Bellingham DTC Summer Kick-off

See you there!

Also, on Monday, 4/8, the Board of Selectmen will be hearing a proposal in the uper chamber at town hall from the developers, Crossroads Massachusetts and Foxwoods Resort. Please come out and show your support for stopping the casino in its tracks, and please wear red to show solidarity.

“The link between subsidies, consumption of energy and climate change has added a new dimension to the debate on energy subsides,” David Lipton, IMF first deputy managing director, said in prepared remarks at a Washington event hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

. .  .

The White House and congressional Democrats want to remove about $4 billion in annual tax provisions awarded to the oil-and-gas industry.

Oil-and-gas interests, and their Republican allies, say the provisions are cost-recovery mechanisms and business deductions that other industries also claim.

In 2011, nations doled out roughly $480 billion of “pre-tax” incentives, which are “when consumers pay less than supply cost of energy,” Lipton explained. They are generally found in emerging economies, according to an IMF report released Wednesday. 

And “post-tax” subsidies — the sum of pre-tax and tax incentives — hit $1.9 trillion. About 40 percent of those subsidies were awarded in advanced economies, with the U.S. leading the way at $502 billion.

Today, it’s getting a makeover: A study published in Science reconstructs global temperatures further back than ever before—a full 11,300 years. The new analysis finds that the only problem with Mann’s hockey stick was that its handle was about 9,000 years too short. The rate of warming over the last 100 years hasn’t been seen for as far back as the advent of agriculture.

Like it or leave it, casinos are coming to Massachusetts. Jim and Margery spoke with casino “turnaround artist”, Scott Butera. Butera is the chief executive of Foxwoods, and has been reportedly eyeing  valuable land in Massachusetts.

FYI:  Jim Braude and Margery Eagan joined WGBH’s BPR (Boston Public Radio) as co-hosts in February.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/04/hsbc-pay-top-earners

HSBC paid 204 of its staff more than £1m in 2012, a year when Britain’s biggest bank made profits of $20.6bn (£13.7bn) despite being fined £1.2bn by the US authorities for helping Mexican drug barons launder money through the financial system.

At the start of a week in which Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are both expected to publish the pay of their highest earners for the first time, HSBC disclosed that 78 of those who took home more than £1m were based in the UK.

Britain’s biggest union, Unite, described the scale of the pay as an “outrage” given that some of its members at HSBC take home £14,000 a year and are facing changes to their pension schemes and holidays.

The bank paid $200m of corporation tax in the UK on the profits, which were lower than the City expected, causing the shares to fall 2.5% to 710p.

Swiss voters have approved measures to curb executives’ pay and outlawed golden parachutes that can result on directors pocketing multimillion-pound payoffs.

Exit polls suggested almost 68% of those who turned out for Sunday’s referendum, and all of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, were in favour of the measures, which also include giving shareholders a binding vote on executive pay, banning golden hellos and banning bonuses that encourage buying or selling firms. Boards of directors that fail to comply face jail terms.

In Zurich, Switzerland’s financial capital [ . . . ] analysts were suggesting that an overwhelming majority of 71% of voters approved the Minder initiative.

“The people have decided to send a strong signal to boards, the federal council [Swiss government] and the parliament,” Thomas Minder, the businessman and Swiss senator behind the measure, told the state broadcaster, RTS. Minder said he was not surprised by the projected results.

. . .

According to the proposed law, executives of listed companies who failed to abide by the new rules could face up to three years in jail and fines amounting to up to six years’ salary.

The Swiss government and the upper house of parliament opposed the initiative, warning it could provoke an exodus of big companies.

But the grassroots opposition is taking no chances, gearing up for a town-wide referendum which is the next step after a decision from the Board of Selectmen to proceed. I’m volunteering for the effort, heading up the voter outreach sub-committee. We will be using my organizing software, I’ve installed a stand-alone copy with just the data for Milford here:

http://tehans.com/cgi-bin/org/login.cgi

We are meeting in the Milford library this coming Wednesday, 3/6, at 7 pm to begin the process. Join us!

“Even vice presidents have agreed. Although often overlooked, one of the duties of the vice president is to act as president of the Senate, including issuing advisory opinions about internal Senate procedure. Vice Presidents Nixon, Humphrey, Rockefeller, and Cheney all confirmed the inherent constitutional power of a majority of Senate members to enact rules changes.

As Nixon described it: “The right of the current majority of the Senate at the beginning of a new Congress to adopt its own rules cannot be restricted or limited by rules adopted by a majority of the Senate in a previous Congress.”

currently ”The Gun Report”, topic seems to have started 18-Jan . . . didn’t review much beyond that date . .  .