The United States government has had two years to head off automatic "sequester" spending cuts that most people agreed were unnecessary and almost everyone hated.

But these days, the government doesn't do anything unless public anger hits such a state of fervor that Congress -- people actually begin to fear for their jobs.

Most of the sequester cuts have so far gone unnoticed, except insofar as they have contributed to the latest "spring swoon" in the economy.

But one of the cuts--a 10% hack to the budget of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) --has already infuriated almost everyone.

This week's flight delays due to the "furloughing" of FAA air traffic controllers, in other words, has done what two years of lead time has not:

Congress was actually forced do something.

Today the House of Representatives passed the Senate plan designed to allow the FAA to recall the air-traffic controllers by a 361-41 vote. White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Obama plans to sign the

Provided by Business Insider

Billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros has reported a 7.91% passive stake in JCPenney, according to a securities filing with the SEC.

The news sent JCPenney (JCP) shares soaring 7% in after-hours trading Thursday. The stock is currently up $1.08 or 7% a share to $16.32.

Soros Fund Management owns 17,386,361 shares of the retailer, the 13G filing shows.

As The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget and Aaron Task discuss in the above clip, Soros must have seen some value in the beleaguered retailer. The question is now: should the average investor follow suit?

Earlier this month, JCP said that its CEO Ron Johnson had stepped down effective immediately. JCPenney's former CEO Mike Ullman became the interim chief.

Soros' stake has to be good news for activist investor Bill Ackman.

Ackman, the CEO of $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, is the biggest shareholder of JCP with a 18.11% stake, or 39,075,771 shares, according his latest 13F filing. He has

Reports of the cupcake’s demise are premature. The popularity of the cupcake – an all-American sugary treat that comes in various (and delicious) fillings, frostings, and decorations – exploded in recent years with gourmet and artisanal shops popping up across the country.

Cupcakes soon became a “trendy” and stylish dessert to indulge in and cable networks aired shows like Cupcake Wars and DC Cupcakes that helped fuel more demand for cupcakes.

Must all good things come to end? According to The Wall Street Journal, the cupcake bubble has burst and the phenomenon that took Americans by storm and shattered people’s diets may be officially over. The paper cites the downfall of Crumbs Bake Shop (CRMB) – a husband and wife owned cupcake chain that opened its doors in March of 2003 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Crumbs cupcakes -- exalted for their enormous size (they’re about 4 inches tall) -- quickly became a fan favorite and the leader in the cupcake craze. But the company’s rapid growth

Best-selling author and Food Network personality Sandra Lee is the exemplar of the ‘American Dream’: she grew up in poverty, helped raise her four younger siblings and now manages a lifestyle empire that includes 25 books, a magazine that bears her name, four highly-rated culinary TV programs and a housewares line that’s sold in Kmart/Sears. She says unequivocally that her meager upbringing was the reason why she’s so successful today.

“My childhood was a complete blessing,” she says in an interview with The Daily Ticker. “It was a challenging way to live, a challenging way to grow up… but it benefitted me so much.”

Related: The 'American Dream' Is a Myth: Joseph Stiglitz

By age 12 Lee was cooking, cleaning and checking her siblings’ homework assignments after her stepfather moved out of the family’s Washington home and her mother became bedridden. Welfare and food stamps paid the bills.

In Made From Scratch, Lee’s 2007 memoir, she writes, “If we had extra expenses, or even if we were

Netflix (NFLX) is on top of its game. With 29.17 million paid subscribers in the U.S., popular original programming and new licensing deals, the company seems unstoppable.

There is one large problem that stands in Netflix’s way. According to Bloomberg, up to 10 million users could be streaming Netflix’s video service without paying.

This is a problem for them, says The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget, but also an opportunity.

“What it means is that people love the service," he notes. "If at some point they want to capture those people and say ‘you know what, we’re not so cool with you doing this anymore,’ the technology is very simple.”

Instead of banning viewers who use other people’s login information, Netflix is attempting to embrace them -- for a small additional fee. Right now, two simultaneous streams per account are allowed for $7.99 a month. Netflix has announced a new pricing option that allows four concurrent video streams per account for $11.99 a month.

Netflix CEO Reed

In his previous best-sellers such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food and Food Rules, Michael Pollan examined America’s diet and summed up a very complicated issue in seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

In his latest work, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, Pollan turns the focus from what we’re eating to how it’s prepared and concludes that cooking at home may be the most important part of our diet...and potentially a solution to America’s obesity epidemic.

“The most important thing about your diet is not any particular nutrient but that activity,” he says of cooking.

And, yes, this is very much an economic story when you consider rising health care costs are the number one driver of America’s long-term deficit -- and rising obesity rates are the biggest contributor to the overall increase in health care spending.

Since the Great Recession of 2008, Pollan notes that more Americans are cooking at home, bulk food sales are up and obesity rates have

Fiat, Italy’s biggest manufacturer, is reportedly considering buying the 41.5% of Chrysler that it doesn’t already own, then taking the combined company public in a new IPO.

According to a The Wall Street Journal article citing “people familiar with the matter,” Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has wanted to combine the two companies since Fiat bought Chrysler in 2009 following a U.S.-government bailout. Since then, Chrysler has returned to profitability and provided parent company Fiat with much-needed cash. Chrysler accounted for 75% of Fiat’s 2012 operating profit.

Related: Jeep CEO Responds to Criticism of New Cherokee: "They'll Love It"

“Hats off to Chrysler and Jeep in particular,” says The Daily Ticker’s Henry Blodget. “People love Jeep. It’s such a success story.”

Jeep led U.S. Chrysler sales for years but they fell in March, reportedly due to a restructuring of the brand. Chrysler is ending the Jeep Liberty and relaunching the Grand Cherokee. Fiat sales have also been doing well,

As CEO of microchip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Hector Ruiz led the charge to sue his company’s behemoth competitor Intel for unfair business practices in an anti-trust lawsuit. AMD eventually received a $1.25 billion settlement from Intel in 2009. Intel (INTC) never admitted to any wrongdoing.

Ruiz has written a new book Slingshot about the whole saga. The former tech CEO sat down with The Daily Ticker to talk about his vision for the future of technology taking into account lessons learned from his battle with Intel.

Related: Bank Board Directors Get Huge Pay Increase For a “Cushy, Part-Time Job”

Ruiz believes that cognitive computing will be the technology that changes our lives looking ahead. He forecasts an “intelligence revolution” that will fuel innovation and market expansion the way the PC did for the last 30 years. Cognitive computing is essentially training computers to learn and think and providing solutions from health care, to financial transactions, to managing