The New York Times [no link], for all its problems, can still do good reporting, one example being its coverage of unions using environmental regulations in California to try to pressure developers into signing "agreements pledging to use union labor."


"If they refuse," reports Todd Woody, "they say they can count on union groups to demand costly environmental

The difference in unions using greenmail and blackmail, says Sherk, is that in greenmail "unions use government bureaucrats instead of armed thugs to intimidate businesses." And "it happens repeatedly."

Companies that are victims of greenmail should stand up to union shakedowns. While refusing to unionize won't allow companies to avoid the snarl of environmental rules, it will improve their chances to operate their businesses at lower costs and provide investors with better returns.

A greedy seller -- one who priced his tickets too high -- was less likely than other sellers were to sell them two weeks before the game. Hence he had to resort to much deeper discounts than others did as game day, and the potential worthlessness of his assets, drew near. The larger the number of seats available in the secondary market, and the more transparent that market is, thanks to the Internet, the more likely it is that greed will be punished.

To give the greedy their due, they perform a service: By overpricing, they preserve an eve-of-game supply of tickets for persons willing to pay a premium for last-minute impulse purchases.

The grading system is based on 16 or 17 different factors, such as how long the company has been in business, whether it responds to and resolves complaints, how serious the complaints are and whether advertising raises “concerns.” Cox said the current grading system has been tested and modified since the original one developed by the BBB of the Southland, which serve Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

"We cannot, we must not, and we will not let our auto industry simply vanish," President Obama said at the White House.

"What we are asking is difficult," he said. "It will require hard choices by companies. It will require unions and workers who have already made painful concessions to make even more. It will require creditors to recognize that they cannot hold out for the prospect of endless government bailouts."

The remarks come a day after the administration ousted GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and rejected the restructuring plans that GM and Chrysler had hoped would lead to another infusion of government cash. Instead, the White House is giving GM 60 days to come up with a strategy for viability. Chrysler has a month to wrap up a partnership with Italy's Fiat SpA.

GM is expected to hold a news conference Tuesday morning to respond to the White House's rejection of its restructuring plan, a person familiar with the plans said Monday.

The administration says a "surgical" structured bankruptcy may be the only way forward for GM and Chrysler, and President Obama held out that prospect Monday.

[David Dietze, chief investment strategist at Point View Financial Services,] said that investors were also concerned about the message that they were hearing from governments. In Europe, over the week, stronger countries refused to come to the aid of smaller, struggling governments. And out of Washington, he said, the message continues to be inconsistent. The Senate has delayed confirmation of some members of the administration’s economic team, and the government has yet to value the toxic mortgage assets it has accepted from financial institutions.

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HSBC Holdings, the global British bank, fell 20 percent after saying it would seek to raise nearly $18 billion in new capital from shareholders and shut down its American consumer lending business.

“It’s pretty despondent everywhere,” said Dwyfor Evans, a strategist at State Street Global Markets in Hong Kong. “O.K., there are signs that some of the leading indicators have stabilized to some extent, but it’s at a very, very low level, and we’re not seeing corporate investment picking up, or consumers starting to spend again — in other words, the traditional mechanisms by which economies come out of a recession are absent at this time.”

Economic data and company earnings in recent weeks have eroded hopes that a gradual recovery would start to materialize during the second half of the year. If, as seems increasingly likely, a tangible recovery will not come until 2010 at the earliest, Mr. Evans said, “that means corporate earnings will remain extremely soft for quite some time.”

Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s State of the Union speech and his budget.

He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.

That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.

Raising the marginal tax rate on successful earners, capital, dividends, and all the private funds is a function of Obama’s left-wing social vision, and a repudiation of his economic-recovery statements. Ditto for his sweeping government-planning-and-spend ing program, which will wind up raising federal outlays as a share of GDP to at least 30 percent, if not more, over the next 10 years.

American International Group (AIG: 0.4299, -0.0721, -14.36%) and the federal government will announce a major restructuring of the insurance giant’s government bailout Monday morning that will commit the Treasury Department to invest up to $30 billion in new equity in the company if it needs it, a person familiar with the negotiations told FOX Business.