Logan employees hold rally for higher wages, union

Mobilizing to form a union in a quest for "livable wages," service workers at Logan International Airport rallied yesterday, flanked by Democratic pols, including gubernatorial candidates Attorney General Martha Coakley and state Treasurer Steve Grossman.

Employees who work for contractors secured by airlines, including cabin cleaners, wheelchair assistants and baggage handlers, make as little as $8 an hour with few, if any, benefits, and are fighting for increased pay and a "livable wage," said Roxana Rivera, district leader for SEIU 32BJ.

"Workers have been playing by the rules," she said. "They have been coming to work every day to keep the airport running, now the only thing we are asking for is decent wages."

Coakley told the crowd that service employees deserve to "make a living wage and get ahead just like everybody."

Grossman said, "Let's talk to Massport. Let's talk to public officials. Every public official who is not standing with us today is standing on the other side."

Massport in a statement said it is "sympathetic to the concerns raised regarding working conditions and take them seriously. This matter is primarily one between private employers — hired by the airlines — and their workforce."

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Live large in Danvers 
brick estate

A million dollars buys a lot less house these days, and it's become the going rate for two-bedroom condos in Boston's most desirable neighborhoods.

But with this brick estate at 9 Kenmore Drive in Danvers, you get a lot of house for $1.15 million — six bedrooms, six bathrooms, an attached three-car garage and almost 10,000 square feet of living space in­cluding the finished basement.

The custom Mediterranean-style house, located in a choice neighborhood near St. John's Prep, features five marble fireplaces, oak floors with inlays, tall windows and has a showpiece entry foyer and two double-height great rooms. It's set on more than a half-acre that backs up to town-owned conservation land.

The beautiful back yard features a large slate veranda leading down to a built-in heated swimming pool with a cabana. The front and back yards are landscaped with fig, peach and apple trees and many flowering bushes.

Since it was built in 1992, the home has been in the family that owned the now-closed Despina's Place, a Greek/pizza eatery on Mass. Ave. in the Back Bay.

"This isn't a house that was built to be sold, but for someone to live in for a lifetime," said owner George Tzantyos, whose relative, original owner John Gikas, passed away in 2009.

The house can support a large extended family or someone who wants live-in help, as its finished basement has a full kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, cedar closet and several bedrooms. There are twelve heating zones and central air conditioning.

It's not the easiest house to sell, admits listing agent Gail Tyrrell of Re/Max Advantage in Salem, who recently reduced the price from $1,430,000. Although it was built with high-­quality finishes, the 1990s-era colored bathroom fixtures look outdated.

"Buyers are looking for the latest and greatest finishes," Tyrrell said. "But this large home has everything else a buyer could want, all the high-end bells and whistles. To reconstruct this home today would cost well over $2 million."

But even if the kitchen could use some freshening up, it's spacious — with lots of cabinets, a central island, newer wall ovens and electric cooktop, and a glass-­enclosed breakfast room with views out to the back yard.

The soaring barrel-­vaulted grand foyer has granite floors and a mahogany bridal staircase with a large crystal chandelier.

Corinthian columns on either side of the foyer lead to formal living and dining­ rooms with inlaid hardwood floors, crown molding and floor-to-ceiling windows. The living room has a marble fireplace and the dining room a large crystal chandelier. There's also a mahogany-­lined private library with another marble fireplace.

There's a great room off the foyer with 25-foot vaulted ceilings, a marble fireplace and glass doors out to the veranda and pool and a second vaulted great room off the kitchen that also opens to the veranda.

"It's a house that can hold lots of people," Tzantyos said. "The original owner did a lot of entertaining here."

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Kim Kardashian and Kanye West buy big suburban mansion

We know we're a bit behind the 8-ball on this but a complicated computer snafu tied our digital hands for the last nearly 24 hours. However, in the interest of keeping up the celebrity real estate Joneses and just in case any of the children somehow missed it, celebrity gossip juggernaut TMZ swears that reality television supernova Kim Kardashian has somehow convinced her high-minded rapper husband Kanye West to drop twenty million bucks on a freshly constructed mansion in the same family friendly, equestrian oriented and guard gated Hidden Hills community where her momager Kris Jenner already lives is a large but much smaller mansion.

