Monday, August 11, 2014

Today's Teamster News 08.11.14

Teamsters
Teamsters reject contract with Washoe RTC operator  Reno Gazette-Journal   ...Public transit workers in Washoe County turned down a contract Sunday afternoon with MV Transportation, which manages the county's transit system for the Regional Transportation Commission...
Trade
Critical Moment to Stop The TPP & Other Rigged Trade Agreements (opinion)  The Real News   ...It is time to declare the TPP, TAFTA and the Services agreements as dead, develop a new approach to trade and begin to renegotiate past trade agreements like NAFTA that are doing ongoing damage to the economy, planet and people...
State Battles
The 'P3' dilemma: How effective are public-private partnerships?  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   ...Six months after Chicago inked the deal, the city’s inspector general conservatively estimated the city received $974 million less from the 75-year lease than it would have received by keeping the meters and operating them under the same terms it gave to the investors...
The War on Workers
Are Wages Really Rising?  Global Economic Intersection   ...The standard of living of most Americans continues to decline. Just as a house divided against itself cannot stand, neither can an economy where nearly half of its actors are losing purchasing power. It steadily becomes a house more divided. It’s bad economically and bad for society...
The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More.  New York Times   ...The industry complains of shortages of truck drivers, but in real terms tractor-trailer drivers made less in 2013 than they did a decade earlier...
Texas Energy Company Worker Killed in Egypt  Associated Press   ...An American employee of Texas-based energy company Apache Corp was killed last week in an apparent carjacking in the western Egyptian desert, officials said Sunday...
Pollsters: 'Everything is terrible'  Politico   ...Americans are also bummed out about the future in general, especially the economy. Things are so low that even an old favorite, sugar, polled poorly...
In the Future We'll All Be Renters: America's Disappearing Middle Class  new geography   ...Homeownership, which peaked in 2002 at nearly 70 percent, has dropped, according to the U.S. Census, to 65 percent in 2013, the lowest in almost two decade...
Why a $16 Billion Fine Is Chicken Scratch for a Big Bank  Alternet   ...Bankers fraudulently inflated a housing bubble. They became extremely wealthy as a result, but the U.S. housing market lost $6.3 trillion in value when the bubble burst. It had only recovered 44 percent of that lost value by of the end of 2013...
Miscellaneous
Want to meet a millionaire? Here's where to go  CNN Money   ...Looking to meet a millionaire? Head to Europe, where in some places nearly three in every ten people is one...
Personal Consumption Expenditures by State, 1997-2012 (Prototype Estimates)  Bureau of Economic Analysis   ...The prototype statistics show that total PCE rose in all states in 2012, but generally at a slower rate than in 2011. Growth was fastest in North Dakota at 11.5%, after growing 11.6% in 2011. PCE grew faster in 2012 compared with 2011 in Arizona, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Utah...