"A law of indiscriminate profit is being globalized, and by its application all too many corporations contribute to the abuse of human rights in poor countries."

This declaration sounds like it came straight off the podium of the anti-globalization protests that fill the streets upon the occasion of a World Trade Organization meeting. Actually, it was a CEO of a major corporation who shared this opinion with me: Riccardo Bagni, the chief executive of Coop Italia, one of the biggest commercial enterprises in all of Europe.

February 21, 2005 has been circled on my mental calendar for quite some time. It is the date that I could terminate my family's Cingular Wireless cellular service without an egregious penalty.

My ire with Cingular began some time ago. I had purchased an expensive phone with one of its distributor - with the distinctive Cingular marquee over the door - and had paid a significant fee extra for a three-year insurance policy for phone replacement. I was glad I had taken precaution, for my cell phone started malfunctioning shortly after one year. When I brought the lemon back into the same store for a replacement, however, the Cingular distributor informed me that the operation was under new management. The previous distributor - a nationwide chain with close ties to Cingular - had gone bankrupt, and this new agent would not honor any of its predecessor's insurance agreements.

Want some free financial consultation? It won't take more than a few seconds, I promise. And I won't need to review your bank statements, nor even glance at a balance sheet of your assets and liabilities. Yet for at least 90 percent of you, my remedy will be the single most critical step you could take on the road to financial health.

Reduce - and then eliminate - your personal debt.

The socially responsible business: an ad-venture where profitability and conscience meet.

That ideal has stirred the imagination of activist-inclined entrepreneurs since the late 1970s when pioneers like Patagonia, The Body Shop and Ben & Jerry's burst onto the national retail market. Their business model was as wild-and-crazy as their products. Being enslaved to THE bottom line suddenly seemed so yesterday. A fresh wave of values-led companies boasted their adherence to a triple-bottom line: people, planet, and profits.