Free Republic

California's tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation, is heavy. The Register reported that per-person state and local taxes, fees, licenses and "intergovernmental revenue" amount to $8,634, ranking California 13th-highest among the states. California businesses fare worse, the Tax Foundation said, ranking 48th in tax climate, based on corporate, income, sales, property and unemployment insurance taxes. What's unsaid is the effect on individuals of extremely high corporate taxes. Companies not driven out of state or out of business are less likely to hire or expand, more likely to contract and struggle to provide for current employees...

NBC 5 has learned that Fort Worth-based American Airlines may cut between 10,000 and 15,000 jobs across the company. It is estimated that 1,000 of those jobs to be cut will be at the company's maintenance base at Alliance Airport in north Fort Worth. A meeting where AMR executives are expected to lay out the company's plan for moving forward began mid-morning Wednesday. The plan is expected to include layoffs, pension and pay cuts, and the possible closure of an airplane maintenance facility at Fort Worth's Alliance Airport. SNIP-------- American Airlines' parent company AMR filed for bankruptcy in November of...

MADRID – Thousands of passengers faced travel disruptions across Spain Saturday after domestic carrier Spanair canceled all of its flights late Friday night and prepared to file for bankruptcy protection. The collapse of the Barcelona carrier took place shortly after Qatar Airways walked away from talks to take over the airline after months of negotiations. "Due to a lack of financial visibility for the coming months, the company has had no option but to cease flying out of a duty of care for the safety of its operation and the well being of all concerned," Spanair said in a statement...

I’m so tired of the refrain that a critique of Mitt Romney’s work at Bain is “an attack on capitalism.” Capitalism means that you RISK capital, so that you will profit if things go well and you will incur a loss if things go poorly. Private equity firms, like Bain, are in the business of maximizing profit for investors (not to “create jobs” as characterized by Romney supporters), which is perfectly reasonable and legal. To do that, private equity firms often make investments then extract “consulting fees” and “special dividends” in excess of the original investment to ensure that no...

Link only - MF Global Clients May Lose in $700 Million Bankruptcy Fight

US Airways is reportedly drawing up plans to merge with AMR, the bankrupt holding company of American Airlines, Bloomberg reports. The move would fill a revenue gap for US Airways, while also helping fuel American's weakened hub system, which has been drained as it cut money-losing flights over the past several months. The Tempe, Arizona, based airline has already hired Barclays Capital and Millstein & Co. to advise it before bidding on American. However, it could be more than a year away from officially announcing an agreement, as it waits for AMR to navigate bankruptcy proceedings. The rumor follows speculation...

While nearly three months after the MF Global bankruptcy nobody still has any idea where the billion + in commingled client money has gone, nor why Corzine is still out and about walking freely, the former CEO of both Goldman, MF Global and New Jersey is rumored to be looking for office space at 40 Wall. Reports the WSJ:

Hostess Brands Inc. is preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as soon as this week, said people familiar with the matter, a move that would mark the second significant court restructuring for the Twinkie and Wonder Bread baker in the past several years. The privately held Irving, Texas, company, which employs roughly 19,000 people and carries more than $860 million in debt, has been facing a cash squeeze amid high labor costs and rising prices for sugar, flour and other ingredients, according to people familiar with the matter. Those costs together have proved higher than the company's roughly...

Beltsville-based Penn Camera Exchange Inc. announced on its website Wednesday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company will immediately close five retail locations: Laurel, Fair Lakes, Springfield, 18th Street NW and Pikesville, Md. The future is unclear for the three remaining stores — in Rockville Federal Plaza, Tysons Corner and 18th Street NW — but those locations will be holding clearance sales. Penn Camera's bankruptcy filing was not immediately available online. Company officials did not return requests for comment. "A dramatic decline in sales performance during the preceding holiday period has precipitated this action," the company's...

The same man who oversaw MF Global’s $1.2 billion in missing funds, Bradley I. Abelow, is also currently listed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website as the current chairman of the EPA’s Financial Advisory Board. SNIP Mr. Abelow also served as former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine’s chief of staff before Mr. Corzine went on to become MF Global’s CEO. Interestingly, current EPA Administrator Lisa Smith also previously served as then-Gov. Corzine’s chief of staff. Whether the Corzine connection played any role in Mr. Abelow’s appointment to the chairmanship of the EPA’s Financial Advisory Board is as yet unclear. Mr....