Don't none of ya'll misunderstand Your Mama as Hidden Hills naysayer, 'cause we're not. Just because it's not our particular cup of suburban real estate tea doesn't mean it's not a much touted, well-groomed and exceedingly affluent enclave long favored by the rich and/or famous. Should they choose, Mister and Missus Kardashian can invite neighbors who Jennifer Lopez, Drake, Leann Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, Nicolette Sheridan, and Jessica Simpson to their housewarming party and it will no doubt be a fine place to bring up their directionally named baby.

• BUYERS:Kim Kardashian and Kanye West
• LOCATION: Hidden Hills, CA
• PRICE: (reportedly) $20,000,000
• SIZE: 15,667 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 8 full and two half bathrooms.

The 3.01-acre spread, originally listed in April 2013 and last listed for $20,995,000, was previously owned by rock 'n' roll royal Lisa Marie Presley but her former mansion was torn down a few years ago to make way for a sprawling compound that includes a stone-faced manor house lovingly described in digital marketing materials as a "French Country masterpiece."

The unquestionably stately abode has 8 bedrooms, 8 full and 2 half bathrooms including a house-sized master suite with private retreat, dual bathrooms, extensive closets and dressing areas, fitness room and a private terrace with spa. Three of the mansion's eight fireplaces are in the formal living room, formal dining room and custom paneled library. Less formal family and entertainment spaces include a three island kitchen, family room, home theater with upholstered walls and a suede-walled game room with wet bar.

The fully landscaped estate has two swimming pools, two spas, two barbeque centers, two vineyards, three fountains, a sport court and rose garden, over an acre of lawn and a gated motor court bigger than a 7-11 parking lot. In addition to the main house there's a 1,050-square-foot entertainment pavilion as well as a secluded pool house/guest house with fireplace and bathroom.

Kanye still owns a minimalist apartment in lower Manhattan and a contemporary art-filled abode in the Hollywood Hills he's had on and off the market for years -- it's not currently listed on the open market -- while Kimmy sold her Bev Hills bachelorette pad in February 2013 for $3.9 million. So the scuttlebutt goes, once the full-scale and no-doubt supremely price renovations are complete, K-K intend to flip the mock-Med manse in the Bel Air Crest community they bought in January 2013 for $9 million.

(C) 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Market Basket workers keep faith, but feel $$ pinch

After their third consecutive day of booing potential applicants away from Market Basket job fairs, protesters claim they are winning — but acknowledged the prolonged dispute is putting pressure on their families.

"If they end up hiring all of the two dozen people who made it inside today they can put one of them at every third store and see how well that works out for them," said Steve Paulenka, a recently fired 40-year supervisor who has been on the front lines of the dispute. "I was here both Monday and Tuesday, and I don't think that there were 20 people who went in over those two days."

Angel Rivera, 32, a personal care attendant from Lawrence, made the trip to yesterday's fair at an Andover Market Basket warehouse with his girlfriend but left after he spotted the charged-up mob of people picketing.

"All of this mess here, it's not worth it. I just wanted extra work," he said.

But Jeandri Lizardo, a 17-year-old Lawrence High senior, braved the boos to fill out her application.

"My mom dropped me off and since I saw the angry mob over there, I snuck my way in to go into the office," she said. "I do need the job, and it was their decision to be angry."

The embattled company remained mum yesterday on whether the search for replacements is paying off. Repeated calls to Market Basket management spokespeople were not returned yesterday. The company had advertised an email address for applicants who were unwilling to face the protesters.

Market Basket warehouse workers and drivers are feeling the pinch since they left their jobs July 18.

"They are the ones who have made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us," said Tom Trainor, a fired grocery supervisor.

