just anything to get it. We won't strip state forests for fireplace fodder. We won't reverse pollution controls on cars and power plants.

CEG's dose of tough love

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

A few sentences on page 46 of a financial disclosure that did not change reported profits, sales or net worth caused Constellation Energy Group's prospects to go into brownout this week.

How long can Md. escape recession?

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I t might not feel like it, but so far the national recession of 2008 has left Maryland relatively unscathed. As tough as times are in housing, stores, publishing and finance, this state has avoided the blunt trauma visited upon many regions and the nation as a whole.

Jury vindicates a homebuyer done wrong by her lender

Fri, 8 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

K imberly Thomas says she couldn't believe it when it came time to sign for the $505,000 house she had agreed to buy in Burtonsville.

No rush to use dreaded 'R' word

Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

W ith thousands of jobs disappearing each month and consumer spending declining, everybody knows we're in a recession. Everybody, that is, but the people whose task it is to officially say so.

Spice maker provides a lesson

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

T o understand the intense economic pressures sweeping the globe, you could earn a master's in business administration or convene a focus group of economists and Fortune 500 CEOs.

More defense vendors, please

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I n 1993, Defense Secretary Les Aspin invited more than a dozen CEOs of big weapons and aerospace companies to dinner at the Pentagon. In what has become known as the Last Supper, he shocked them by saying that, with the end of the Cold War, America had too many defense contractors and that the companies needed to merge or die.