In an exclusive Human Events interview, the senior Republican on the Senate’s Agriculture Committee's Jobs, Rural Economic Growth and Energy Innovation subcommittee discusses his take on the MF Global bankruptcy scandal. “I have heard from several South Dakotans who were affected by the apparent fraud that occurred in the final days of MF Global before its collapse,” said Sen. John R. Thune (R-S.D.), who worked in the Small Business Administration​ under President Ronald W. Reagan. [Video of Thune's December 13 questioning Corzine is at the bottom of the article.] The firm’s Halloween bankruptcy was followed by the November 4 resignation...

Years after the banking system nearly collapsed from reckless mortgage lending, federal prosecutors have stayed on the sidelines, even as judges point out apparent wrongdoing. The federal government has pursued few criminal cases against major lenders or senior executives for the meltdown. Finding hard evidence is difficult, the Justice Department said. The government hasn't prosecuted dubious foreclosure practices deployed since 2007 by big banks and other mortgage-servicing companies. Meanwhile, foreclosure-related case files in just one New York federal bankruptcy court hold at least 12 promissory notes bearing evidence of recently forged signatures and illegal alterations, according to a judge's rulings....

I have received a few emails asking if I was still content with my decision to shut down my brokerage. Not only am I content, but after seeing the news that broke over the weekend, I am of the considered opinion that the entire financial blogging community should formally call for a general financial market strike. And I’m not kidding. A couple of things have happened regarding the MF Global mess that I don’t think got the attention they should have because they broke over the weekend. So let me fill you all in. First, all notions of personal property...

Newt Gingrich on Sunday reiterated his argument that there is something "profoundly wrong" with the United States' judicial system, and argued that the balance of power in American government should come down to "two out of three" branches of the government. In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," Gingrich continued to defend his controversial position that Congress and the president should have the authority to ignore the rulings of federal judges when they disagree with them. Citing what he describes as "extreme behavior" on the party of the judicial system, Gingrich proposes a system wherein "it's always two out...

California's pension system is living in a fantasy world where investment returns average 12.5% annually and there's enough money for everyone.Unfortunately that's not going to happen. A big study from Stanford Professor Joe Nation along with California Common Sense analyzed the need for major cuts to CalPERS, CalSTRS and UCRP.The largest union, CalPERS, has a 82% chance of a budget shortfall in the next 16 years.More highlights via Eric Savitz at Forbes: The June funded ratio, which measures assets to liabilities. is only 74% for CalPERS even using a high-rate of return assumption for its investments. Assume a 6.2% return,...

Copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas faced more problems Monday after a federal judge granted a defendant’s motion that Righthaven be placed under control of a receiver and that its copyrights be auctioned off, giving it nothing to sue or appeal over. U.S. District Judge Philip Pro granted the motion made by attorneys for defendant Wayne Hoehn, who said a receiver was needed to run the company and that its assets should be auctioned. That was after Righthaven failed to pay their attorney’s fees and U.S. Marshals were unable to round up enough Righthaven assets to cover their...

IT'S GROUNDHOG DAY at the US Postal Service: time once again for the familiar laments about how the agency's financial losses are surging, how demand for its services is plummeting, and how officials have no choice but to close local facilities, raise the price of stamps, and reduce delivery standards. Last week the Postal Service announced plans to cut $3 billion in costs by slowing down first-class mail service and eliminating about half of the country's 461 mail-processing centers. That would mean an end to next-day delivery of first-class mail. Although that might not seem like much of a threat...

We’ve already established that no one will go to jail over $40 billion turfing of the brokerage firm MF Global, one of history’s largest bankruptcies. MF Global died by the hand of the former Jon Corzine, the former golden boy at Goldman Sachs, the former Senator, the former Governor, the former Obama guru with a master’s degree from the University of Chicago; the sage with the Sixties beard wrapped in a custom-made Burberry suit and tie.   Like a lot of stories these days, Chicago works its way in there like a burr buried deep in someone’s hair since the 1960s.   ...

Our economic problems rightfully dominate the news. However, they are merely symptoms of a bigger, underlying problem: government. For many, the previous paragraph is heresy. They "know" that government is necessary and good. They "know" that government solves problems and brings order to the chaos that would prevail in its absence. "They" are wrong! Government has become little more than a carefully crafted myth based on propaganda disseminated by government itself. It has devolved into a scheme of plunder whereby the elites plunder the masses. It did not start that way, at least not so egregiously. Government transmogrified into a...

