Tag Archives: Grabfest

Oil and gas drillers use complex schemes to stiff retired landowners for royalties

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“From Pennsylvania to North Dakota, a powerful argument for allowing extensive new drilling has been that royalty payments would enrich local landowners, lifting the economies of heartland and rural America. The boom was also supposed to fill the government’s coffers, since roughly 30 percent of the nation’s drilling takes place on federal land. Over the last decade, an untold number of leases were signed, and hundreds of thousands of wells have been sunk into new energy deposits across the country. But manipulation of costs and other data by oil companies is keeping billions of dollars in royalties out of the hands of private and government landholders.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/13/oil-and-gas-drillers-rob-elderly-of-royalties-they-owe-retired-landowners/

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Attorney General hits up Donald Trump for donations while probing his school

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“Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s campaign hit up Donald Trump and his pals for contributions while he was investigating the real-estate mogul’s for-profit trade school for illegal business practices.  The investigation began in May 2011 and, for more than two years, Trump aides claim Schneiderman’s office told them the case was ‘very weak’ and would ‘go away.’  While the probe was under way, Trump aides said their boss, his family and his associates were repeatedly approached for thousands of dollars in campaign donations by Schneiderman’s political operation.  Trump aides say now they’re being informed Schneiderman’s office is filing a civil suit against the school.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/ag_pump_trump_amid_ed_probe_IpsaauJ2PtJEm3ILeYUj3L

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Escaping the death spiral of Blue State taxes

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“Debt-ridden California needs every cent it can squeeze out of its taxpayers. The government unions that control the state through the Democratic Party are the highest paid state government employees in the nation. Despite being near the bottom in student academic achievement, California is near the top on per-pupil spending. And that $68 billion high-speed train to nowhere that the state is building in the Central Valley won’t pay for itself.  When a state appeals court recently ruled that a 19-year-old tax break for small businesses was unconstitutional, the state’s Franchise Tax Board began going after small business investors for an estimated $120 million in back taxes.”

http://washingtonexaminer.com/escaping-the-death-spiral-of-blue-state-taxes/article/2534607

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German beer brewers in decades-long price fixing scandal

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“Bosses of large breweries in the country have admitted to investigators that a number of firms arranged to raise prices of their premium beer brands, according to reports in German magazine Focus.  Until now, it was believed the price-fixing arrangements spanned only a two-year period from 2006 to 2008.  Documents seen by Focus reveal that during an interrogation in January, Volker Kuhl, head of the Veltins brewery, said large breweries would pass the price-rising agreements along to smaller producers. The companies involved now face fines in the hundreds of millions of euros, Focus reported.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/10255074/German-brewers-in-decades-long-price-fixing-scandal.html

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The Gulf is Still Struggling, But BP’s Done Paying

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“Three and a half years after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig dumped 205 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean, leaving 11 workers dead and damaging hundreds of miles of shoreline, the Gulf Coast is still recovering. The company has spent or earmarked $42.4 billion so far for cleanup, compensation payments and environmental fines. Its profits have suffered, and it has sold $38 billion in assets to help cover the cost. BP filed suit last week against the U.S. government for a ban on awarding the company federal contracts. BP already has $1.34 billion in contracts in place to supply fuel to the government, including the military.”

http://billmoyers.com/2013/08/21/bp-tires-of-footing-the-bill-for-gulf-coast-disaster/

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Dick Bove: US Assault on JPMorgan Is ‘Coordinated from Above’

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“The various government legal moves against JPMorgan Chase represent a coordinated assault on the nation’s biggest bank, says star bank analyst Dick Bove at Rafferty Capital Markets. Given that eight government agencies are now suing JPMorgan over various issues, apparently including four to six lawsuits from the Justice Department: ‘What is it about this company which makes it unique relative to all other American companies, that all of these agencies come down on this company at the same point in time?’ Bove said.  ‘This has to be coordinated by someone, and it has to be coordinated by someone above each one of the individual agencies.'”

http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Bove-government-JPMorgan-assault/2013/08/19/id/521168

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Seattle $15/Hour Minimum Wage Being Pushed

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“Washington already has the nation’s highest state minimum wage at $9.19 an hour. Now, there’s a push in Seattle, at least, to make it $15. That would mean fast food workers, retail clerks, baristas and other minimum wage workers would get what protesters demanded when they shut down a handful of city restaurants in May and others called for when they demonstrated nationwide in July. So far, the City Council and mayoral candidates have said they would consider it in the famously liberal city. One said, however, that it may not be soon.”

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/campaign-seeks-push-seattle-minimum-wage-15-19997290

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Google Bus Hate: Give It a Rest

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“Some San Franciscans define themselves by what they oppose. This spring they found a new focus for their outrage: the Google (GOOG) bus. Since 2007 the company has been using big, Wi-Fi-equipped, white-and-black coaches to collect employees around the Bay Area and bring them to the Mountain View Googleplex, 45 minutes south of the city. In early May there was a public protest against them at a Mission District transit stop. More than 20 cops were on hand—roughly a 1:1 ratio with protesters. The high point? Two slackers smashing a Google bus piñata.”

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-30/google-bus-hate-give-it-a-rest

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‘Eminent Domain for the People’ Leaves Wall Street Furious

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“Richmond became the first California city last week to move forward on a plan that has been floated by other California municipalities to ask big bank lenders to sell underwater mortgage loans at a discount to the city (if the owner consents), and seize those homes through eminent domain if the banks refuse. The city has committed to refinancing these homes for owners at their current value, not what is owed. City officials launched this process by sending letters in late July to 32 banks and other mortgage owners offering to buy 624 underwater mortgages at the price the homes are worth, not what the owners owe.”

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/07-4

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Chesapeake Energy drops legal fight over natural gas leases in New York state

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“Landowners in Broome and Tioga counties, who had leased acreage to Chesapeake over the past decade, had battled the pioneering oil driller in court to prevent it from extending the leases under their original terms, many of which were agreed to long before a boom in hydraulic fracturing swept the United States. ‘I can renegotiate with other companies now,’ said Frank Laskowski, who owns land in Broome County. ‘Before that we were tied up with Chesapeake at $3 an acre and 12.5 percent. Most people are getting much more than that.’ One landowner in Broome County said he now hoped to secure up to $3,000 an acre.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/06/chesapeake-energy-drops-legal-fight-over-fracking-leases-in-new-york-state/

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