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LONDON – Britain’s High Court ruled Monday that a planned strike by British Airways cabin crews was unlawful, stopping the planned lengthy walkout just hours before it was due to begin.

BA said that flights over the next few days will still be disrupted because it is too late to unwind contingency plans already put in place to cope with the planned 20-day walkout by members of the Unite union.

But it said it aims to restore a full flying program at London’s Heathrow airport by the weekend, as long as the volcanic ash cloud that has shut airspace in recent days doesn’t cause further problems.
It is the second time in less than six months that BA has successfully averted a strike by Unite by claiming voting irregularities in a High Court claim; a planned Christmas and New Year walkout was halted the same way.

BA urged Unite to negotiate an end to the increasingly acrimonious dispute over pay and working conditions that had led to the planned walkout.

“We hope all sections of Unite, including the leaders of the cabin crew branch Bassa, will take this opportunity to pause and focus on achieving the early and peaceful end to this dispute which the traveling public and all our employees want,” the airline said in a statement.

Unite, which represents around 90 percent of BA’s 12,000 cabin crew, said all strikes would now have to be called off.

The union’s national office Steve Turner told reporters after the ruling that its balloting methods were lawful and that it would immediately appeal the court decision.

“It’s an affront to democracy and our members and we will be fighting back tomorrow,” Turner said.

The dispute between BA and its workers shows no sign of a breakthrough, with no positive reports from separate talks earlier Monday between union leaders, airline management and government officials.

The union pushed ahead with a strike in March despite a new offer from the airline, costing BA around 45 million pounds ($65 million). BA retaliated by taking away staff travel perks and taking disciplinary action against some 50 workers, leading Unite to accuse airline management of intimidation.

BA chief executive Willie Walsh said earlier there was “absolutely no way” he would intervene in disciplinary cases that the union said were now holding up the prospect of a deal.

BA said that no staff had been suspended for going on strike. Of 27 individuals that had been investigated after allegations mainly of bullying and intimidation, seven were dismissed for series cases of misconduct, the airline said. Another 20 had returned to work, 15 of whom received written warnings, it added.

Before the court ruling, BA had said it planned to fly more than 70 percent of its customers over the strike period, using leased planes and crew as well as BA cabin crew who decide not to take part in the walkout and staff reassigned from other jobs at the carrier.

The proposed strike dates — May 18-22, May 24-28, May 30-June 3 and June 5-9 — fell over a busy British school summer vacation period, a long weekend and the run-up to the football World Cup in South Africa, which begins on June 11.

Walsh has repeatedly warned that the disputed changes to work practices, including fewer staff on long-haul flights and a yearlong pay freeze, are necessary for BA to survive in the post-financial crisis climate.

The company has been hit hard by the downturn because of its heavy reliance on premium fare passengers on the trans-Atlantic route. As many leisure and business travelers seek lower cost options, there are fears that its core business will never fully recover.

Company calamities like the ones playing out at firms such as BP, Goldman Sachs and Toyota do more than just impact a firm’s reputation and bottom line. They also do a number on employees.

It’s been nearly a decade, but Shirley Green still remembers vividly the pain and anguish she felt when her former employer Qwest Communications faced disaster.

The company announced sweeping layoffs in 2000, the stock plummeted in 2001, and CEO Joseph Nacchio soon resigned amid allegations of fraud. He was convicted of insider trading in 2007.
Company crisis leaves many workers facing insecurity, a loss of control and disillusionment in a corporation that they were once proud of, management experts said. And that is a recipe for even more disaster because employee morale suffers.

Unfortunately, many employers facing adversity forget about its impact on the rank-and-file.

“In a crisis situation, many companies focus externally only” on things such as public relations and a firm’s stock price, said Christine Probett, a management and human resource professor at San Diego State University.

“If there is no internal communication, employees expect the worst and productivity drops significantly while employees speculate on what might happen,” she said.

Addressing employee concerns
Toyota spokeswoman Celeste Migliore said that when the automaker began recalling vehicles late last year and earlier this year, there were a lot of questions from employees. “It was not so much a morale problem but concern for the company,” she said.

As a result, the company held town hall meetings; allowed employees to ask questions of the executive staff through online forums; and instituted an internal website in February offering up-to-date information on what was happening to workers and dealers.

Boosting employee enthusiasm can be difficult after “hypercrises,” said Patrick Maggitti, an assistant professor of management at Villanova School of Business and director of the university’s Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship Center.

