Rockefellers Seek Change at Exxon

The Rockefeller family built one of the great American fortunes by supplying the nation with oil. Now history has come full circle: some family members say it is time to start moving beyond the oil age.

The family members have thrown their support behind a shareholder rebellion that is ruffling feathers at Exxon Mobil, the giant oil company descended from John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust.

Three of the resolutions, to be voted on at the company’s shareholder meeting on Wednesday, are considered unlikely to pass, even with Rockefeller family support.

The resolutions ask Exxon to take the threat of global warming more seriously and look for alternatives to spewing greenhouse gases into the air.

One resolution would urge the company to study the impact of global warming on poor countries, another would encourage Exxon to reduce its emissions and a third would encourage it to do more research on renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines.

A fourth resolution, which the Rockefellers are most united in supporting, is considered more likely to pass. It would strip Rex W. Tillerson of his position as chairman of Exxon’s board, forcing the company to separate that job from the chief executive’s job.

A shareholder vote in favor of that idea would be a rebuke of Mr. Tillerson, who is widely perceived as more resistant than other oil chieftains to investing in alternative energy.

The Rockefellers say they are not trying to embarrass Mr. Tillerson, also Exxon’s chief executive, but think it is time for the company to spend more of its funds helping the nation chart a new energy future.

“Exxon Mobil needs to reconnect with the forward-looking and entrepreneurial vision of my great-grandfather,” Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, a Tufts University economist, said in a statement to reporters.

“The truth is that Exxon Mobil is profiting in the short term from investments and decisions made many years ago, and by focusing on a narrow path that ignores the rapidly shifting energy landscape around the world,” she added.

The resolution on Exxon’s chairmanship was offered for several years before the Rockefellers became publicly involved and last year was supported by 40 percent of shareholders who voted. Royal Dutch Shell and BP already separate the positions of chairman and chief executive, as do many other companies.

“You need a board asking the tough questions,” Peter O’Neill, a private equity investor and great-great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller, said in an interview. “We expect the company to figure out how in this changing world to adjust.”

Kenneth P. Cohen, vice president for public affairs at Exxon, said the shareholders pushing the resolutions were “starting from a false premise.” He added that the company was already concerned about “how to provide the world the energy it needs while at the same time reducing fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions.”

Fifteen members of the family are sponsoring or co-sponsoring the four resolutions, but it appears that some have much more solid support in the sprawling family than others.

(Continue reading: New York Times)

Big Pharma Pushing to Criminalize Supplements in Canada

Canada’s C-51 Law May Outlaw 60% of Natural Health Products; Big Pharma Pushing to Criminalize Supplements

A new law being pushed in Canada by Big Pharma seeks to outlaw up to 60 percent of natural health products currently sold in Canada, even while criminalizing parents who give herbs or supplements to their children. The law, known as C-51, was introduced by the Canadian Minister of Health on April 8th, 2008, and it proposes sweeping changes to Canada’s Food and Drugs Act that could have devastating consequences on the health products industry.

Among the changes proposed by the bill are radical alterations to key terminology, including replacing the word “drug” with “therapeutic product” throughout the Act, thereby giving the Canadian government broad-reaching powers to regulate the sale of all herbs, vitamins, supplements and other items. With this single language change, anything that is “therapeutic” automatically falls under the Food and Drug Act. This would include bottled water, blueberries, dandelion greens and essentially all plant-derived substances.

(Continue reading: Natural News)

Drugs that don’t work: a tough pill to swallow

What’s a patient to do when top-selling meds fail the test?

When C.W. MacLeod’s cholesterol shot sky-high, the Texas businessman was only too happy to find a drug to bring it down.

For two years, the 57-year-old Houston resident dutifully took Vytorin, relying on his doctor’s assurance that as his levels of so-called “bad” cholesterol dropped, so would his risk of heart attack.

But MacLeod’s confidence was shaken this week, when he and millions of other Vytorin users learned that it and its component drug, Zetia, failed to work as widely expected. Final results of a clinical trial showed the drugs reduced LDL cholesterol, but failed to slow the buildup of artery-clogging plaque, suggesting they’ll do little or nothing to prevent heart attacks.

“It hasn’t hurt my body, but apparently it hasn’t done any good either,” said MacLeod, who wonders why he’s been shelling out $100 a month in co-payments for a brand-name drug that doesn’t work.

“If lowering your cholesterol doesn’t reduce your risk, then what’s the point?” another Vytorin user wrote on an msnbc.com message board about the issue. “Maybe I’m dense, but I just don’t understand.”

Those questions are on the minds of millions of consumers in the wake of a string of startling findings about some of the nation’s best-selling — and most heavily promoted — drugs.  In less than a year, patients have learned that a popular diabetes drug, Avandia, may raise the risk of heart attack, and that antidepressants, the most widely prescribed drugs in America, may work no better than placebo.