My Dear Extended Family, We all know bank’s balance sheets are cartoons due to FASB’s capitulation on the fair market value issue, that the euro financial leaders do not deserve the title leader, and that the Fed is the source of liquidity for Euroland in unlimited cheap dollar swaps, but there is more. That more is the first failure of a major clearing house. Clearing is the mechanism of all markets. It is the guts of the system. It is the engine under the hood of finance. It is the pulleys that turn inside the watch. It is basic to...

PARIS: Saying that he wanted to tell the truth to the French people, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday night that Europe could be "swept away" by the euro crisis if it does not change. He said that Europe would "have to make crucial choices in the next few weeks," and that France and Germany together were supporting a new treaty to tighten fiscal discipline and promote economic convergence in the eurozone. The European Union needs "an overhaul," Sarkozy said, to remain relevant and competitive, but he was vague about the details of what needs to be done. "If Europe does...

Earlier this month the Harrisburg, Pa., city council threw itself on the mercy of federal bankruptcy court, hoping to find a less onerous solution to its debt woes than the workout plans proposed by the state of Pennsylvania and by the city's own mayor. Last week, a bankruptcy judge mercifully threw the case right back out of court after finding that the filing by a majority of council members was illegal. "For Chapter 9 bankruptcy to work, all of the branches of a municipality must be on the same page," judge explained. The faith that council members put in the...

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — American Airlines' parent company is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it seeks to unload massive debt built up by years of accelerating jet fuel prices and labor struggles. The nation's third largest airline also said its CEO Gerard Arpey will step down. He's being replaced by Thomas Horton, currently the company's president....

American Airlines went bust this morning, which should have come as a surprise to no one who has followed the company and airline industry over the years. (The company recently denied bankruptcy rumors by stating that bankruptcy was "certainly not our goal or preference," which is about as close as a corporation will ever come to saying "Of course we're going to declare bankruptcy, you idiots, why are you even bothering to ask?") But the bankruptcy WILL come as a surprise to the millions of Americans who have repeatedly been exposed to one of the consensual hallucinations that bullish investors...

American Airlines' parent company, AMR Corp., announced Tuesday that it has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. The decision comes as the airline tries to "achieve a cost and debt structure that is industry competitive and thereby assure its long-term viability and ability to continue delivering a world-class travel experience for its customers," the company said in a statement Tuesday.

FORT WORTH, Texas – American Airlines and American Eagle's parent companies are filing for bankruptcy protection. AMR Corp. and AMR Eagle Holding Corp. said Tuesday that they filed voluntary petitions to reorganize, saying it's in the best interest of the companies and its shareholders.

A top Russian female newsreader who appeared to defiantly show US President Barack Obama her middle finger during a live newscast has been fired.

This was forwarded to me by a colleague…Great letter To: James W. Giddens, Trustee, SIPA Liquidation of MF Global, Inc. and Martin Glenn, United States Bankruptcy Judge From: Cathy Cuthbert RE: MF Global Heist I am a lucky, former MF Global client. Unfortunately, I’m not a multi-billionaire who got the memo. I had a modest account that was supplying me with a modest livelihood, when suddenly one Monday afternoon, my account was frozen, my livelihood was essentially gone and four years worth of trading profits vanished into cyber space. You might be interested to know that sitting on my desk...

Germany saw one of its poorest debt sales on Wednesday in what was seen as a failed auction by many market participants amid fears the eurozone’s debt crisis is spreading all the way to Berlin. Marc Ostwald, at Monument, said “I cannot recall a worse auction ... If Germany can only manage this sort of participation, what hope for the rest. Yields are at completely the wrong level.” Mr Oswald said the bid-to-cover ratio was only 0.65 times as the German debt agency sold just €3.644bn of its new 10-year Bund of the €6bn targeted. The Bundesbank retained a massive...

Nothing speaks to the out-of-control nature of government more loudly and clearly than the lavish pension benefits promised to public employees. The extravagance centers on their underfunded nature: The pensions’ benefits are defined — defined high — and underfunded or even unfunded as the employment occurs, leaving many states, metro areas, cities and counties with burdensome funding commitments at retirement. Many communities across the country now lurch towards bankruptcy. Similar benefits are nearly unheard of in the private sector . . . the only exceptions being where union bargaining, backed by government guns, force big companies to contract similarly self-destructive...