A study co-authored by Maggitti called “Leadership in Hypercrisis: Leading in the Face of a Shaken Culture” offered examples of past hypercrises that severely impacted workers:

* In the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, Exxon employees were stigmatized and experienced a degree of shame for working for a huge company that others saw as uncaring about the environment after 11 million gallons of oil spilled into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. It was one of the largest environmental disasters U.S. history.
* In the late 1970s, Ford Motor Company used a cost-benefit analysis to make decisions regarding safety designs on the Pinto model following reports that such vehicles were susceptible to fire in a collision. The company calculated that the cost of modifying Ford vehicles was $87.47 million dollars more than the estimated cost of the 180 deaths, 180 burn injuries, and 2,100 burned cars they estimated would result if the modifications were not made.

il prices on Monday fell to their lowest point so far this year and are now down about 20 percent in just two weeks as investors worry about the ripple effects of a debt crisis in Europe.

There is fear in both equities and commodities market that economic weakness in Europe could spread to the U.S. and hurt the global recovery. A drop in the euro has hurt the case for investing in oil.

The turnaround in oil prices has been sudden — crude hit an 18-month high of $87.15 a barrel during trading on May 3. It settled Monday at $70.08 after dipping as low as $69.27. The plunge is similar to the fall from mid-January to early February when prices fell from $84.95 to $69.50 per barrel.
Prices in many markets in the U.S. will be $2.75 per gallon or lower by next week, said Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service.

Kloza said the only losers from lower crude prices will be oil producers, but they still will make plenty of money at current prices.

Gasoline prices fell 0.5 cents overnight to a national average of $2.867 per gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and OPIS. Prices have dropped 4.1 cents in the past week and 6.2 cents since peaking May 6. Prices remain 55.9 cents higher than a year ago, but the gap is narrowing.

If oil prices remain around $70 per barrel, Kloza said pump prices could average about $2.60 to $2.65 per gallon, with some parts of the U.S. around $2.50 or so.

In its weekly report on gasoline prices released late Monday, the Energy Information Administration said the national average for a gallon of gasoline fell 4.1 cents to $2.864.

Oil prices have tumbled in the past two weeks on the European debt crisis and as supplies of oil continue to grow. The debt crisis has weakened the euro, which hit a four-year low against the dollar Monday.
On Monday, benchmark crude for June delivery dropped $1.53, or 2.1 percent, to $70.08 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That followed a plunge in the June contract of $2.79, almost 4 percent, to $71.61 on Friday.

The lower oil prices weighed on the stocks of some major oil producers for most of Monday. Shares of Exxon Mobil, the nation’s biggest oil company, were down nearly 2 percent while shares of ConocoPhillips dropped nearly 3 percent before rallying with the broader market late in the trading session.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has done nothing to slow the drop in crude prices and, so far, has not interfered with tankers carrying imported crude to Gulf ports or those taking refined products from there to other parts of the country. There is concern though that the spill could eventually slow shipments if vessels must be scrubbed of oil before they reach port.

In other Nymex trading in June contracts, heating oil fell 7.54 cents to $1.9852 a gallon, and gasoline fell 8.77 cents to $2.0431 a gallon. Natural gas rose 8.6 cents to $4.398 per 1,000 cubic feet.

The Air Transport Association — the industry’s main trade group — claims the rule violates federal law and reverses a decades-old system that kept labor disputes from hindering commerce.
The rule approved last week by the National Mediation Board would recognize a union if a simple majority of workers who cast ballots decide to unionize. The old rule required a majority of the entire work force to favor unionizing. That meant workers who didn’t vote were counted as “no” votes.

Unions expect the rule change to help organize thousands of flight attendants, baggage handlers and gate agents at Delta Air Lines Inc., and a host of other smaller carriers.

Advocates of the rule change say it is more consistent with democratic elections, where the outcome is decided by a majority of those who vote. The new system would be similar to union representation procedures already followed by most other companies.

The ATA is seeking a federal injunction to prevent the new rule from taking effect on June 10.

Several major carriers who belong to the ATA notably declined to join the lawsuit, including American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways. Those carriers are already mostly unionized.

Robert Siegel, an attorney for the airline association, said the National Mediation Board had rejected changing the rule on four previous occasions over the last three decades. The Supreme Court has twice upheld the right of the board to keep the old rule.

The lawsuit argues that nothing has changed since those previous decisions, other than President Barack Obama appointing Linda Puchala — the former head of a flight attendant union — to a seat on the three-member board, shifting the balance of power.

