News

Could out-of-touch actor Alec Baldwin’s tweet of pique become the "let them eat cake" of the living wage revolution? Like Marie Antoinette playing milkmaid, Baldwin became one with the men who make a living driving horse carriages in Central Park, but then given the entire park to transverse, they don't block the one-percenters' above-ground travel to fancy lunches at 5-star restaurants. ⟶

Jin Youzhi, a retired primary school teacher and half-brother of Henry Pu Yi, China's last emperor, died on Friday in Beijing. Also born in Beijing, six years after Pu Yi's abdication in 1918, Mr. Jin was 96 years old. He had lived a simple life as an educator, raising five children with his first wife Jin Yuting, the daughter of an imperial official. His three sons and two daughters survive him. ⟶

Thomas Minder has been vindicated, and that may not make Swiss investment bankers happy. Having been rebuffed in his attempts to get UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland) chairman Marcel Ospel to curb banker compensation at the bank’s annual meeting in 2008, Minder conceived a law to do so, and it came into effect on April 1st.
Under the new law, all the country’s listed companies face binding shareholder votes this year on executive compensation. Shareholders will decide if, on aggregate, executives’ 2014 bonuses are egregious, as well as if base salaries planned for 2016.
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LEE Kuan Yew, who led the tiny island outpost of Singapore during the half-century from the end of British colonial rule to become the first-choice of many business and financial investors in Asia, died at Singapore General Hospital this morning. In what Mr. Lee often referred to as a First World oasis in a Third World region, the country's citizens enjoy widespread prosperity and and exceptionally good governance. ⟶

One of the Republican Party's fastest-rising stars, Representative Aaron Schock of Illinois has decided to resign his seat in Congress at the end of the month amid enquiries into financial and ethics issues. The 33-year old lawmaker from Peoria was one of the top fundraisers in the Republican House and had won a spot on the powerful Ways and Means Committee. ⟶

Leonard Simon Nimoy, who became known to decades of television and movie viewers for his performances in both as the half-human, half-Vulcan science officer Spock, died Friday, 27 February 2015 in Los Angeles. Who would have guessed that a child born in a Yiddish-speaking home in Boston of Jewish immigrant parents from the Ukraine would grow to achieve nearly cult-hero status among generations of Trekkies as the logical Mr. Spock? ⟶

King Abdullah bin Abdullaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia died on Friday, 23 January 2015 in Riyadh. Believed to have been born in 1924, he would have been 90 years of age. The royal family moved quickly to assure a smooth transition of power in a nation that is a Western ally, as well as the world’s largest exporter of oil, and the religious center of the Islamic faith. Abdullah’s half-brother, Crown Prince Salman who is 79 years of age, announced in a televised statement that the king had died and that he had assumed the throne. ⟶

Former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo died of heart failure at the age of 82 at his home in Manhattan. Coming as it did just hours after the inauguration of his son Andrew as Governor of New York State for a second term, his passing was no doubt another high note for a father who was among the longest-serving governors in state history. After a brush with professional baseball, Mario Cuomo found his milieu in the law and later in politics, putting to excellent use his competitive personality, persuasive debating skills and engaging style of oratory. ⟶

Members of the NYPD chose to turn their back on the elected leader of the New York City at the funeral of an officer killed in the line of duty, marking yet another chapter in their misguided show of disdain for the will of the NYC electorate. Mayor DeBlasio was delivered to his office with a mandate for sweeping change by a margin of over 50 points in the polls just one year ago, in November 2013. ⟶

Governors Andrew Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey found themselves unable to resist the pig's dinner represented by the loosely-regulated joint state pork-barrel, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Disgusting as it may be, the pig-fest is a long-standing tradition among governors of the two states, who use it's $7.8 billion budget as a prep-kitchen for the division of pork between their respective supporters, and neither seems prepared to give an inch out of respect for their citizens. ⟶