Gary Hendrigan, 56, a warehouse driver, said he walked off the job out of loyalty to deposed CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, but he's concerned for the financial wellbeing of the younger warehouse workers, some of whom have babies and small children.

"Right now I have enough faith that this is going to work," Hendrigan said. "I have a good savings account. My father taught me well. I can hang in there for a while. Some of the younger guys can't."

Michael Perez, 27, a fired five-year poultry selector at the Andover warehouse, said he and the rest of the "chicken room" workers were lining up to support the protesters because "they're like my family" while lamenting the budget crunch the dispute has caused at home.

"I've got two kids and my girlfriend's pregnant. ... It's tough because I'm not well off, but I'm gonna stick it out because I know Artie will take care of me when I go back," Perez said. "You've got this one-percenter who seems to think that just because his pockets are big he can just take over and bully all of us because we're little guys. We want our boss back. We want our CEO back. He's the guy who helps me take care of my two kids."

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Partners posts $34M loss

Partners HealthCare yesterday tied a $34 million quarterly loss to the state's disastrous implementation of Obamacare, and an industry group warned that other health plans are struggling to survive as the state tries to fix the failed website.

"It's been fairly severe," Partners Chief Financial Officer Peter Markell told the Herald. "We're talking with the state and hoping we can get these problems fixed. It's a major league issue."

Partners is losing approximately $1.5 million a month as the state scrambles to relaunch an Obamacare website in time for fall open enrollment. The original site crashed and burned shortly after it went live last October, and some 251,280 Bay Staters are now on free transitional Medicaid insurance at a cost to taxpayers of $173 million.

Partners operates Neighborhood Health Plan, which insures 325,700 patients.

The Massachusetts Association of Health Plans yesterday warned Partners is hardly alone in suffering losses related to the state's failed implementation of Obamacare. Health plans' losses had already been accelerating because of unexpectedly high medical and pharmaceutical costs, said president Lora Pellegrini.

"Compounding this is the failure of the state's website, the creation of temporary coverage and the unbudgeted costs the (managed care organizations) have incurred to support the IT and operational requirements needed to ensure that residents have access to coverage during open enrollment this coming November."

Pellegrini added the costs "go beyond any reasonably budgeted losses" the health plans could absorb.

"They are increasingly being asked to do much more with much more limited resources," she said. "They cannot continue to sustain year-over-year losses of this magnitude."

Partners, meanwhile, also blamed its quarterly loss on an influx of 61,000 additional MassHealth patients to Neighborhood Health who generated "substantially higher" medical claims, leading to a cost increase of $28 million.

Partners attributed $10 million in costs to a "breakthrough" Hepatitis C drug that the state has not yet agreed to cover.

Markell called on state officials to increase rates.

"There's no way we're getting actuarially sound rates," Markell said.

Secretary of Administration & Finance Glen Shor told the Herald the state couldn't corroborate the claim that the MassHealth influx has led to higher than expected costs.

"We're working with them to better understand what is driving their financial performance," he said.

"Once again it highlights the turmoil that's being caused by the changes due to the ACA in Massachusetts as people switch plans, as people sign up who didn't have coverage before," said Joshua Archambault of the Pioneer Institute. "It only exacerbates the costs of the implementation because of state officials' errors."

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Obama indicates opposition to Internet 'fast lanes'

When President Obama spoke at the U.S.-Africa Business Forum on Tuesday, he was asked about his position on net neutrality, the rules of the road for the Internet that are pending before the FCC.

At the center of the debate is whether the FCC will pass rules that will allow Internet providers to strike deals allowing content companies to gain speedier and better access to the consumer, known as paid prioritization or "fast lanes."

Asked about the topic, Obama said, "One of the issues around net neutrality is whether you are creating different rates or charges for different content providers. That's the big controversy here. You have big, wealthy media companies who might be willing to pay more but then also charge more for more spectrum, more bandwidth on the Internet so they can stream movies faster or what have you.

