“American Airlines was sued by its pilots’ union, which is seeking to block the airline from rejecting a labor agreement and forcing new employment terms on the union because the contract has expired.

American parent AMR Corp. (AAMRQ) can’t use its bankruptcy case to reject the collective bargaining agreement because the contract expired in 2008, the Allied Pilots Association said in a complaint filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

American, based in Fort Worth, Texas, filed for bankruptcy in November, saying its cost structure wasn’t competitive with other airlines. Companies can use bankruptcy to reject labor contracts with unions to cut costs….”

Full article

The year 2012 will see a stream of new books in the patented Thomas Friedman “Oh My God the Chinese Are Eating Our Lunch with Environmentally Friendly Chopsticks” mold. Some will be more worthwhile than others. One book in particular, however, is sure to stand out, if only for the title: “Becoming China’s Bitch: And Nine More Catastrophes We Must Avoid Right Now.” 

The author, Peter D. Kiernan, a former partner at Goldman Sachs, explains in the introduction that “it’s not a book about China exactly. It’s about how America got diverted and lost momentum, and a dragon leapt into the breach. It’s also about getting our mojo back.”

I spoke with him over the phone:

FP: When did you first realize we were in danger of becoming China’s bitch?

PK: When it first occurred to me was in 2008, as a card-carrying member of a discredited class, everyone in Wall Street had to re-think everything. We had gone through a 30 plus year bull market. We now had to wrestle with the idea of who was going to fund the 42 percent of our government that has to be borrowed. Whenever you depend on one major source of finance, if it’s too heavy in one area, it deserves a re-thinking.

We haven’t really thought clearly about this as a nation. It was a part of this re-thinking everything. We have a much greater co-dependency on China than we’d like to acknowledge. The book is not solely about China, but Becoming China’s Bitch is about the cost to our dithering. 

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Source

“The U.S. Justice Department has charged more than 60 people during its three-year-long crackdown on insider-trading. But that, it seems is only the beginning.

Authorities are working to build cases against twice as many people still, with about 120 people in the crosshairs as targets, The Wall Street Journal reports. And that figure is just half of the 240 people that the government is investigating, hedge fund managers among them.

“We’ve identified them, and now of course we have to build a case around that,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s David Chaves said. The roughly 120 “subjects”—the half of those under investigation whom the Feds do not necessarily believe have broken the law—could be asked to assist in the investigation, Chaves, who heads one of the two teams running operation “Perfect Hedge,” added.

Federal prosecutors have won 57 convictions or guilty pleas. A total of 66 people have been charged with insider trading over the past two-plus years.”

Don’t worry it is for business research purposes…

Full article

Servers will wipe their ass with his steak from now on…..

Watch

Not surprising at all….

Set aside Wisconsin’s Governor Walker for a moment – another crucial ‘unions vs. the people’ showdown is happening right now in New York.

Most of us have heard of mixed martial arts (MMA), the fastest growing sport in the world, and its largest organization, the Ultimate Fighter Champion (UFC).  Conservative radio host and best-selling author Mark Levin gushes it is “the greatest sport around.”  Of the 48 states with athletic commissions, MMA has been legalized in every single one – save for three:  Connecticut (though MMA is allowed within its Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun reservations), Vermont, and… New York.  New York?!  Seems odd that the home of millions of MMA fans, of Madison Square Garden, and of the most historic entertainment events, is one of the lone standouts.  The reason?  The unions.

“But why do unions, whose members would benefit from the legalization of MMA through added jobs and wages, oppose this legalization?,” you wonder.  Good question.

Writing for National Review last month, I touched upon the unions’ reasons for preventing MMA’s legalization:

Ever wonder why there’s never been an MMA match at Madison Square Garden, or anywhere in New York State? Thank the unions and their notorious strong-arm tactics. . . . As Lorenzo Fertitta [majority shareholder of the UFC’s parent company, Zuffa, Inc.] explained: “The fact that MMA is not legal in New York is solely because of the Culinary Union.”  Wait, what?!  Fertitta is referring to the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226, a 60,000-member union in Nevada representing those in the hospitality industry, mostly casino employees. Through Zuffa, the Fertitta brothers [Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta] are the majority shareholders of the UFC. Frank is also CEO/Chairman of Station Casinos Inc., the Fertitta family business started by his grandfather in 1976 with a mere 90 employees, which grew into a nearly $1 billion company with 13,000 employees — employees who have elected not to unionize, making Station Casinos the largest non-union gaming company in the country — the Wal-Mart of the gaming world, if you will.

Safe to say, the Fertittas are not on any union bosses’ Christmas list. For 30 years, the Culinary Union has tried unsuccessfully to unionize Station Casinos’ employees. So, in an apparent effort to put pressure on the Fertittas (or to exact a bit of retribution), the Culinary Union has made it a point to prevent MMA’s legalization, using its affiliates’ substantial political power in New York.

This past October, USA Today noted the unions’ relentless attacks on MMA: “As part of its campaign to pressure the Fertittas, the Culinary Union has tried to cut into their UFC business by going through government and political channels.”  (emphasis added)  The article recaps the unions’ tactics:  backing anti-MMA legislation in New York; calling on the FTC to investigate UFC for monopolistic practices [the FTC announced last month it was closing its investigation, having found nothing of concern]; a website focused exclusively on attacking UFC President Dana White; a petition calling on Fox to back away from its deal to broadcast UFC events; and demanding Anheuser-Busch pull its Bud Light sponsorship of UFC.