They’ve watched as the federal Food and Drug Administration expanded use of a top cancer drug, Avastin, to treat breast cancer, on basis of a trial that showed that while the drug slowed the disease, it didn’t impact overall survival.

And now they’ve seen the results on Vytorin and Zetia, which account for more than 15 percent of the cholesterol-lowering drug market in the U.S.  — and more than $5 billion in annual sales.

It’s a confusing situation for consumers who assume that widely used drugs are both safe and effective, said Fran Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition and a 20-year survivor of the disease.

“You want drugs that save lives, that have a significant impact on the quality of life,” said Visco, whose agency helps patients make treatment decisions.  “The drugs do not show these things.”

Time for docs to pause and say ‘Whoa’
And it’s not just patients who’ve been stumped. The chain of surprises began in late 2006, said Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz, a professor of medicine at Yale University. That’s when an apparent increase in patient deaths abruptly halted development of torcetrapib, a promising cholesterol drug that boosted “good” HDL cholesterol, a new approach in the fight against heart disease.

When that was followed by Avandia, which raised questions about the assumed benefits of lowering blood sugar, and later by Vytorin and Zetia, which challenged the benefits of lowering LDL cholesterol — it rocked the medical world, Krumholz said.

“It was a time to pause and say ‘Whoa,’’’ he said. “It has caused us to take a step back and say ‘How much do we really know?’”

The situation has renewed debate about the ways drugs are tested and approved in the U.S. and whether they’re being released to market too soon.

It also has raised doubts about the FDA’s practice of accepting “surrogate endpoints” for drug approval. Instead of relying on ultimate outcomes — a reduction in heart attacks or strokes, for instance, or a decrease in deaths — many studies measure a drug’s effectiveness by using interim markers, such as decreasing blood pressure levels or lowering LDL cholesterol.

The FDA long has allowed use of such markers because waiting for the results of large-scale outcome trials would cost too much and take too long, possibly delaying life-saving advances for millions of people, said Dr. Robert Temple, director of the agency’s office of medical policy.

But the practice has been called into question by the surprises of recent research, said Dr. Nortin M. Hadler, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina.

“In our zeal to do modern medicine … we’ve managed to lose our way,” he said. “We’ve forgotten to ask: ‘Does this matter to the patient?’”

Temple argued that surrogates do matter because they allow faster development of advanced drugs. Many of the popular cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins have been proven to reduce heart disease, but they were originally approved based on surrogate measures, he said.

“If we’d taken that position on Lipitor and Crestor, all of those people would not have gotten that benefit for years and years,” he said. “They would have lost heart, brain — and life.”

It could be six months before the FDA finishes a review of the final Vytorin study, known as Enhance, and decides whether the findings will change the way the agency regards lowering LDL cholesterol, Temple said.

“Nobody I know thinks the Enhance study is definitive,” he said.

Temple and others noted that there’s no medical debate that in general lowering cholesterol helps heart patients or that decreasing blood sugar benefits diabetics.

But the question of what constitutes a suitable surrogate is debatable. Visco and others criticized the FDA’s expansion of Avastin for breast cancer treatment because it didn’t extend survival. However, the study’s lead author, Dr. Kathy Miller, an associate professor of medicine at Indiana University, said that wasn’t the main goal.

“Progression-free survival was an endpoint valuable in and of itself,” she said. “If you double the period of time for these women that their disease remains under control without symptoms, it gives them more time with their families without side effects from a different therapy.”

A larger window of remission also offered a chance, however remote, that new treatments might be developed in the interim, said Christina Koenig, 45, who was a single mother of a young child when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002.

“I’m just thinking of that hope,” said Koenig, who now works as a spokeswoman for the Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization in Chicago. “Although, of course, we would not want to give people false hope.”

Visco, on the other hand, said there was no reason to rush approval of a new, expensive drug when existing treatments were available.  In addition, she worries that the FDA move set a precedent for approving drugs without proof that they extend life.

It provides a new market for drug sales, she said, but little benefit for patients.

“I feel like we took many, many steps backward,” she said.

With so much friction and so many questions among experts, it can be difficult for consumers to know what to do about issues that have profound effects on individual health, said Kimberly Thompson, an associate professor of risk analysis and decision science at the Harvard School of Public Health.

No easy answer for patients
The key, she said, is for patients to give up the notion that they’re going to get an easy answer from their doctors — or anywhere else.

“The main thing is you have to go beyond the sound bite or the headline,” she said. “Patients need to dig deeper and physicians need to push them to do that.”

It’s important to find a trusted source of information, said Visco. She recommends patient advocacy agencies, whose staff members are trained in the latest research with an eye on consumer interests.

On their own, patients need to invest the time and energy necessary to understand the issues, whether it’s the effectiveness of Vytorin or the potential dangers of Avandia, said Hadler, who has written several articles and books on consumer medical issues. And they shouldn’t be shy about talking to their doctors.

