Let me start by wishing the Tampa Bay Rays good fortune and good luck–you gotta love youth and enthusiasm. That team is going to be a royal pain in the ass for the next few years.
In good news, some miscreants are getting a serious slap in the pocketbook:
A federal judge has awarded $4.6 million in back pay and damages to 36 delivery workers at two Saigon Grill restaurants in Manhattan, finding blatant and systematic violations of minimum-wage and overtime laws.
In a decision dated Monday and released on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Michael H. Dolinger of United States District Court in Manhattan found violations of federal and state wage laws in awarding up to $328,000 to some of the deliverymen. On issue after issue, Judge Dolinger ruled against Saigon Grill and its owners, Simon and Michelle Nget, saying they paid $520 a month to many deliverymen who worked more than 260 hours each month. This meant their pay came to less than $2 an hour, far less than the federal and state minimum wage.
On the global front, stocks slid significantly in the Asian and European markets, oil dropped below $70 a barrel, and look for the Dow to lose a bunch today, too. But, beyond the ups-and-downs of the markets, this has a bigger potential to shove the global economy into a deeper slump:
China’s powerful economic machine is losing steam, raising significant concerns for many businesses that are counting on the Asian nation to help them ride out the global financial crisis.
The Chinese government said Monday that economic growth in the third quarter slowed sharply from a year earlier to 9%, the lowest level in more than five years.
China’s economy expanded by 11.9% in all of 2007. But weakening demand for Chinese factory goods from U.S. consumers and the slumping Chinese property market have taken a toll on exports and investments — two big engines of China’s economy.
"China’s latest economic numbers will be disheartening for observers who hoped that China’s growth would substitute for slowing demand from developed countries," said Jing Ulrich, managing director of China equities for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Hong Kong.