"And I personally -- the position of my administration, as well as I think a lot of companies here is you don't want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to various users. You want to leave it open so that the next Google or the next Facebook can succeed."

Groups like Move On and Credo cited the remarks as meaning that Obama favors banning paid prioritization altogether. "This is significant progress in the fight to restore and protect net neutrality," MoveOn said in a letter to supporters. "If we seize this moment, it could be a turning point."

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal would prohibit commercially unreasonable practices by Internet providers, a standard that critics say would be too weak to prevent paid prioritization deals. So Wheeler also is asking for public comment on whether the FCC should ban paid prioritization outright, or even reclassify the Internet as a telecommunications service. The latter would give the FCC greater regulatory oversight.

(C) 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Everett cleanup report on hold

A report that would detail how a contaminated site in Everett would be cleaned for a $1.3 billion Wynn casino will not be available to the state Gaming Commission before it makes its Boston-area license decision, after the state Department of Environmental Protection granted a request to extend a deadline for a year.

The "Phase IV" report was due June 15, but The DeNunzio Group — which has an option agreement to sell the Mystic River land to Wynn for $35 million — petitioned DEP to extend the deadline to June of next year, saying cleanup plans "could vary" if the site is picked for a casino. DEP approved the delay June 9.

The report will detail how Wynn's $30 million cleanup plan will be implemented, including how dirty soil would be excavated, how dust will be monitored, and how contaminated material would be managed. Wynn Resorts said its environmental impact report filings address many of those questions.

"There's no mystery as to what would have been in their Phase IV," Wynn project manager Chris Gordon said of the site's owners, who could not be reached for comment. "I don't think that the commission is missing anything."

The commission votes Sept. 12 to award the license to Wynn or Mohegan Sun, which is eyeing a casino at Suffolk Downs in Revere.

Commission spokesman Hank Shafran said the panel is satisfied with the cleanup details filed to date and that "the entire process will be carried out under the watchful eye of a licensed site professional."

"The commission is confident that he or she, acting under extensive and comprehensive regulations — and with DEP's oversight — will assure that the cleanup is done carefully and properly," Shafran said. "The commission does not need to see the Phase IV plan to have that assurance."

But Cindy Brooks, an environmental cleanup expert and founder of Greenfield Environmental Trust Group, said the detail contained in a Phase IV report is important when weighing the feasibility of a development on tainted land.

"That is essentially a full cleanup plan," Brooks said. "If you're going to move ahead with a land-use development scenario, in a perfect world, you would have all of that information. From a public policy standpoint, I think it's best to know what you're signing up for, and what a quasi-public entity is authorizing."

DEP spokesman Joe Ferson said the agency granted the request because the site's owner "is in the midst of a real estate transaction which, to the best of our knowledge, could not be finalized until the deadline."

Wynn's site on the Mystic River contains arsenic and lead in soil and groundwater from its decades as a Monsanto chemical site.

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Asia stocks fall on Russia-Ukraine concerns

MUMBAI, India — Worries over Russian troops amassing near the Ukraine border sent most Asian stock markets lower Wednesday.

KEEPING SCORE: Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.1 percent to 15,154.65 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 0.6 percent to 24,498.32. The Kospi in Seoul shed 0.4 percent to 2,058.73 and China's Shanghai Composite gave up 0.5 percent to 2,313.78. Markets in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Australia and India also lost ground.

UKRAINE JITTERS: Asian traders were following the lead of Wall Street, which dropped after news reports of a buildup of Russian troops on the Ukraine border and comments from a Polish politician who said Russia is poised to invade or militarily pressure Ukraine's eastern border. The developments come after the most recent round of sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. and Europe. Russia has reportedly called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

ANALYST TAKE: Evan Lucas, market strategist at IG in Melbourne, Australia said if Russia increases its presence in eastern Ukraine, then "buyers of all things risk will disappear fast as this is an undefinable event with an undefinable outcome for markets." Energy stocks in particular have been hard hit and this will be the industry to "watch over the next few days as more information flows out of Europe around Russian military positioning."