That can be difficult in today’s medical climate, acknowledged Hadler. “It takes about two minutes to prescribe a statin and 20 minutes to explain why it’s the right one for you,” he said.

But consumers should insist on those 20-minute conversations, preferably when they’re well, Hadler said. They should ask doctors for detailed information, such as the number of patients who would have to be treated to prevent a serious outcome or death from a drug.

When people suggest that many consumers might not be savvy enough for risk-benefit discussions, Hadler disagrees.

“They can handle the discussion because they do when they buy a car,” he said.

MacLeod, an oil company executive, said he plans to call his doctor soon to weigh the merits of continuing with Vytorin.

“I’m an educated person. I understand the risks and rewards,” he said. “Should I be any more concerned with that than with living in Houston around all these refineries?”

That’s exactly the kind of question to ask, Thompson said.

“Basically people need to realize that all treatments come with both risks and benefits and you can’t believe that it’s all going to be benefit.”

//msnbc//

There Is No Gas Shortage

But Washington, Wall Street, and ethanol and oil and gas companies want you to think there is, says automotive expert Ed Wallace

by Ed Wallace

“They see speculation in the market, I see decline in global inventories. I don’t think this is a big surprise, that we’ve had a jump in price when there has been a decrease in crude inventories.”—Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, Bloomberg News, Mar. 5, 2008

“It should be obvious to you all that the [gasoline] demand is outstripping supply, which causes prices to go up.” — President George W. Bush, Associated Press, Mar. 5, 2008

One wonders if verifiable facts ever get in the way of this administration’s statements on issues that are critical to the average American’s wellbeing. After all, last time I checked, when politicians are elected to public office, or appointed, as is Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, they must take an oath to the American people before assuming their new positions. How can they forget a sacred oath so quickly? Were they daydreaming when they took it, so it never meant anything to begin with? Maybe it’s just another promise you have to make to get into office: When you’re securely incumbent you can ignore even solemn oaths you took.

Obviously, the two quotes that led this article came from discussions concerning the current high price for oil on the futures market. Bodman appears to be protecting the speculators in oil, as opposed to looking after the interests of all Americans. President Bush, apparently, has never talked to the Energy Dept.’s Energy Information Agency to see whether gasoline demand is actually up. More troubling, the writer of that particular Associated Press article obviously didn’t look up the EIA’s numbers to verify the President’s assertions. They weren’t accurate.

1. There Is No Shortage

Gasoline reserves on hand are at the highest levels since the early 1990s, which is remarkable considering the nation’s refineries have been cutting back on the production of gasoline because their margins have declined. In fact, average gasoline reserves on hand have risen since this past October, while oil reserves in this country have gone up virtually every week this year—and only fog in the Houston Ship Channel that kept oil tankers from unloading their crude one week kept it from being every week.

In the same Bloomberg article that quotes from Bodman’s CNBC appearance on Mar. 4, he also said that it was thanks to ethanol that the gasoline problem isn’t even worse. He then added that the fact that making ethanol is forcing up prices of other farm commodities, including hog and chicken feed, is “nowhere near as important as trying to relieve pressure on [gasoline] supplies.”

Of course, there is no pressure on gasoline supplies in this country as of today, but Bodman’s statement must have made eyes roll among the executives at Pilgrim’s Pride PPC; the Pittsburg, (Tex.) poultry producer announced 1,100 layoffs on Mar. 13, closing one processing plant and 6 of their 13 distribution centers because their company’s outlay for chicken feed went up $600 million last fiscal year and was on track to increase by another $700 million this year.

Here’s the scorecard, in case you missed it. There’s no shortage of gasoline or oil in the U.S. today, and we have near-record reserves on hand. Meanwhile the Congressional mandate for ethanol has jacked up the price of chicken feed for Pilgrim’s Pride, which is the U.S.’s largest processor of chickens and turkeys—by $1.3 billion. And that’s for just one company processing chicken. This is what passes for acceptable to our Energy Secretary?

2. Demand Is DOWN, Yet Prices Are UP

Just so we can all get on the same page, here are the verifiable facts on oil supplies, production, and gasoline demand.

In January of this year, the U.S. used 4% less petroleum than we did a year ago. (Oil demand was down 3.2% in February.) Furthermore, demand has been falling slowly since July of last year. Ronald Bailey of Reason Online has pointed out that worldwide production of oil has risen 2.5% in the first quarter, while worldwide demand has grown by only 2%. Production is expected to increase by 3.3% in the second quarter, and by as much as 4.1% by the third quarter. The net result is that the U.S. daily buffer for oil production against demand, which was a paltry 1.5 million barrels as recently as 2005, is now up to 3 million barrels in excess capacity today.

So what is going on here? Why would our Energy Secretary say there’s a supply and demand problem when none exists? Why would he say that speculators have little or nothing to do with the incredibly high price of oil and gasoline, when it’s clear they do? President Bush—a former oilman—gives the ever-growing demand for gasoline as the primary reason prices are so high, yet that notion can be dispelled with one minute of research. That’s the problem with rhetoric; it rarely matches the facts.