Siegel said the board “acted with a predetermined mind” shortly after the AFL-CIO pushed for the change. The lawsuit claims the board’s decision coincided with efforts to organize workers at Delta.

Microfinance is the provision of financial services such as loans, savings, insurance, and training to people living in poverty. It is one of the great success stories in the developing world in the last 30 years and is widely recognized as a just and sustainable solution in alleviating global poverty.

The industry began by providing small loans to emerging entrepreneurs to start or expand businesses. Opportunity International was one of the first nonprofit organizations to recognize the benefits of providing capital to people struggling to work their way out of poverty. Over the years, with Opportunity leading the way, the microfinance sector has expanded its financial service offerings to better meet client needs. Along with providing more flexible loan products and business and personal development training, Opportunity offers savings and insurance to help clients effectively navigate the daily hardships they face. Without these services, clients are continually at risk of slipping back into poverty because of unforeseen circumstances.

Microfinance can help create a world in which the poor have fair access to economic opportunities and the hope to move beyond poverty.
Microfinance organizations make it a priority to serve the particular needs of women, since a staggering 70 percent of all those living in extreme poverty are female. Women are often excluded from education, the workplace, owning property and equal participation in politics. They produce one half of the world’s food, but own just one percent of its farmland. Nearly 85 percent of Opportunity’s loan clients are women. While Opportunity gladly extends loans to men, the organization believes the greatest opportunity for interrupting cycles of extreme poverty come from microfinance programs that target female entrepreneurs. When women improve their circumstances, they also improve the lives of their children. By investing in nutrition and education, they help to create a better future for their children and their communities.

Despite the success of life-transforming microfinance services, the World Bank says that the industry is not close to meeting the demand. Five hundred million people living in poverty could benefit from a small business loan and only one-third of the world’s population has access to any kind of bank account. The lack of access is particularly severe in sub-Saharan Africa where the World Bank estimates that microfinance is reaching only a small percentage of the economically active population. In sub-Saharan Africa’s poorest countries, less than 10 percent of the population has an account with a financial institution. In response, Opportunity has committed to building scalable, sustainable and accessible banks throughout the developing world to provide loans, training, savings and insurance products tailored to the specific needs of each region.

As the microfinance industry continues to mature, there is a danger that it will drift toward a more secure client base. It is critical that microfinance organizations continue to focus on those with the greatest needs – those who have been displaced, those in rural areas, those who traditional institutions consider unbankable. Maintaining that focus, microfinance can help create a world in which the poor have fair access to economic opportunities and the hope to move beyond poverty.

