Opinion

by The City Wire staff -

Debunking the ‘Job magnet plan’

Kindly allow me, City Council member and Democratic Candidate Adella Gray, to accept my invitation to respond to a well-written guest commentary from my opponent, Republican Representative Charlie Collins of…

by The City Wire staff -

System pressures and opportunities

American higher education is at a crossroads. Federal and state funding cuts, rising student loan debt, an increased demand for graduates and competition from for-profit online institutions are challenging the…

by Michael Tilley -

Yoakam’s Pears

Dwight Yoakam reached out to various pop culture influences, including the Beatles, to craft his newest album, “3 Pears.” Influences are not a surprise for this fan of Yoakam who…

by The City Wire staff -

Speech tolerance

The opportunity to identify oneself as brilliant or boneheaded via free speech is a beautiful thing – maybe the best of things our American democracy bequeathed to us, its ideological…

by The City Wire staff -

How stupid are you?

This past Friday morning I turned on the television in time to see a discussion between CNBC’s Squawk Box hosts and Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter and the school’s…

by The City Wire staff -

More time for low rates?

After waffling on how long low mortgage rates are expected to stick around, some analysts have called for rates to not rise significantly through next year. Honestly, that’s about as…

by Michael Tilley -

It’s your fault

The thing that pisses me off more and more with each election cycle is not the BS we hear from politicians or political groups, it’s the folks who allow the…

by Michael Tilley -

That terrible day

The many memorials this week were as painfully sobering as they were respectfully appropriate. It has been one year since that day. What fell from the sky one year ago…

by The City Wire staff -

Pondering the political aftermath

On a recent Thursday night in Charlotte, N.C., President Barack Obama told an adoring Democratic National Convention that the nation’s problems can be solved with “common effort, shared responsibility,” and…

by The City Wire staff -

Passion pursuit

I wonder what the word count would be if you took all the negative and discouraging words spoken in, about, and around the Republican and Democratic National Conventions the past…

by The City Wire staff -

Unglamorous ways to grow jobs

We keep hearing that the U.S. presidential election is all about jobs. So why aren’t we getting more concrete ideas from the candidates about how to create more of them?…

by The City Wire staff -

Job magnet plan

Arkansans count on their elected officials to help improve the quality of life here, a worthy goal. Yet, numerous studies have concluded that we rank between 42nd and 48th among…

by The City Wire staff -

Fiscal cliff not so bad

Just when you thought you could forget about the fiscal cliff and focus on the Republican and Democratic conventions instead, along comes the Congressional Budget Office to remind us of…

by Michael Tilley -

A General question

Dear Attorney General Dustin McDaniel: What with all the time you spend fighting payday lenders and studying the layout of the governor’s office and responding to letters from Arkansas House…

by The City Wire staff -

Medical marijuana a sensible choice

Words and phrases such as “medical marijuana,” “legal” and “the state of Arkansas” lack a history of spending much time together. After all, most people in these parts have for…

by The City Wire staff -

The broom man

Tax season, for CPAs, can be hellacious. Clients are anxious to get their tax returns so you work long hours. A person tends to get tired, perhaps even a bit…

by Michael Tilley -

Tax rhetoric and reality

Let’s travel once more into the most dangerous ground in today’s political environment, which would be the damn-near abandoned beautiful valley of calm in which compromise, moderation and careful deliberation…

by The City Wire staff -

The real price of ethanol

Record-high corn prices should be sending a clear message to policy makers in Washington: Requiring people to put corn-based fuel in their gas tanks is a bad idea. Since 2005,…

by The City Wire staff -

The community college solution

About 13 million Americans are looking for work. An additional 8 million have settled for part-time jobs. Yet almost half of U.S. employers have said they have difficulty filling positions….