3. Speculation is Up, and the Dollar Is Down

On the same day the President and our Energy Secretary made those foolish comments, no less an authority than ExxonMobil (XOM) Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson was quoted by Marketwatch as saying, “The record run in oil prices is related more to speculation and a weakening dollar than supply and demand in the market.” He added, “In terms of fundamentals, fear of supply reliability is overblown.”

As for the speculators, in 2000 approximately $9 billion was invested in oil futures, while today that number has gone up to $250 billion. Now, if any publicly traded company had an additional $241 billion put into its stock in the same period, its stock would rise out of sight too—even if the company was not worth anywhere near that amount of market capitalization.

Moving on to the weak U.S. dollar as a primary cause for skyrocketing oil prices—there is “some” truth in that statement. But consider this: The dollar has depreciated 30% against the world’s currencies since 2002, while the price of oil has gone up 500%. So is it the weak dollar that has caused a 500% increase in the price of oil, or is it the extra $241 billion worth of speculation? You can make the call on that one.

Possibly just to ensure oil prices don’t respond to real-world market conditions, Goldman Sachs (GS) forecast on Mar. 7 that turbulence in the oil market could cause oil to spike as high as $200 a barrel. This flies in the face of all known information—but then again, Goldman Sachs is the world’s biggest trader of energy derivatives, and its Goldman Sachs Commodities Index is a widely watched barometer of energy and commodities prices.

What Is Washington Thinking?

Rounding out the list of experts discussing our oil and gasoline situation is Bill Klesse, head of San Antonio (Tex.) Valero Energy (VLO). He spoke in San Diego a week after those comments from Goldman Sachs, the President, and Secretary Bodman. Believe it or not, Klesse said poor margins may cause Valero to sell one-third of its refinery operations; he stated that poor margins in recent months had caused planned refinery expansions—which would have produced 500,000 more barrels per day—to be canceled. Moreover, according to a report from Reuters on Mar. 11, 2008, Klesse recently released the information that gasoline production has been curtailed in response to slowing demand.

Imagine that: Refiners cut gasoline production, yet gasoline reserves have grown to their largest since late 1992. So much for “surging demand.”

Klesse also called for the government to start imposing a tariff on imported gasoline to protect U.S. refiners’ profits. Protectionism? As famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith correctly said, “In America, the only respectable form of socialism is socialism for the rich.”

Which takes us back to the original question: Why is Washington doing everything it can to convince us there is a shortage when there isn’t one? After all, the only people they’re protecting are those heavily invested in oil futures—and that’s to the detriment of all other Americans.

We’re Paying for What?

When it became undeniable that poor decision-making by company executives had put a respected 85-year-old U.S. institution in financial peril, why did the Federal Reserve rush in to save investment bank Bear Stearns (BSC)? Of course, we need to restore confidence in our financial institutions, but why protect the personal assets of those who were responsible for the mess? Both the corporation’s officers and its board members should contribute their personal assets toward saving the bank they put in the ditch—the bank all of us are going to pay to bail out.

Instead, the Bush administration is protecting those responsible for creating yet another speculative bubble in oil futures, and is protecting investors in the ethanol industry—much to the detriment of food-processing companies such as Pilgrim’s Pride. And the net result of all this is that the prices of crude and gasoline rise ever higher thanks to a “shortage” that does not exist, while food costs are soaring thanks in part to the ethanol mandate.

The Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, but the cost of mortgages goes up six weeks in a row—and last month Bank of America (BAC) credit-card holders started being charged more than 24% interest on new purchases.

This is what they call “Republican Prosperity?” Ronald Reagan was both right and wrong when he said, “Government is not the solution, government is the problem.” And government is still the problem. Instead of a fair and open market they gave us a free-for-all marketplace with no regulations at all, which lately these “bubble boys” have sent south for all of us.

One would guess that Washington missed the obvious: Protect all U.S. consumers and you’re also protecting business expansion.

Ed Wallace holds a Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, bestowed by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. His column heads the Sunday Drive section of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he is a member of the American Historical Society. The automotive expert for KDFW Fox 4 in Dallas, Wallace hosts the top-rated talk show Wheels, Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 570 KLIF AM in Dallas.

//businessweek//

States urge FCC constraints on XM-Sirius deal

WASHINGTON – A group of state attorneys general on Thursday urged the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to impose restrictions on Sirius Satellite Radio’s purchase of rival XM Satellite Radio if it decides to approve the $4.15 billion deal.

Attorneys general from 11 states including Ohio, Missouri, Connecticut and Iowa told the FCC they were “disappointed” by Justice Department antitrust regulators’ decision on Monday to let the deal proceed without conditions.

The FCC must now determine if the XM-Sirius deal is in the public interest, and whether to enforce its 1997 order barring either satellite radio company from acquiring the other.

The states said the deal should be subject to restrictions designed to preserve competition and protect consumers.