March 8 (Bloomberg) — U.S. regulators are encouraging public pension funds that control more than $2 trillion to inject capital directly into the banking system by buying failed lenders, said people briefed on the matter.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is trying to attract pension funds that want to buy stakes or assets of distressed bank-holding companies, according to two of the people. Direct investments may allow public retirement funds to reduce fees for private-equity managers, and the agency to get better prices for distressed assets, the people said. They declined to be identified because talks with regulators are confidential.
Oregon’s retirement fund may contribute $100 million as regulators seek “the support of state pension funds to solve the crisis surrounding ongoing bank failures,” Jay Fewel, a senior investment officer at the Oregon State Treasury, said in a presentation made at the fund’s Feb. 24 meeting. New Jersey’s pension fund may also participate, said Orin Kramer, chairman of New Jersey’s State Investment Council.
The FDIC shuttered 140 lenders last year and expects the tally may be higher in 2010. Regulators have avoided signing up private-equity firms as rescuers on concern that they might take too much risk. Pension funds, whose 100 largest members manage $2.4 trillion, could provide capital to acquire deposits and outstanding loans from collapsed banks, according to the people.
Welcome Mat
“The FDIC is constantly looking at structures where we can get the greatest opportunity to tap into capital that we have not had the success reaching through previous disposition methods,” FDIC spokeswoman Michele Heller said in an e-mailed statement. “We welcome and work with all investors.”
Current rules don’t prohibit pension funds from buying failed banks. Until now, they have typically chosen to invest through private-equity firms using limited partnerships, which gives pension funds little to no control over the day-to-day management of the investments. They also pay management fees levied on the amount of money committed as well as a percentage of any profit.
“We’ve been examining a broad range of alternatives to take advantage of what I believe are attractive transactions coming out of the FDIC,” said Kramer at New Jersey’s State Investment Council. New Jersey’s pension system faces a shortfall of about $46 billion as of last year because of investment declines and a failure to make full contributions, according to annual financial reports.
Oregon State Fund
Oregon would invest in Community Bancorp LLC, a bank being formed by Sageview Capital LLC, according to the Oregon presentation. Sageview was founded by former Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. executives Scott Stuart and Ned Gilhuly. Sageview is looking to raise about $1 billion from pension funds and similar investors, the presentation said.
Sageview, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Palo Alto, California, would get yearly fees as an adviser and would also invest about $100 million of its own. Ruth Pachman, a spokeswoman for Community Bancorp, declined to comment.
Community Bancorp will look to buy three or four banks in the next three years and will be run by Paul Murphy, the presentation said. Murphy built Houston-based Amegy Bank into a $12.3 billion-asset lender over more than a decade, and it’s now owned by Salt Lake City-based Zions Bancorporation.
“We’re pleased with the Oregon decision,” Murphy said in an interview. He declined to comment further as the group is still raising capital and in a “quiet period.”
Spokesman James Sinks at Oregon’s Treasury said the state is still negotiating its commitment, and declined elaborate.
Calpers Presentation
After the credit crisis ate into private-equity returns, pension managers started looking for ways to trim fees and boost returns. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension fund, said in a Feb. 16 presentation that one of its goals is to increase its “co-investments” in transactions alongside money managers. That kind of structure could give the pension fund an actual stake in firms purchased, rather than the private-equity firm’s buyout fund, according to the people.
Known as Calpers, the pension fund plans to “explore unique structures with select general partners,” according to the presentation. The fund’s investment portfolio was valued at $203.3 billion as of Dec. 31, according to the Calpers Web site. Spokesman Brad Pacheco didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Regulators have been debating how much leeway to give private buyers of failed banks on concern that they’re more likely to put federally insured deposits at risk, or will look to flip the bank for a quick profit.
Longer Horizon
Private-equity managed funds typically promise they’ll return funds to their investors in about 10 years. Pension funds are aiming to fund retirements that are decades away and thus can hold on to investments longer, which would help ease the FDIC’s concern, said one of the people.
Investing in distressed banks doesn’t always pay off, as the U.S. Treasury Department learned with the Troubled Asset Relief Program. At least 60 lenders skipped some of their promised dividends to the TARP fund, according to SNL Financial, and a $2.33 billion stake in CIT Group Inc. was wiped out last year when the lender went bankrupt.
FDIC guarantees may soften the risk of investing public pension money in distressed banks, according to one of the people. When the FDIC sells a failed bank, it typically shares a portion of the loan losses.
“Financially sophisticated people do not assume that banks have recognized all of their real estate losses,” Kramer said, adding that it can still be a bad deal if a buyer overpays for a deposit franchise or if loans perform worse than expected. “We are in the early innings for commercial real estate.”

With the worst of winter’s weather apparently over, spring break and summer getaway destinations are beckoning. If you really want to take the pulse of American consumers amid nagging doubts about the economic recovery, check out their vacation plans. That kind of big-ticket item—among the most discretionary of purchases—shows how much confidence people have in their future.

“When it comes to vacations, when consumers are as traumatized as they were in the fourth quarter of 2008, all major purchases are put on hold. A vacation for most people is a major purchase,” says Sharon Zackfia, an analyst who covers cruise lines for William Blair. “Until people felt better about their 401(k)s and job security, you had to wait.”

Vacation bookings started to pick up in November and have accelerated so far this year, according to travel agents and analysts. That’s largely due to growing confidence in the economy, says Robert Zavala, president of Freedom Vacations, a Downey, Calif., travel company.

Bookings at dude ranches in the western states are materially better this year than in 2009 but nowhere near 2008 levels, says Bill Bryan, chairman of Off the Beaten Path, a Bozeman, Mont., company that specializes in adventure travel packages. As of Mar. 1, total business for the 10 tour operators that comprise the Adventure Collection, of which Bryan serves as vice-chairman, was up 23% from a year ago, but Bryan doesn’t expect business to rebound to 2008 levels until sometime in 2011.

SLIM BOOKING WINDOW TRIGGERS BARGAINS
In the cruise business, consumer confidence is measured by how far in advance people book travel, which is called the booking window. This measure contracted to as little as two months in late 2008, vs. an historical average of six months. Now it has returned to about five months, says Steven Wieczynski, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus (SF) who covers cruise lines and gaming.

A sharp narrowing of the booking window such as the one that occurred last year translates into big discounts on prices because cruise ships like to sail full, says Zackfia at William Blair.

