Best business commentary

Plastic on campus

College students will be inundated with credit-card offers as they return to campus, said Jessica Silver-Greenberg in BusinessWeek, and many haven’t been taught how to handle the responsibility. For some, a credit card simply provides a convenient way to pay for essentials, such as books and food. For others, “easy access to credit will lead to spending beyond their means and debts that will compromise their futures.” If credit-card companies don’t start offering young customers “financial education” as well as free Frisbees and other enticements, they’ll find themselves facing new regulations.

No such thing as a free Internet

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The nation's free wireless Internet initiatives "are dying one by one," says John Dvorak in MarketWatch.com. Yes, "free universal access to the Internet would be of great benefit to society as a whole," but the idea just "steps on too many powerful toes." Notably those of AT&T and Comcast, whose "bags full of money" can pretty easily "derail any sort of free programs that would threaten their businesses." But that's par for the course in the U.S. When it comes to communications, we're always "the last country you can expect to modernize in any meaningful way."