“The combination of these companies will result in a single corporation controlling access to all nationally available satellite radio,” the attorneys general said.

The states said the FCC should consider requiring Sirius and XM to make interoperable radio receivers available to customers, offer different packages of channels on an a la carte basis, and divest some radio spectrum that would allow another competitor into the business.

The merger would bring entertainers such as Oprah Winfrey and shock-jock Howard Stern under the same banner. It has been criticized as anti-competitive by the traditional radio industry, and by some U.S. lawmakers.

However, antitrust authorities at the Justice Department approved the combination after concluding it would not harm consumers. The department said satellite radio companies face stiff competition from traditional AM/FM radio, high-definition radio, MP3 players and audio delivered by mobile phones.

With the Justice Department’s approval in hand, analysts say XM and Sirius are unlikely to face outright opposition from the FCC. However, the FCC could impose conditions on the deal designed to protect consumers and preserve competition.

Sirius Chief Executive Mel Karmazin has promised that the company would offer a la carte pricing and would let customers block adult channels and get a refund for those channels. Sirius also said all existing XM and Sirius satellite radios will continue to work after the companies are combined.

The deal, in which Sirius is offering 4.6 shares for each share of XM, is worth about $4.15 billion based on Sirius’ closing price of $2.83 on Thursday.

//reuters//

Apple saved us when Google would not

Had you told me a year ago that Verizon would win the big 700 MHz spectrum auction, and therefore cement the wireless duopoly it has with AT&T I would have been very gloomy.But this was before the iPhone.

While all of us were looking anxiously to Google, hoping it would swoop in and outbid a company which had every incentive to win (while it had none), we were missing the bigger story.

The iPhone changed the game.

The iPhone changed the wireless game because iPhone users move tons more data than users of any other wireless device. How much more? Something like 500 times more.

That demand for wireless data, combined with Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T, forced Verizon to cede control of its network to device makers, and accede to requests that the new spectrum be defined as “open.”

With devices defining the wireless game Verizon and AT&T have lost the monopoly power they once had. The new rules mean they won’t get it back.

Now there remain big problems. We’ll have to pay Verizon whatever it wants for service. We’ll have to pay, through our bills, for the spectrum our government “sold,” and Verizon “bought,” which was really ours to begin with.

But thanks to this most proprietary of companies, all is not lost. Linux phones of all types will be welcome — anything, Verizon thinks, that can break AT&T (and Apple’s) market grip.

How ironic is that?

//zdnet//

Bear Stearns bailout evokes Depression era

A businessman runs past Bear Stearns in New York yesterday. (AP photo)

NEW YORK — On the verge of a collapse that could have shaken the very foundations of the U.S. financial system, investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. was bailed out yesterday by a rival and the U.S. government. The near-miss raised new alarm about the credit crisis — and whether other big firms might be in jeopardy.

The rescue came from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and, in an extraordinary step, the Federal Reserve, both rushing to pump new money into the venerable Wall Street firm after its financial state deteriorated so much in a 24-hour period that it threatened to fail.

Bear Stearns stock lost nearly half its market value, about US$5.7 billion, in a matter of minutes, and pulled the broader market down with it. The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 200 points.

If Bear Stearns were to go under, “it has the potential of bringing down the whole market,” said Richard Bove, an analyst at Punk, Ziegel & Co. “This is the crescendo of the crisis.”

JPMorgan and the central bank agreed to extend loans for 28 days to Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest U.S. investment bank and the one hit hardest by the subprime mortgage mess. Two hedge funds managed by Bear Stearns failed last summer, setting off a credit crisis that has swept up banks and brokerages around the globe.

In backing up JPMorgan, the Fed dusted off a rarely used, Depression-era provision for loans. It also said it was ready to fight an erosion of confidence in the largest U.S. financial institutions.

US investment bank Bear Stearns has said it has been forced into a funding bail-out.

It is a move which raises the spectre of crisis-hit mortgage lender Northern Rock.

Bear Stearns said a cash crisis for the business had worsened in the past 24 hours.

The company’s shares had fallen almost 20% in the past week as doubts over its funding position spread through the markets.

The firm will access funds from fellow investment bank JP Morgan Chase and the US Federal Reserve for an initial period of up to 28 days.

Bear Stearns blamed “market chatter” for its deteriorating liquidity position, and said the cash injection would allow it to continue normal operations.

The Bear Stearns bail-out worsened fears over the impact of the credit crunch on the global banking system and sent stock markets in London and New York plunging into the red.

CEO Alan Schwartz said: “Bear Stearns has been the subject of a multitude of market rumours regarding our liquidity.”

The bank said it was in talks with JP Morgan over “permanent financing or other alternatives” – likely to include a takeover.

But it gave no guarantees that any alternatives for the business would be successfully completed, sending its shares plunging by almost half as investors feared the worse.