The booking window remains around two months for cruises that depart from South Florida and Puerto Rico, says Victor Valverde, owner of Cruceros To Go in San Juan, P.R. Currently, you can get a seven-day cruise out of San Juan, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., or Miami for $500 to $600—”unheard of” just a few years ago, when the cost was typically between $700 and $800, he says. South Florida offers the biggest discounts because there is such a glut of available ships there, he adds.

Prices for summer cruises seem to be running 5% to 6% higher than in the summer of 2009 but remain below 2008 levels, and prices for longer, more expensive cruises are rebounding more quickly than those for shorter ones, says Zackfia. Most Alaskan cruises slated to sail between May and July are already sold out, she adds.

Carnival (CCL) said during an earnings conference call in December that its bookings were up 40% from a year earlier and business likely had improved further by January, when Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL) reported its latest results, says Zackfia. She upgraded both stocks to buy in March 2009 and believes that both companies are still in the early stages of a price recovery around itineraries. The stock prices aren’t reflecting this yet, but eventually they will follow, she says.

VEGAS MIDWEEK ROOM RATES HAVE PLUNGED
The outlook is much gloomier for the gaming industry. The main problem Las Vegas faces is a lack of convention business, says Wieczynski at Stifel. Convention attendance fell nearly 24% from 2008, to 4.5 million for all of 2009, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Some improvement is projected to come later in 2010, says Wieczynski, but he warns against expecting it to return to normal levels for a couple of years.

When Taunya Painter worked as a senior corporate counsel for Wal-Mart (WMT), she noticed that many of the small suppliers that wanted contracts with the world’s biggest retailer, known for pressuring suppliers to cut prices, hadn’t done all their homework. Few fully understood what they would be signing and few took advantage of Wal-Mart’s supplier development team, a free resource designed to help less-experienced suppliers forge enduring relationships with managers and buyers. (Other large retailers, including Home Depot (HD), Best Buy (BBY), and Ace Hardware have in-house teams meant to serve similar purposes.) Painter, who worked for the mega-retailer from 2002 to 2007, says more of the entrepreneurs she dealt with might have managed to secure and renew contracts if they had familiarized themselves with these two pieces of the supplier-retailer puzzle.

While there are more pieces to the puzzle, by taking the time at first to understand what the contract entails, a potential supplier can determine whether or not it even makes sense to try to become one of Wal-Mart’s 57,000 U.S. suppliers. The contract, commonly known as the vendor agreement, outlines the mechanics of how the supplier and retailer will work together. The agreement generally addresses sales and delivery timeframe, arbitration, and termination rights, and liability. As a rule, Wal-Mart uses a non-negotiable boilerplate. Charley Moore, CEO and founder of legal service RocketLawyer.com, says this means potential suppliers can study similar contracts online before meeting with the buyer.

Wal-Mart generally starts out smaller suppliers in a local market, delivering goods to up to 50 stores, as a test run. If the supplier provides a high-selling product and proves reliable, it might be considered for national distribution. Bruce Zutler, CEO and co-founder of MCI Products Group, a New York-based company that specializes in new product development and overseas sourcing, recommends small suppliers think of the test-run as the time to prove they are capable. “If you have a good product and you strengthen their sales, then the buyer will stay with you,” says Zutler.

Broad Customer Base a Must

But suppliers should know that Wal-Mart will only work with suppliers that can prove three-quarters of their business comes from entities other than Wal-Mart, per Wal-Mart policy. After proving that, the key to impressing a buyer is to show understanding of the potential market, says Theresa Barrera, vice-president of supplier diversity for Wal-Mart. “What sets some of these smaller suppliers apart is being innovative and knowing what sells in their regions.”

It is also up to suppliers to understand the impact of national trends on Wal-Mart and be prepared to adapt, says Excell La Fayette, director of supplier development. He, too, urges suppliers to do their research before they call. “A lot of people think Wal-Mart is kind of a free-for-all; that if they come in we’ll buy anything.”

Fair Oaks Farms cooks, packages, and ships the meat for Wal-Mart’s Great Value brand breakfast sausage to more than 50 stores in different regions across the country. Michael Thompson, president and CEO of the Pleasant Prairie(Wis.)-based company, says the key to landing a deal and getting the contract renewed over the companies’ ongoing five-year relationship was conveying an understanding of growth opportunities and explaining what his 300-person company could do to meet Wal-Mart’s needs. Beyond that, he says it is important for hopeful suppliers to remain persistent, be patient, and bring their “A-game” to the meeting with the buyer.