Their latest attack?

Read the rest here.

L.A. is imposing a condom law in association with porn flicks. The industry is threatening to leave CA and many 10s of thousands of jobs behind….

The dingo ate my baby case resurfaced again in a recent hash of fatal dingo attacks….

“BEIJING—Basketball star Michael Jordan sued a Chinese sportswear chain, saying it improperly uses the Chinese pronunciation of his name—the latest dispute over intellectual property in China.

Qiaodan Sports Company Ltd. has been profiting by illegally using “Qiaodan,” the Chinese version of his name, on its marketing materials and products since the 1980s, Mr. Jordan said in a prepared statement Thursday. Qiaodan is pronounced roughly as cheow-DEN. The suit, filed in China, also says Qiaodan Sports has improperly used his jersey number, 23.

Qiaodan Sports, based in the coastal province of Fujian, sells athlete-branded basketball shoes and jerseys in its 5,715 retail outlets in China and is preparing to raise 1.1 billion yuan ($175 million) in a public listing in Shanghai.

The company said it has the exclusive right to the Qiaodan trademark and is operating “in accordance with Chinese laws.” A Qiaodan Sports spokesman declined further comment.

“I feel the need to protect my name, my identity, and the Chinese consumers,” Mr. Jordan said in a video on a website devoted to his claims against Qiaodan Sports. “It’s not about the money. It’s about principle—protecting my identity and my name,” he said. Any damage award would be invested in promoting basketball in China, he said….”

Full article

The argument goes that the workers left are needed to wind down the company. Otherwise the company would have to pay more for consultants. Those who did stay on have already received higher pay to do so….

Noam Scheiber

For the past three years, Washington journalists and politicos have obsessed over a 57-page memo that Barack Obama’s incoming economic team prepared for him in late 2008. The document has achieved such totemic status for good reason: It decisively shaped the Obama administration’s initial response to the economic crisis. The memo outlined the president-elect’s options for dealing with the teetering banks, the cash-strapped automakers, and the country’s tidal wave of foreclosures. Above all, the memo laid out options for a massive stimulus package—the mix of tax cuts and government spending designed to end the recession and boost employment. The economic team presented the contents of the memo to Obama at his transition headquarters on December 16, 2008, at which point they collectively settled on a proposed stimulus of nearly $800 billion.

Last month, my friend and former colleague, Ryan Lizza, wrote a much-discussed piece in The New Yorker based on a copy of this and several other previously-unpublished memos. The piece and the corresponding memo described the stimulus options that Obama’s team—including Larry Summers, his top economic adviser, and Christy Romer, soon to be his chief White House economist—ultimately sent him. The options ranged from about $550 billion to just under $900 billion.

Intriguingly, Lizza also noted that Romer “was frustrated that she wasn’t allowed to present an even larger option,” suggesting that while the memo he obtained may have been the end of the story, it was far from the whole story.

Read the rest here.

via

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has called for the nation’s wealthiest people to pay more taxes, should “just write a cheque and shut up.”

“I’m tired of hearing about it,” Christie told CNN’s Piers Morgan in an interview that aired last night. “If he wants to give the government more money, he’s got the ability to write a cheque. Go ahead and write it.”

Christie, a first-term Republican known for a blunt and caustic style, has proposed a 10% income-tax cut for every New Jersey resident. Democrats who control the Legislature say his plan would favour the rich. A family with a US$50,000 annual income would pay US$80 less under his plan, while someone earning US$1 million would save US$7,200, Democrats say.

Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has urged Congress to raise taxes on millionaires to cut the U.S. budget deficit. In a New York Times op-ed last year, Buffett wrote that his federal income-tax bill was US$6.94 million, or 17.4% of his taxable income — a lower rate than any of the other 20 employees in his Omaha, Nebraska, office. He has said it is wrong that he pays a smaller share than his secretary does.

Carrie Kizer, Buffett’s assistant, didn’t immediately return an e-mail or telephone call seeking comment on Christie’s statements.

Christie’s comments — which have included calling a lawmaker “numbnuts,” urging reporters to “take the bat out” on a 76-year-old legislator and calling union leaders “political thugs,” — have made him a national figure.

Christie, who vetoed a bill to legalize gay marriage and wants to put it to a popular vote, told its supporters last month that blacks would have been happy to put their civil rights up for a referendum.

“People would have been happy with a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets of the South,” Christie told reporters Jan. 24 in Bridgewater.

He was accused of ignorance by leaders including Georgia Representative John Lewis, a civil-rights movement veteran who was beaten by Alabama state troopers. Lewis came to Trenton to denounce the governor.

“Casino/hotel titan Sheldon Adelson isn’t fazed by complaints that he’s trying to buy a victory for Newt Gingrich in the Republican presidential race.

The $25 billion man and his family already have committed $11 million to the former House speaker’s super PAC, Winning Our Future, and are expected to put in another $10 million soon, Forbes reports. That may just be the start of it, Adelson tells the magazine.

“Those people are either jealous or professional critics,” he said of the complainers. “They like to trash other people. It’s unfair that I’ve been treated unfair, but it doesn’t stop me. I might give $10 million or $100 million to Gingrich.”

Adelson doesn’t necessarily approve of the way campaign finance works, but he’s going to do what he has to do. “I’m against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections,” Adelson said….”

Full article

The alleged claim is over improper due diligence…not sure how that works against a hedge fund.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESEGRwnQW4k&feature=player_embedded

via Washington Post: 

Hostility and tensions rising….