DRASTIC ACTION

- BAILOUT: JPMorgan Chase will lend Bear Stearns money for 28 days, with a backup guarantee from the Federal Reserve Bank.

- NO CASH: Bear Stearns says it ran into problems within 24 hours amid a spike in demand from people trying to get their cash out of the firm.

- PLUNGING VALUE: As the end of trading yesterday, Bear Stearns had lost more than $5 billion in market value and was trading at its lowest point in nine and a half years.

//the-press-association/ + /london free press//

related//Bloomberg: Bernanke Discards Monetary History With Bear Stearns Bailout

Congress Questions Executives on Huge Paydays

WASHINGTON — Three prominent financial executives were summoned before Congress on Friday to face questions about the huge paydays that they earned from the subprime mortgage boom, even as their companies have lost billions of dollars and thousands of borrowers have lost their homes.

Two of the three lost their jobs last fall after the collapse of the subprime market —E. Stanely O’Neal, Merrill Lynch’s chairman and chief executive, and Charles O. Prince III, his counterpart at Citigroup— but left with sizable pay packages. The other, Angelo R. Mozilo the founder and chief executive of Countrywide Financial presided over the demise of a once high-flying company that is now being acquired by Bank of America.

They are appearing at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations, which, with its inquiry into supersized ballplayers winding down, once again turned its attention to supersized pay.

Along with the three executives, the chairmen of the compensation committees at all three companies were also scheduled to testify, along with a panel of academics, governance advocates and state and municipal officials.

Executive compensation has emerged as a hot topic in Washington in recent years. Surveys show that Americans, regardless of their income or political leanings, overwhelmingly believe that their business leaders are overpaid.

“There seem to be two economic realities operating in our country today,” Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, the committee chairman, said as the hearing opened Friday morning. “Most Americans live in a world where economic security is precarious and there are real economic consequences for failure. But our nation’s top executives seem to live by a different set of rules.”

The question before the committee, he said, was this: “When companies fail to perform, should they give millions of dollars to their senior executives?”

The discussion is expected to shed some light on how Wall Street’s compensation philosophy may have contributed to the mortgage boom. Corporate boards and compensation committees agreed to lucrative bonus plans that gave their leaders strong incentives to take big risks. Executives aggressively pushed their companies into lucrative businesses, like underwriting subprime mortgages and packaging the loans into complex securities. Then, as the housing and credit markets plummeted, those profits turned into enormous losses for shareholders. Wall Street’s top executives still kept their pay.

“With executive compensation you get what you pay for and you pay for what you get,” Nell Minow, editor of the Corporate Library, an independent research firm specializing in corporate governance, said in testimony prepared for the hearing. “If you make compensation all upside and no downside, that will affect the executives assessment of risk. It will make it clear to him that he can easily offload the risk onto shareholders. It’s heads they win, tails we lose.”

Mr. Mozilo’s pay drew the most scrutiny from members of Congress. He has taken home more than $410 million since becoming chief executive in 1999, including several stock sales made under an automatic plan while the company was buying back shares.

Federal securities regulators have been scrutinizing those trades. And in a report released Thursday, Congressional investigators found that the use of a flawed peer group and easy bonus targets helped inflate his pay. He also had been entitled to a $37.5 million severance package, though he forfeited that in January, shortly after Congress requested that he testify.

Mr. O’Neal and Mr. Prince each landed a windfall when they resigned.

Mr. O’Neal retained more than $161 million after he was ousted in October on top of the $70 million he took home during his four-year tenure. The bulk of the exit pay was linked to previously earned benefits and stock since his departure was deemed a retirement; he did not receive any severance pay. Merrill Lynch, meanwhile, has announced write-offs totaling more than $10.3 billion and watched its stock price fall sharply.

Mr. Prince collected $110 million while presiding over the evaporation of roughly $64 billion in market value. He left Citigroup in November with an exit package worth $68 million, including $29.5 million in accumulated stock, a $1.7 million pension, an office and assistant, and a car and driver. Citigroup’s board also awarded him a cash bonus for 2007, largely based on his performance in 2006 when the bank’s results were better, worth about $10 million. Citigroup has announced write-offs worth roughly $20 billion and seen its share plummet over 60 percent from last year’s high.

“From a shareholder perspective, it is not possible to justify that payment,” Ms. Minow said of the $10 million bonus to Mr. Prince, though she added, “His sins were so much smaller than the other people we’re talking about.”

In his prepared testimony, Mr. Prince focused on his humble beginnings, as the first member of his family to go to college, and the plaudits that Citigroup received for improving corporate governance on his watch.

“Last fall, it became apparent that the risk models which Citigroup, the various rating agencies and the rest of the financial community used to assess certain mortgage backed securities were wrong,” he said. “As C.E.O., I was ultimately responsible for the actions of the company, including risk models that eventually proved inadequate.”

Since his resignation, he said, “some have raised questions about my compensation, and much of the information reported in the media is incomplete or inaccurate.”