EYES ON OIL: Benchmark U.S. crude for September delivery was up 20 cents to $97.50 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. With winter a few months away, Europe's recovering economy remains dependent on Russian natural gas for heat and electricity. Germany imports nearly all its natural gas from Russia, and France also gets a significant amount of its energy needs from Russia. "Europe's economy is far more exposed to Russia than the U.S.," said Randy Frederick, a managing director at Charles Schwab.

WALL STREET: The Dow lost 139.81 points, or 0.8 percent, to 16,429.47, the lowest level for the index since mid-May. The Standard & Poor's 500 lost 18.78 points, or 1 percent, to 1,920.21 and the Nasdaq composite fell 31.05 points, or 0.7 percent, to 4,352.84.

CURRENCIES: The dollar fell to 102.54 Japanese yen from 102.61 late Tuesday. The euro dipped to $1.3368 from $1.3371.

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German factory orders decrease in June

BERLIN — German factory orders were down in June compared to the previous month due to a decrease of large orders.

The Federal Statistics Office said Wednesday that industrial orders were 3.2 percent lower than in May, when they also fell by 1.6 percent.

Orders from inside Germany dropped 1.9 percent and those from countries outside the euro zone fell by 4.1 percent.

New orders from other countries in the 18-nation Eurozone fell by 10.4 percent.

The Federal Statistics Office said that geopolitical developments and risks were a likely cause for the decrease in new orders and that they expected only moderate development in the coming months.

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S&P: Wealth gap is slowing US economic growth

WASHINGTON — Economists have long argued that a rising wealth gap has complicated the U.S. rebound from the Great Recession.

Now, an analysis by the rating agency Standard & Poor's lends its weight to the argument: The widening gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else has made the economy more prone to boom-bust cycles and slowed the 5-year-old recovery from the recession.

Economic disparities appear to be reaching extremes that "need to be watched because they're damaging to growth," said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P.

The rising concentration of income among the top 1 percent of earners has contributed to S&P's cutting its growth estimates for the economy. In part because of the disparity, it estimates that the economy will grow at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the next decade, down from a forecast five years ago of a 2.8 percent rate.

The S&P report advises against using the tax code to try to narrow the gap. Instead, it suggests that greater access to education would help ease wealth disparities.

Part of the problem is that educational achievement has stalled in recent decades. More schooling usually translates into higher wages. S&P estimates that the U.S. economy would grow annually by an additional half a percentage point —or $105 billion — over the next five years, if the average the American worker had completed just one more year of school.

By contrast, S&P concludes, heavy taxes that would be meant to reduce inequality could remove incentives for people to work and cause businesses to hire fewer employees because of the costs involved.

The report builds on data from the Congressional Budget Office, the International Monetary Fund and academic economists to explain how income disparities can hurt growth. Many consumers tend to become more dependent on debt to continue spending, thereby worsening the boom-bust cycle. Or they curb their spending, and growth improves only modestly, as it has during the current recovery.

Tax data tracked as part of the World Top Incomes Database project reveal just how much the economic chasm has expanded.

An American in the top 1 percent of earners had an average income of $1.3 million in 2012, the most recent year for which data are available. Average income jumps to $30.8 million for the top 0.01 percent.

Adjusted for inflation, the top 0.01 percent's average earnings have jumped by a factor of seven since 1913. For the bottom 90 percent of Americans, average incomes after inflation have grown by a factor of just three since 1917 and have declined for the past 13 years.

Yet not all economists agree on how much, or even whether, the wealth gap slows growth.

Harvard University economist Greg Mankiw wrote in a 2013 paper that "the evidence is that most of the very wealthy get that way by making substantial economic contributions, not by gaming the system."

But S&P challenges the notion that a rising tide automatically will lift all boats:

"A lifeboat carrying a few, surrounded by many treading water, risks capsizing," it argues.

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