30 False Fronts Won Contracts for Blackwater - NYTimes.com

Shadow Army

Blackwater Won Contracts via Web of Companies - NYTimes.com: "Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.

While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency, according to former government and company officials. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates, according to a United States government official."

Crammed Down The Throat: The Mediagasm (VIDEO)

Workers Absorbed Increases in Health Insurance Costs - NYTimes.com

Very Important! Most people will see an increase as related to the Healthcare Law. They should scrap that idea. For years employers has been passing the cost to workers - thus the reason for the Healthcare Law or the 2003 Drug bill. The transfer of cost helps the bottom line, while hit the employee in the pocket!

Workers Absorbed Increases in Health Insurance Costs - NYTimes.com: "As health care costs continue their relentless climb, companies are increasingly passing on higher premium costs to workers.

The shift is occurring, policy analysts and others say, as employers feel more pressure from the weak economy and the threat of even more expensive coverage under the new health care law.

In contrast to past practices of absorbing higher prices, some companies chose this year to keep their costs the same by passing the entire increase in premiums for family coverage onto their workers, according to a new survey released on Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group."

Officials Assess Damage From Blast in Gulf of Mexico - NYTimes.com

Officials Assess Damage From Blast in Gulf of Mexico - NYTimes.com: "An oil platform exploded and caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday morning, forcing 13 workers overboard from the rig. Officials were scrambling to see if any oil had seeped into the Gulf.

Coast Guard officials said there was no sign of an oil leak near the damaged platform late Thursday afternoon, despite earlier reports that a sheen had been sighted.

“The boats and aircraft on scene cannot see a sheen,” said Capt. Peter Troedsson, the chief of staff for the Coast Guard’s Eighth District. He could not explain an earlier report of a visible layer of oil — which he said came from one of the response vessels belonging to the platform’s operator, Mariner Energy — but simply said that Coast Guard responders could not spot any signs of oil.

A Mariner official spoke more definitively, rejecting the characterization of “explosion” used by the Coast Guard and others."

FT.com / Companies / Oil & Gas - US oil industry protests against drilling moratorium

FT.com / Companies / Oil & Gas - US oil industry protests against drilling moratorium: "Thousands of oil industry workers rallied on Wednesday to lift the moratorium on new deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and head off new taxes and punitive measures in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Companies ranging from Chevron to Apache bussed in up to 5,000 employees to the Houston convention centre to underline to Washington the industry’s contribution to the country."

Productivity declines 1.8% in second quarter - MarketWatch

Yes, second time Productivity falls. Why? You can't keep working people to the bone without losing Productivity - no more gains!

The productivity of American businesses fell a revised 1.8% in the second quarter, twice as much as the government initially reported. Last month, the Labor Department originally estimated that productivity fell 0.9% to mark the first decline in five quarters. Yet worker output grew at a slower pace based on newly revised data. Real output grew just 1.6% in the second quarter, compared to the prior estimate of 2.6%. Hours worked rose at a 3.5% annualized rate - the fastest in four years.

Productivity declines 1.8% in second quarter - MarketWatch

U.S. Department of Defense Announces Latest Contract Awards

Defense contracts are Government spending.


U.S. Department of Defense Announces Latest Contract Awards

Trident Systems, Inc.*, Fairfax, Va., is being awarded a $48,512,191 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the procurement of technology solutions for persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance on Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle platforms.

The Boeing Co., Oklahoma City, Okla., is being awarded a $19,121,714 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to provide contractor engineering technical services including on-site proficiency training, providing technical guidance and advice to resolve unusually complex technical problems, and providing technical expertise related to AV-8B, C-17, C-32, C-40, F/A-18, F-15, F-22 and KC-135 aircraft. The estimated level of effort for this contract is 183,323 man-hours.

T.B. Penick & Sons, Inc., San Diego, Calif., is being awarded $15,407,072 for firm-fixed price task order #0003 under a previously awarded multiple award construction contract (N62473-10-D-5412) for design and construction of a bachelor quarters at San Clemente Island, Calif. Three two-story buildings will be constructed that will provide 53 two-person units for accommodations totaling 106 personnel. Work will be performed on San Clemente Island, Calif., and is expected to be completed by February 2012.

Raytheon Technical Services Co., LLC, Indianapolis, Ind., is being awarded a $14,831,456 firm-fixed-price contract for the Phase II production of 188 AN/ALE-47 forward firing dual dispenser pods for rapid installation on CH-53D/E helicopters.

The More CEOs Make, The Worse They Treat Workers, Says A New Study

CEO pay has been blasted for increasing risk to the economy, being out of proportion to ordinary wages and being unrelated to actual company performance. And, according to a new study, a high salary may actually make your company's CEO meaner. (Hat tip to Harvard Business Review)

In the study's white paper, "When Executives Rake in Millions: Meanness in Organizations,"professors from Harvard, Rice and the University of Utah argue that rising income inequality between executives and ordinary workers results in "power asymmetries in the workplace such that top executives come to view lower level workers as dispensable objects not worthy of human dignity."

Econ Times: CEO layoff leaders also led in pay in '09

The HIll: CEOS earn big salaries amid large layoffs

The heads of firms that laid off the most workers during the recession earned nearly $12 million a year on average, 42 percent more than other chief executives at S&P 500 firms in 2009, according to a report released Wednesday.

CEO's of the 50 firms that laid off the most workers earned a combined $598 million in 2009, according to the 17th annual executive compensation survey produced by the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank.

A GLIMMER FOR HOPE!

Manufacturing is great under President Obama.

Manufacturing reports that showed growth in the United States and China helped propel stocks on Wednesday, providing an upbeat start to a new month.

Investors on Wall Street took notice, and the market charged ahead more than 200 points shortly after the open. It never looked back after the Institute for Supply Management manufacturing survey of hundreds of companies showed surprising growth in its index after previous regional surveys appeared weak.

Investors, he added, “saw the two largest economies in the world reporting better P.M.I. surveys,” referring to purchasing manager indexes. “They were able to breathe a lot easier after they saw those two reports. There was widespread relief.”

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 254.75 points, or 2.54 percent, to 10,269.47. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 30.96 points, or 2.95 percent, to 1,080.29, while the Nasdaq composite index gained 62.81 points, or 2.97 percent, to 2,176.84.

Leaders Call for Peace as Mideast Talks Begin

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority appeared together Wednesday with President Obama, who urged the leaders to produce "lasting change" during their peace talks in Washington.

In remarks that followed, Mr. Netanyahu said that he "came here today to make peace," and "didn't come here to find excuses or make them." And he addressed Mr. Abbas directly, saying that they could not correct the failures of the past, but could work to improve the future.

Mr. Abbas then struck similar themes, calling on Israelis and Palestinians "to live as neighbors, partners" while calling for an independent Palestinian state. He said he thought it would be possible to achieve a settlement “within a year” despite a troubled history between the Israelis and the Palestinians, including what he described as   “the historical injustices of 1948” and “the occupation that started in 1967.”

Mr. Obama’s one-on-one meetings earlier with Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas in the White House Oval Office began under the cloud of the violent attack Tuesday on the West Bank, claimed by Hamas militants, which left four Israeli settlers dead.