According to the official numbers just put out today by the United States Department of the Treasury, the U.S. government yesterday reached the dubious milestone of being a total combined fifteen trillion dollars in debt: Date                   Debt Held by the Public         Intragovernmental Holdings   Total Public Debt Outstanding 11/15/2011        10,314,468,105,168.02        4,719,139,150,752.30         15,033,607,255,920.32 Since Barack Obama was inaugurated as President of the United States, the total combined national debt has increased by approximately 4.4 trillion dollars, a staggering rate...

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) -- Sharon Bialek's former boyfriend said Monday the then-couple spent an evening with Herman Cain in the 1990s. That countered the GOP presidential candidate's earlier statements that he never met the woman who has accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior more than a decade ago.

Sharon Bialek’s fiance — who said he is her primary source of financial support — is unemployed and preparing to file for bankruptcy, according to Lake County court documents reviewed Tuesday by the Tribune. And in Cook County, lawsuits show she has been targeted by creditors who claimed she owed them thousands in unpaid rent, personal loans and credit card bills. In a round of TV interviews, Bialek, 50, said she had no financial reasons for coming forward and had not been promised a job in exchange for accusing Cain of groping her in a parked car 14 years ago....

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The Jefferson County Commission has just voted 4-1 to file an estimated $4.1 billion bankruptcy, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. The commission's action came after it spent approximately six hours over two days meeting with its lawyers to discuss legal options, including a Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing and a settlement with creditors on the county's $3.14 billion sewer debt. Commissioner Jimmie Stephens made the motion to file bankruptcy, which was seconded by Commissioner Sandra Little Brown. " "It is time to resolve this once and for all," Stephens said. Another factor in the decision appears...

It’s hard to take a victim seriously when she laughs as she tells her story of “victimhood.” Even though her voice broke briefly during the most explicit parts of the public statement, Sharon Bialek’s claims of sexual harassment by Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain were just another silly spectacle orchestrated by America’s most unscrupulous feminist attorney, Gloria Allred. Why do I discount Bialek’s story? I’ll answer with a few questions of my own. What was Bialek doing meeting Herman Cain in Washington, DC? What did she hope to achieve by a face-to-face meeting? If she were staying in New Jersey,...

CHICAGO— The fiance of a suburban Chicago woman accusing Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain of making a sexual advance says the woman stepped forward because she felt she had to. Sharon Bialek challenged Cain on Monday at a news conference in New York. Her fiance is 49-year-old Mark Harwood of Mundelein. He tells The Associated Press that Bialek told him about the alleged incident for the first time Friday.

In 2009, President Barack Obama said he didn't run for office to help out "fat cat bankers," but it appears that he has no problem with fat cat bankers --- or the fat cat law firms who represent them --- helping him. Monday night, Obama will attend a private fundraiser hosted by Dwight Bush, president of Urban Trust Bank, and his wife Antoinette, a partner at the international law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom. Skadden is the law firm hired to handle the bankruptcy of MF Global, the large Wall Street firm headed by Jon Corzine, former governor...

Senior executives at Solyndra collected hefty bonuses -- ranging from $37,000 to $60,000 apiece -- as the Fremont company bled cash and careened toward bankruptcy this summer. Bankruptcy documents filed in Delaware earlier this week reveal that more than a dozen senior executives at the defunct solar manufacturing company were awarded sizable quarterly bonuses April 15 and again July 8. Solyndra ceased operations in late August and filed for bankruptcy Sept. 6. About 1,100 employees were laid off without severance pay. The bonuses, awarded to more than a dozen executives, came on top of what were already highly competitive salaries....

Congress caused the mortgage crisis, not the banks. Permit denied for Occupy Madison due to public masturbation. Cops: School worker asked student to pose nude for picture.

Headline only as original source is Bloomberg News.

(Crain's) — The federal judge overseeing the Tribune Co. bankruptcy case shot down reorganization plans submitted by the Chicago-based media company and a dissident creditor group, threatening to appoint a trustee to oversee the case if they don't resolve it soon. Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2008 under the weight of $13 billion in debt, a year after the company was taken private in an $8.2-billion leveraged buyout led by real estate mogul Sam Zell, who became its chairman. In a decision that started with the parable of the scorpion that stings the fox carrying him across the...