Mr. O’Neal, too, said reports about his compensation package were inaccurate. “The reality is that I received no severance package,” he said in prepared testimony.

Emphasizing that the compensation process at Merrill was “appropriate” and “independent,” he said: “It is true that top executives at public companies in the United States, especially in the financial services industry, are highly compensated. But a great percentage of that compensation, certainly for me, was and is at risk. When the business does well, all shareholders do well. But if the businesses does not do well, the value of that compensation can plummet.”

And Mr. Mozilo, noting that “our stock price appreciated over 23,000 percent” from 1982 to 2007, said he received performance-based bonuses approved by shareholders and exercised options as he prepared for retirement. “In short, as our company did well, I did well,” he said.

Other executives at financial companies could collect similarly lavish parachutes. James E. Cayne will retire with stock and options worth $560 million when he steps down from Bear Stearns, according to a severance analysis in late February by James F. Reda & Associates, an independent compensation-consulting firm in New York. It found that Kerry K. Killinger, Washington Mutual’s chief executive, might get worth $58 million and $74 million if the company is sold. John J. Mack, Morgan Stanley’s chairman and chief executive, might walk away with as much as $148 million, largely from previously earned stock.

Regulators are focusing on the link between solid pay practices and sound risk management. At a conference in New York last month, Randall S. Kroszner, a Federal Reserve Board governor, urged financial institutions to consider altering their compensation policies to include some types of deferred pay. He also suggested that any new risk management guidelines for the industry touch on incentive compensation.

“It is up to financial institutions themselves not bank supervisors to decide how compensation should be structured,” he said. “But managers and boards of directors should understand the consequence of providing too many short-term and one-sided incentives.”

Meanwhile, a recent Interal Revenue Service rule reversal will lead many companies eliminate guaranteed bonuses and equity awards in severance contracts.

Starting next year, the agency said it would no longer allow companies to receive a tax deduction for any performance-based bonus, restricted stock, or other incentive payout if it would automatically be paid out if a top executive was terminated. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has floated the idea of eliminating that tax deduction altogether.

//New York Times//

Cuban: Why Yahoo should say yes to Microsoft

Cuban: If it’s really about the customer, Yahoo has no other option

By Mark Cuban

One thing about Jerry Yang that I always have admired is that he cares. He cares about his employees. He cares about his products. He cares about his shareholders. Most of all, he cares about building a world-class company that can be great at what it does.

If you look at Yahoo singularly, it is a great company. For Yang and David Filo to build a company with more than $6 billion in sales and more than $25 billion in market cap is an astounding feat. Unfortunately for Yahoo, it has had to weather both the Internet bubble bursting and the emergence of Google as a force in search and online advertising.

These are both issues because Wall Street has made them issues. The bubble speaks for itself. Google is a Wall Street issue for Yahoo because Wall Street wants Yahoo to keep up with the Googles.

That’s a problem for Jerry. Building a world class Yahoo to be the best company it possibly can be using the management skills that Jerry and company have is a far different challenge than optimizing the stock price. Particularly when Google is your stock competition.

Which is exactly why Jerry and David should sell to Microsoft.

If there is one thing Microsoft does well, it’s to ignore Wall Street and invest in its corporate strategies. It has so many huge lines of business that Wall Street has learned to just let those that need to germinate do so. Xbox. MSN. Online. Microsoft gets more leash from Wall Street to develop businesses than any company on the planet.

So the question isn’t whether Yahoo should sell. It should. The only question is what the structure of the deal should look like so that Jerry and David can achieve many of the goals they set out to accomplish on the Internet under the Microsoft umbrella. Jerry definitely is about customers first. This is his chance to show it. This deal accelerates his opportunity to get customers where he wants to take them if he negotiates it right. Something I didn’t think would be that hard. There is too much upside for Microsoft to nit-pick the non-financial deal points.

What about Google?

Google also is a company that wants to put its strategic goals ahead of what Wall Street wants. When the stock is trending up, that’s easy to do. If we are in the middle of a market correction of any severity at all, then Google could get hit with its own Wall Street “double whammy.”

First the downward pressure on its stock price. After several days of seeing the stock down $50 during the trading day, Google is feeling exactly what Yahoo felt when the bubble burst. That queasy sense of fear around the company. The questioning of what could possibly happen to the stock, the impact on employee options and the inevitable questioning of Google traditions. Ten to 20 percent of your time on other projects? Not when the stock price is down $200 in the past three months. Again.

The second whammy would happen if Yahoo was no longer a stand-alone stock. Even if the Google stock price suffered, there was always the comfort of outperforming Yahoo. Wall Street, employees, small stock owners always had the Yahoo stock comparison to give it confidence. If it’s not there, all the eyes are staring right at Google evaluating and questioning every number and corporate action.

It’s a level of scrutiny and pressure that can and will change the corporate culture of any company going through a maturation phase.

So Yahoo should say yes. Its less about the money than about finally achieving the corporate goals set out more than a decade ago.

