Showing posts with label switzerland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label switzerland. Show all posts

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Today's Teamster News 05.30.13

Smithfield Foods to be bought by Chinese firm  The Washington Post   ...Smithfield Foods, whose signature hams helped make it the world’s largest pork producer, is being taken over by a Chinese firm in a deal is the biggest takeover that might raise sensitive issues about Chinese involvement in the U.S. food supply...
Shell Admits Real Reason Coast Guard Had To Rescue Its Arctic Drilling Rig: Failed Tax Avoidance Scheme  ThinkProgress   ...The main reason an offshore oil rig ran aground off the coast of Alaska late last year was because oil company Royal Dutch Shell was trying to depart state waters to avoid paying millions in taxes...
Americans Now Know More About Often Pathetic Personal Finances  mni   ...Fewer than half, 41%, of Americans spend less than they make...
Case-Shiller Shows Home Prices Are Skyrocketing Back to the Bubble Years  Economic Populist ...The March 2013 S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a 10.9% price increase from a year ago for over 20 metropolitan housing markets and a 10.3% change for the top 10 housing markets from March 2012...
16 Countries Where People Work the Longest Hours  The Fiscal Times   ...When it comes to annual hours worked in 2010, the U.S. tied with Italy for 13th place among the OECD countries...
ALEC: Shining Sunlight on a Secretive Lobby Group  The Pilot   ...the Republican supermajority in the North Carolina General Assembly is getting many of its worst ideas for how to change our state from the Washington, D.C.-based American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Every citizen needs to know more about ALEC and its stealth efforts to undermine our modern-day democracy...
House Democrats gear up for Affordable Care Act outreach  Politico   ...Democrats on Capitol Hill are beginning a significant outreach effort to get lawmakers prepared for Obamacare enrollment, which will begin Oct. 1...
The World's Richest 8% Earn Half of All Planetary Income  AlterNet   ...The top 1 per cent has seen its real income rise by more than 60 per cent over those two decades...
Income Inequality Gets Worse When You Slash Taxes On The Rich: Study  Huffington Post   ...The rich just keep getting richer -- not only by gobbling up more income, but also by paying less in taxes. That means less support for the poor, who are getting increasingly poorer relative to the top one percent...
Apple’s U.S. revenue should be taxed (opinion) Washington Post …The open secret of many global corporations’ success — and occasionally, downfall — is to fall between the cracks. Apple, which is based in Cupertino, Calif., created an Irish subsidiary with no employees, into which it funneled roughly $30 billion between 2009 and 2012 on which neither Ireland nor the United States levied taxes...
Switzerland Weighs Deal in Tax Cases   Deal Book   ...The Swiss government is considering a proposal to disclose bank client names and pay a multibillion-dollar fine to the United States to help resolve a long-running dispute between the two countries over the handling of tax-evasion cases...
Proposed law would allow state to check, freeze private bank accounts to recover overpayments to jobless  Wisconsin State Journal   ...A bill that is speeding through the state Legislature would require jobless people to provide more proof that they are seeking work, and make it easier for the state to recover overpayments — including those made because of government errors — by allowing officials to peek into unemployed people’s bank accounts...
County-by-county details: How badly Wisconsin trails the nation in job-creation  Institute for Wisconsin's Future   ...private-sector wages in Wisconsin falling at 2% a year, twice the national rate. Wisconsin ranked 44th out of 50 in wage growth...
Giants Fans Bring Their Own Lunches To Support Concessions Workers’ Strike  In These Times   ...After three years without a contract, and on one of the busiest weekends of the season, hundreds of concessions workers at the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark staged a one-day strike. As baseball fans arrived on Saturday afternoon to watch the Giants take on the Colorado Rockies, strikers asked them not to buy food and drink inside the stadium...
After going nowhere in 2013, supporters hope to bring “right to work” back next year  The Missouri Times   ...Though prevailing wage and “paycheck protection” bills passed both chambers, another labor-related topic that saw minimal action this session was the “right to work” issue...
No mere luxury: Liquor privatization is about much more  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   ...Concern is rising in the General Assembly, particularly among Democrats, that House Republicans may be linking a bill to end the government's liquor monopoly with a measure to increase transportation funding...
Teamsters Power Consumer Electronics Show   IBT   ...Every year, Las Vegas is visited by an average of nearly 5 million conventioneers as the city plays host to more than 21,000 shows. Local 631 in Las Vegas represents more than 3,000 trade show and convention workers that help to keep shows on track and on time...
Teamsters Offer Free Disability Services to Military Veterans  Teamsters Joint Council 25  ...An offshoot of the national Helmets to Hardhats program, the Teamsters Military Assistance Program (TMAP) provides disability assistance for all military veterans and job placement opportunities for veterans in the construction industry...
Stop Cuts To Public Safety And Economic Growth  IBT   ...Sequestration is more than a confusing term being debated in Washington. There is immediate and future impact that many Americans will feel based on significant reductions in funding numerous government programs that touch the lives of all segments of our society...

