State Battles
VW works council says will pursue labor representation at U.S. plant Reuters ...Volkswagen's works council said it would press on with efforts to set up labor representation at its Chattanooga, Tennessee plant, undeterred by a workers' vote against any such step involving the United Auto Workers union (UAW)...
Spread the word: ALEC’s education agenda not good for kids or public schools Education Votes ...All across the country students, parents, educators, and community leaders are teaming up to get the word out about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its destructive anti-children and anti-public education agenda...
Crossing Borders and Changing Lives, Lured by Higher State Minimum Wages New York Times ...many minimum-wage migrants … travel from homes in Idaho, where the rate is $7.25, to work in Oregon, where it is the second highest in the country, $9.10...
The War on Workers
Race to a million The Economist ...EACH second Walmart collects $15,054, Google garners $1,897 and tiny Twitter ekes out $21...
Economics of the 1%: Devastating Democracy for the 99% The Real News ...the source of authoritarianism is not fascism or centrally planned economies; it's the ideology of free markets, because what that ideology seeks to do is to say there's no effective role for governments, governments should be minimized. Yet governments are the vehicle by which we the 99 percent assert ourselves...
Pay Pals Huffington Post ...Here’s what the Fortune 100 executives paid each other from 2008 to 2012...
Small-firm lawyer takes on Wall Street and wins, twice Reuters ...In January, the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan said it is seeking up to $2.1 billion in penalties from Bank of America after a jury in October found the firm liable for fraud over defective mortgages sold by Countrywide. Wasinger's client, former Countrywide Executive Vice President Edward O'Donnell, was the star witness for the prosecution. And earlier this month, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $614 million to settle claims that it defrauded the U.S. government by submitting sub par home loans for federal insurance. The case relied in part on evidence provided by another Wasinger client...
Train firms failing half of passengers: Delays, overcrowding and poor value for money means customer satisfaction is 'shockingly low' Daily Mail ...Train companies are registering ‘shockingly low’ levels of poor customer satisfaction on overcrowded and over-priced services, a damning new consumer survey reveals today...
Miscellaneous
Abba admit outrageous outfits were worn to avoid tax The Guardian ...According to Abba: The Official Photo Book, published to mark 40 years since they won Eurovision with Waterloo, the band's style was influenced in part by laws that allowed the cost of outfits to be deducted against tax – so long as the costumes were so outrageous they could not possibly be worn on the street...
Sophisticated but low-tech power grid attack baffles authorities Los Angeles Times ...The military-style raid on April 16 knocked out 17 giant transformers at the Metcalf Transmission Substation, which feeds power to Silicon Valley. The FBI is still working the case, and agents say they are confident it was not the work of terrorists...
