It is the marketplace that calls most clearly for men to be softer, more narcissistic and receptive, and the new man is the result.

Given the cultural barriers to intersex conversation, the amazing thing is that we would even expect women and men to have anything to say to each other for more than ten minutes at a stretch.

When television families aren't gathered around the kitchen table exchanging wisecracks, they are experiencing brief but moving dilemmas, which are handily solved by the youngest child or by some cute extraterrestrial houseguest. Emerging from Family Ties or My Two Dads, we are forced to acknowledge that our own families are made up of slow-witted, emotionally crippled people who would be lucky to qualify for seats in the studio audience of JEOPARDY!

Some people make stuff; other people have to buy it. And when we gave up making stuff, starting in the 1980s, we were left with the unique role of buying... We've shopped till we dropped alright, face down on the floor.

The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.

Medical debts are the number-one cause of bankruptcy in America.

No one should be incarcerated for debt or squeezed for money they have no chance of getting their hands on.