Besieged broker MF Global filed bankruptcy today after a frantic effort over the weekend by CEO John Corzine to strike an out-of-bankruptcy sale came up short. MF Global had a tentative deal to sell assets to Interactive Brokers Group as of late Sunday, but the agreement fell apart as talks continued overnight, people familiar with the matter said. Discussions ended around 5 a.m. Eastern Time, one of these people said. MF Global had been considering filing just its holding company for bankruptcy protection and then executing the sale. That plan is now off the table, one of the people said....

On September 12, the pioneering Rep. Thaddeus McCotter introduced trailblazing legislation providing workers the freedom to choose personal savings and investment accounts to finance half of their future Social Security benefits. This legislation would completely solve the future Social Security financing problem, without cutting benefits or raising taxes, as officially scored by the Chief Actuary of Social Security. Indeed, because standard, long-term market investment returns are so much higher than what Social Security even promises, workers with personal accounts will enjoy higher rather than lower benefits. Moreover, the legislation would result in the greatest reduction in government spending in world...

Here's your final exam question in Middle Eastern studies: A mass of Coptic Christians marches through Cairo to protest the military government's failure to protect them from Muslim radicals. They are attacked by stone-throwing, club-wielding rowdies. Armed forces security personnel intervene, and the Copts fight it out with the soldiers, with two dozen dead and scores injured on both sides. Who is to blame? The full credit answer is: Benjamin Netanyahu, for building apartments in Jerusalem. If that's not what you wrote, don't blame me if you can't get a job at the New York Times. Rarely in the course...

Harrisburg City Council answered the state’s takeover threat by voting to seek Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protection Tuesday night, essentially adding the courts and more turmoil to the fight over the capital city’s fate. The same majority who voted down the state-sponsored Act 47 plan and Mayor Linda Thompson’s followup fiscal-recovery plan voted 4-3 to hire Philadelphia-area lawyer Mark Schwartz to fight the takeover and then 4-3 to file for bankruptcy as soon as possible. ... "Wake up, Harrisburg. Wake up and look around,” Smith said. “I’m tired of being bent over and spanked in the corner. We should have...

Just on radio. Friendly's has filed for bankruptcy. Sixty stores in Massachusetts closed today without notice to employees. No other states mentioned specifically.

Fears that the holding company for American Airlines, the fourth-biggest US carrier by passenger miles, will file for bankruptcy sent shares in AMR Corporation tumbling as much as 35 per cent on Monday. Management at Fort Worth-based AMR, which owns the regional airline American Eagle as well as American strongly denied the claims. American is the only big US carrier not to have passed through a Chapter 11 in the past decade. That has led to suggestions the company will voluntarily file for bankruptcy in order to renegotiate labour – and in particular pilot costs – despite holding a cash...

Of the 7,800 bonds in the U.S. secured by state or local governments, only 25 are currently speculative-grade, or junk-bonds, rated by Moody’s Ba1 or lower. Only municipalities received such low ratings, and the reasons vary. Moody’s report, “A Look at Speculative-Grade Local Governments in the Wake of the Recession,” details the economic issues that have lead each into junk-bond territory. 24/7 Wall St. has analyzed the nine worst cities, whose credit rating is Ba2 and lower. Each of these municipalities faces a unique situation, Moody’s explains, and the list is not indicative of a greater trend. Most municipalities, Moody’s...

By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG LEHIGH ACRES, Fla.—Joseph Reilly lost his vacation home here last year when he was out of work and stopped paying his mortgage. The bank took the house and sold it. Mr. Reilly thought that was the end of it. In June, he learned otherwise. A phone call informed him of a court judgment against him for $192,576.71. It turned out that at a foreclosure sale, his former house fetched less than a quarter of what Mr. Reilly owed on it. His bank sued him for the rest. The result was a foreclosure hangover that homeowners rarely anticipate...

Facing a dramatic decline in its property values, The Church at South Las Vegas stopped paying its mortgage in May and filed for Chapter 11 protection in July after its lender filed suit. The church owes approximately $7.6 million on property now worth only $2.4 million. Pastor Benny Perez told media that the default was a strategic move in order to preserve member donations—totaling almost $650,000 according to court filings—given to expand church facilities. The church has the money to make its monthly payments (it has about $1 million in reserve funds) but believes it is bad stewardship to have...