Liable for Chargebacks

Of course, even if a supplier does manage to convince Wal-Mart to sign a supplier agreement, it almost never obligates the retailer to buy anything. “I tell people not to pop the cork when the contract is signed, but pop it when the purchase order comes in,” says Painter, who now runs her own law firm in Texas, specializing in domestic and international business litigation. Wal-Mart says its payment cycles vary by category, but that most suppliers are paid within 30 to 45 days.

And suppliers looking to sign should also know that even if everything is done right, the state of the economy could derail chances that the relationship is profitable, at least in the short term. Nina Kaufman, a business attorney in New York who posts frequently on her blog, AskTheBusinessLawyer.com, says suppliers should be aware of how large retailers like Wal-Mart manage low sales that result in surplus inventory. Those designated “guaranteed suppliers” guarantee that their product will sell. If they don’t, a provision in the contract makes them liable for chargebacks.

Ultimately, understanding all aspects of the supply chain is key to landing—and renewing—a deal with Wal-Mart. Painter says getting an experienced supplier to serve as a mentor can also be invaluable. “I always suggest tapping into resources the retailer has other than the buyer,” says Painter “It’s important to know who are your allies in the organization.”

We all know that entrepreneurs find opportunity where others see only roadblocks. Sometimes those roadblocks are legal in nature. But from Prohibition to today’s ban on the sale of raw milk, enterprising small business owners have found a way to operate on the periphery—and some are even inspired by it. Lou Waddle uses his Chicago bar’s illicit history as a speakeasy as a marketing tool. Leon Rainbow sells his graffiti, an art form defined by its illegality, to corporate and government clients. And Kevin Mitnick used his skills as a hacker to transform himself from a jailbird into an international security consultant. These entrepreneurs have emerged from the underground to flourish in the mainstream.
A Dairy Farm Built on Raw Milk

The Lubbers’ first business, a 35-employee waste reduction and recycling business, was conventional enough. But when their six-year-old daughter, Jamie, was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1993, “It just pulled the rug out from under us,” says Karen. The couple sold the business and started studying cancer. “I became more and more alarmed about what was in our food, and then what was not in our food,” Karen says. “My daughter was dying. She lost 40% of her body weight.” Nervously, they began feeding Jamie raw milk. They believe raw milk to be more nutritious, but because it’s unpasteurized, it’s illegal to distribute in most states.

Jamie turns 23 this summer. The Lubbers won’t tell you that raw milk saved her life, but the experience was enough to turn them into farmers. Today, their 120-acre sustainable farm, on which all five of their children work part-time, earns about $100,000 a year. More than half of that comes from the sale of raw milk. To stay legal, the Lubbers sell shares in their cows, making their customers “owners” and so, by law, licensed to drink the raw milk produced by their animals. For $200, a mix of health nuts, environmentalists, and foodies get a tenth of a cow, which amounts to two gallons of raw milk a week and a share of the beef when the cow is eventually slaughtered. “It’s a living, breathing, wild food product,” says Karen. “Of course there’s a danger to it. But pasteurization is a coverup. Until we can look in the eye of the guy whose food made us sick, we’re going to continue to have food safety problems.”
Behind the Green Door (Tavern)

During Prohibition, those who enjoyed a stiff drink devised their own language. “Having a green door at your restaurant meant you served booze,” explains Lou Waddle, a real estate developer who bought the Green Door Tavern, a former speakeasy, with two partners in 2001. “The name, and the entrance, stuck after the place became legitimate.”

As did a few other features. The wooden building, one of the oldest in downtown Chicago, was built right after the fire as a temporary structure. It famously leans almost 18 inches from the ground to the roof. A twisted, tilting staircase leads to the basement, where the original owners, the Giacomo family, tucked the speakeasy. It’s also where they hosted a cast of colorful characters, including legendary Chicago bosses. Today the bar promotes the space as a glamorous site for private parties, events, and concerts. The bar, with 20 employees and $1.5 million in annual sales, is also benefiting from a surge in nostalgia liquor brands and Prohibition-era drinks. “It’s like walking into a fun house,” Waddle says. “But we’re never changing it. The Green Door is timeless.”
From Hacker to Security Consultant

If there had been an opportunity to do it all legally, says Kevin Mitnick, he would have. But the world-famous hacker, who was arrested by the FBI in the mid-1990s and eventually served five years in prison for myriad computer crimes, just didn’t have the proper outlet for his inquisitiveness, he says, tongue lodged firmly in cheek. “Hackers back in my day were all old school,” says Mitnick. “There was no Internet. There were no security regulations. We were just doing it for the intellectual challenge and curiosity.”