[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MAY I HAVE YOUR UNDIVIDED ATTENTION PLEASE!” Small guy, big mouth: Hes maybe 15, black, skinny kid, but his voice fills up the noisy New York City subway car and then some. “I am selling candy! I got Snickers! I got Peanut MMs! I am trying to make some money! This isnt for school, this isnt for a basketball team, this is for ME! So I can get more candy and MAKE MORE MONEY!” The straphangers appreciate his no-malarkey sales pitch and his entrepreneurial spirit. He does a bit of business, and a few people just give him a buck and skip the candy. His name is Will, and he is not turning down a dollar. But its a tough hustle: Accounting for the cost of his product and his subway pass, it takes him about three hours to earn $20 free and clear, an implied wage of $6.67 an hour–well under minimum wage. On the other hand, its tax-free, and he sets his own hours. Will wants to go to college–and then what? “Be an independent businessman.” Hes already that, and, if persistence really does pay, hes going to do fine for himself. Theres a whole weird little economy on the subway, from candy hustlers like Will to the Chinese ladies who sell pirated DVDs of movies that have just opened in the cinemas. There are acrobats and mariachi bands, good old-fashioned panhandlers, poets, preachers, and percussionists. Its all part of the famous entrepreneurial bustle of New York. But stay on that No. 4 train a few more stops, north of Harlem and into the Bronx, and that entrepreneurial energy evaporates. Not far from the Kingsbridge Road stop is the Eighth Regiment Armory, a fantastically out-of-place 575,000-square-foot brick castle. Its been a lot of different things over the years–barracks, homeless shelter, boat-show venue, a pre-creepified set for Will Smiths I Am Legend–but it currently is vacant, as are a lot of buildings in the Bronx. Passing by, late on a weekday morning, is a local who calls himself “C,” a black man as sturdily built as the armory itself. C very much wants a cigarette. This is a problem, because he is not currently in funds, in no small part because he does not have a job. In fact, at 35 years old, C has never held a job. His friends, acquaintances, known associates (C is a little foggy on whether hes on probation or parole, but hes got some known associates): no jobs, never really had them. His father? Do not ask C about his father. In fact, the only people C can think of who have jobs are women: His mother worked, the mother of his children works. He did know a woman who was dating a taxi driver once. C says he would like to work but is more of an independent businessman. He describes the informal work he has done as “this and that,” and says he would like to “have his own place,” a bar or a nightclub. But dont expect to see him selling candy on the No. 4 train anytime soon. Asked about the recently defeated plan to convert the gigantic fortress that looms over his neighborhood into a shopping mall, C says he hasnt heard about it. If the plan had gone through, Manhattan-based developer Related Companies would have received about $50 million in tax subsidies for a project that would have created as many as a thousand retail jobs and, during its construction, employed a thousand or more highly paid union hardhats. But the city council killed the project. The Bronx delegation demanded that Related enforce upon its leaseholders a requirement that all of the jobs in the mall pay at least $10 an hour, plus benefits, much more than the prevailing wage in the Forever21-and-food-court racket, to say nothing of the $7.25 minimum wage. So a $300 million project, and a couple of thousand new jobs in a neighborhood that needs them, never happened. Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr. infamously declared: “The notion that any job is better than no job no longer applies.” The New York Post pithily pointed out that when it comes to real jobs, Diaz has never had one–not in the private sector, anyway–and neither has any other member of the Bronxs city-council delegation: All are lifelong politicians, many of them having held elected offices or political appointments since their early 20s. Diaz himself has been an officeholder since he was 23 years old. Its good work, if you can get it. But theres not much other work to be had in the Bronx, where unemployment is currently at about 13.1 percent. Much of the Bronx is young and black or young and Hispanic. Nationally, the unemployment rate among blacks rose to 16.2 percent in the year-end numbers, while the rate for whites fell to 9.0 percent. For black youths, the numbers are startling: 50 percent for 16-19-year-olds, 26 percent for 20-24-year-olds. A study from the Community Service Society of New York puts actual work-force participation among black men 16-65 years of age in New York City at about 50 percent, and the number for young black men nationwide is just 40 percent.
BURNABY, British Columbia — Ableauctions.com Inc. (AMEX:AAC) (the “Company”) released a statement
today about its acquisition of SinoCoking, a coal and coke producer
based in central China.
“We are pleased to announce our acquisition of SinoCoking, a coal and
coke producer based in the Henan Province in the People’s Republic of
China,” said Abdul Ladha, Chief Executive Officer of Ableauctions.com,
Inc. The closing of the acquisition is scheduled to occur at the close
of business on February 5, 2010. Mr. Ladha further added “this
acquisition has provided our shareholders with a unique opportunity to
participate as equity holders in what we believe to be a company that
has good fundamentals and growth potential as a supplier of products of
vital economic importance within China’s fast-growing economy. Moreover,
the transaction allows our pre-acquisition shareholders to receive the
full liquidation value of our pre-acquisition business assets in
addition to a 3% aggregate stake in the reorganized company to be
renamed SinoCoking Coal and Coke Chemical Industries, Inc. We are
excited about the potential of SinoCoking to grow and build shareholder
value.”
Mr. Ladha, who has served as Chief Executive Officer of Ableauctions
since 1999, will step down as CEO on February 5, and will be succeeded
by Mr. Jianhua Lv, who is an initial founder and current President of
SinoCoking. In addition, on February 5, 2010, the current board of
directors of Ableauctions will step down and be succeeded by seven new
directors designated by SinoCoking.
Mr. Jianhua Lv, the incoming CEO of the Company stated “As a coal
producer and coke manufacturer, SinoCoking has been a significant
supplier of the vital commodities of thermal and metallurgical coal and
coke to industrial customers such as power plants, steel mills and other
industrial buyers in China since 1996. SinoCoking is a
vertically-integrated processor that uses coal from both its own mines
and that of third-party mines to provide basic and value-added coal
products to its client base. SinoCoking currently holds mining rights
for approximately 2.5 million tons of coal from mines located in central
China. SinoCoking began producing metallurgical coke in 2002, and since
then has expanded its production to become an important supplier to
regional steel producers in central China. Coke, which is an essential
ingredient in steel-making, is manufactured in SinoCoking’s on-site
facilities by heating selected coal with certain thermal and chemical
properties at extremely high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment.
For the year ending June 30, 2009, SinoCoking produced and sold 154,631
tons of coke, 55,360 tons of washed coal, and 72,923 tons of raw coal,
and generated $51 million in revenue from sales consisting primarily of
these products. During its 2009 fiscal year, SinoCoking had audited net
income of approximately $17 million on a GAAP basis.”
Mr. Lv went on to say “We produce essential products that power the
industrial growth of China – coal and coke, and we see this moment as
only the beginning of a long-term secular expansion. Currently, the
demand from our customers significantly exceeds our current production
capacity, and we think that demand from Chinese industrial purchasers
will continue to increase. We are investing heavily in building our
production capacity, and since we are a larger producer that utilizes
advanced manufacturing processes with less impact on the environment, we
enjoy strong support from the Henan provincial and local governments.
I just got an e-mail from my client. He has been watching the Massachusetts Senate returns closely–he says it reminds him a lot of what happened to him in 1994, when he was president. As you know he remains one of the smartest political minds around. He had a thought hed like to run by your client, whenever she gets the time–know shes busy with all of this Haiti stuff and other DepState business.
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