Monday, March 4, 2013

Today's Teamster News 03.04.13

(UPDATES with item about White House seeking fast track authority.)
Obama renews offer to cut entitlements to end budget cuts  Reuters   ...Possible reforms to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security are being offered by President Barack Obama as part of a compromise to end automatic budget cuts that began Friday...
GOP’s Largest Campaign Contributor Admits To Bribing Foreign Officials  ThinkProgress   ...Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who spent as much as $150 million on independent expenditures to bolster Republicans in the 2012 election, has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that his Las Vegas Sands Corporation “likely violated a federal law against bribing foreign officials.”...
Surprise: Studies Show Rich People are more Unethical than Poor People  AllGov.com   ...a team of five researchers that conducted a set of seven psychological experiments confirmed Fitzgerald’s opinion, specifying that the rich behave more unethically and greedily than lower-class individuals...
“Pervasive” Fraud by our “Most Reputable” Banks  New Economic Perspectives   ...the banks that fraudulently sold fraudulent mortgages did have “skin in the game” because of their reps and warranties.  The key is that the officers who control the banks do not have skin in the game – they can loot the banks they can control and walk away wealthy...
Swiss Voters Approve Limits on ‘Fat Cat’ Executive Pay  Bloomberg   ...The proposal gives shareholders an annual ballot on managers’ pay. It eliminates sign-on bonuses, as well as severance packages and extra incentives for completing merger transactions. The initiative also includes rules punishing executives who violate the terms with as long as three years in jail...
White House says it will seek "fast-track" trade authority  Reuters   ...The White House on Friday said it would work for approval of politically contentious legislation that would ease the way for new trade deals, as it tries to wrap up talks on an Asia-Pacific free-trade agreement this year...
S'pore to host TPP free trade talks from Monday  Asia One   ...SINGAPORE will host the 16th round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade negotiations from Monday with expectations high that the grouping is on track to wrap up talks by the end of this year...
Railroads emerge as alternative to Keystone XL pipeline for moving oil sands from Canada  Washington Post   ...While TransCanada has been trying to obtain a U.S. permit to build the 875-mile northern leg of its Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian and U.S. railroad companies have been busy installing new track and loading facilities to carry the oil sands crude from northern Alberta to refineries in the United States and Canada...
Backers, opponents debate liquor privatization  The Tribune-Democrat   ...even before Republicans fully unveil the latest legislative proposal to dismantle the liquor monopoly, critics are warning that the math just may not add up in a way that bodes well for (Pennsylvania) shoppers or taxpayers...
Hagler, Koster whip up Democrats with calls to protect workers, farmers  St. Louis Beacon   ...Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, who is expected to run for governor in 2016, delivered a verbal broadside Saturday night to Republican legislative leaders, as he accused them of being out not only to cripple labor but to destroy the state’s middle class...
Fine print in Scott Walker's tax proposals draws criticism  Wisconsin State Journal   ...Gov. Scott Walker’s state budget plan promises a few dollars a week in middle-class tax relief and a crackdown on tax evaders, but the document’s fine print also would widen tax loopholes for businesses, and deliver indefinite amnesty to certain serial tax cheats...