SIMI VALLEY, Calif., June 15 (UPI) — Ronco Corp., the California company that brought TV shoppers the Veg-O-Matic and the Pocket Fisherman, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The company declared it had $32.7 million in debts and $13.9 million in assets, The Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

Ron Popeil, who sold Ronco two years ago for $55 million, is owed $11.8 million, the company said in Thursday’s filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Woodland Hills, Calif. Other creditors include the Food Network, Court TV and QVC home shopping network.

The Simi Valley company will continue operations, and none of its 95 employees wil be furloughed, Ronco Chief Executive John Reiland said. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection permits a business to keep running while it structures a debt payment plan.

While Reiland wouldn’t say what led to Ronco filing for bankruptcy again — it filed once in the 1980s — court documents said an initial $40 million payment to Popeil left the company’s finances in a bind.

The company has reached a non-binding agreement with a new buyer, but Reiland wouldn’t say who that is, the Times said.

By Deepa Babington
from Reuters

ROME (Reuters Life!) - Americans are less happy today than they were 30 years ago thanks to longer working hours and a deterioration in the quality of their relationships with friends and neighbors, according to an Italian study.

Researchers presenting their work at a conference on “policies for happiness” at Italy’s Siena University honed in on two major forces that boost happiness– higher income and better social relationships — and put a dollar value on them.

Based on that, they concluded a person with no friends or social relations with neighbors would have to earn $320,000 more each year than someone who did to enjoy the same level of happiness.

And while the average American paycheck had risen over the past 30 years, its happiness-boosting benefits were more than offset by a drop in the quality of relationships over the period.

“The main cause is a decline in the so-called social capital — increased loneliness, increased perception of others as untrustworthy and unfair,” said Stefano Bartolini, one of the authors of the study.

“Social contacts have worsened, people have less and less relationships among neighbors, relatives and friends.”

He and two other Italian researchers looked at data from 1975 to 2004 collected by the annual General Social Surveys that monitors change in U.S. society through interviews with thousands of Americans.

By contrast, it appeared that based on the limited data available the happiness trend had remained largely stable in Europe, which had apparently avoided some of the changes in the American workplace like longer hours and more pressure.

“The increase in hours worked by Americans over the last 30 years has heavily affected their happiness because people who are more absorbed by work have less time and energy for relationships,” said Bartolini.

“Another important cause is that American society in the last 30 years has experienced a huge increase in competitive pressure compared to Europe. It’s easier in the United States, if you belong to the middle class, to become poor than you would in Europe. This creates a state of insecurity.”

As Security Work Increases, So Do Casualties

Billions of dollars go to these contractors, such as Blackwater. Yet, our American soldiers receive “squat” for pay and they are losing their houses, losing their jobs at home, and, in some cases, losing their families. This is an atrocity that Blackwater contractor employees are making huge salaries. One contractor pays an employee $80,000.00 a year to pump gasoline! These salaries should be reversed and start paying the soldiers of the U.S. military what they truly deserve. - JS

By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD — Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives.

While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies, out of public view, have been engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company representatives said. One in seven supply convoys protected by private forces has come under attack this year, according to previously unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300 “hostile actions” in the first four months.

The majority of the more than 100 security companies operate outside of Iraqi law, in part because of bureaucratic delays and corruption in the Iraqi government licensing process, according to U.S. officials. Blackwater USA, a prominent North Carolina firm that protects U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, and several other companies have not applied, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Blackwater said that it obtained a one-year license in 2005 but that shifting Iraqi government policy has impeded its attempts to renew.

The security industry’s enormous growth has been facilitated by the U.S. military, which uses the 20,000 to 30,000 contractors to offset chronic troop shortages. Armed contractors protect all convoys transporting reconstruction material, including vehicles, weapons and ammunition for the Iraqi army and police. They guard key U.S. military installations and provide personal security for at least three commanding generals, including Air Force Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Scott, who oversees U.S. military contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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