One time Jerry told me that Yahoo stood for You Always Have Other Options. This time, Yahoo doesn’t. But their customers’ options could improve exponentially if Yahoo says yes.

Mark Cuban is owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and chairman of HDNet, a television network.

via//MSNBC

related//Information Week: Microsoft ‘moving forward’ With Yahoo Bid Despite Rejection

Why We Should Mourn Yahoo

The Web giant will probably fall to Microsoft, and that’s too bad, because it could have become the model for a new-media empire

To say that a lot has already been written about Microsoft’s (MSFT) proposed Yahoo! (YHOO) takeover would be understatement in the extreme. But I’m offering my two cents anyway, from a perspective that’s uncomfortably unique.

Starting on Feb. 11, I’ll be spending part of my time as the Silicon Valley host of Yahoo Finance’s new show, TechTicker. (Not to worry; I’ll still be in print as BusinessWeek.com’s Valley Girl and as a contributor to Henry Blodget’s SiliconAlleyInsider blog). Part live news cast, part video blog, TechTicker will cover the technology industry from Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

One guess as to what’s the biggest story we’ll be reporting right out of the gate.

It’s not like reporters at other outlets aren’t placed in similarly awkward positions. Consider The Wall Street Journal reporting on News Corp. (NWS), CNBC covering General Electric (GE), or BusinessWeek writing about The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP). But the comparison only illustrates what I consider lamentable about Microsoft’s irresistible bid for my new employer.

There’s plenty not to like about Yahoo’s predicament. I agree with those who have said this deal will go through. No, it’s not a good thing for Yahoo, the Valley, or the Internet. And no, in the long run it may not do Microsoft much good either. I don’t agree with Google’s (GOOG) alarmist view that Microsoft will monopolize the Internet, but I am concerned Yahoo won’t flourish under its new owner. I’m equally concerned that the best employees won’t stay. But Yahoo didn’t leave investors any other choice. Former CEO Terry Semel blew it, and current CEO Jerry Yang didn’t do enough to help. Yahoo has simply run out of chances.

Snapped Up

Yet given my new role as a television journalist, I can’t help but consider this deal from the media angle as well. And it’s from that perspective that I find Microsoft’s acquisition most troublesome—and tragic. Web companies revolutionized the way we distribute and consume news and information, yet none has been able to emerge as a standalone media titan.

MySpace was snapped up by News Corp. And as much as I’d like to think TechCrunch, Gawker Media, or even Digg could become the model new-media empire, they’re more likely to get flogged to old media names. CNET Networks (CNET) may not long be able to resist pressure from the consortium of activist investors agitating for board control, and Time Warner (TWX) is still unraveling the debacle that was its takeover by AOL (BusinessWeek.com, 2/7/08).

Yahoo is (or was) the closest we’ve come to creating a media empire on the back of the Web. Granted, the bulk of its content is aggregated, not homegrown. Yet that content is a big reason Yahoo draws hundreds of millions of visitors a month. Yahoo Finance is among the biggest personal finance portals on the Web, and some of the world’s most prestigious publications depend on Yahoo for a big chunk of traffic. I’d argue Yahoo is the biggest force in media that’s not called a media company.

This is one reason I took the job at Yahoo. Sure, I could have joined a hipper startup or a storied print publication. But the traditional media business is disintegrating and in desperate need of a new business model that supports high-quality journalism and makes money. People want the brevity of a blog, the vibrancy of video, and the in-depth reporting of magazines and newspapers—all via the Web. Yahoo was one of the few sites poised to bring those elements together, to put original and aggregated content in front of more eyeballs than a printed paper or TV screen could promise.

As a business, it’s hardly Google-sexy, but Yahoo wasn’t going to beat Google in search anyway. At least Yahoo was making money and growing. And if that, along with one of the largest audiences online, wasn’t enough for Wall Street, will any public company ever have sexy enough numbers to become the next great media empire? Time was, they didn’t have to. Media companies were frequently private, there were fewer activist hedge funds demanding over-the-top growth, and empires were often built by families who felt a thriving press was vital to national interests.

Not that I’m letting Yahoo off the hook. But as a reporter, I’m sad to see a media platform that could have been so promising turn into Microsoft’s latest conquest.

Sarah Lacy has been a business reporter for 10 years, most recently covering technology for BusinessWeek. Her book on the new generation of Internet moguls and the rise of Web 2.0 will be published by Penguin Publishing in 2008.

WSJ: Yahoo Board to Reject Microsoft Bid

Yahoo Inc.’s board plans to reject Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited $44.6 billion offer to acquire the Web giant, a person familiar with the situation says.

After a series of meetings over the past week, Yahoo’s board determined that the $31 per share offer “massively undervalues” Yahoo, the person said. It also doesn’t account for the risks Yahoo would be taking by entering into an agreement that might be overturned by regulators. The board plans to send a letter to Microsoft Monday, spelling out its position.

Yahoo’s board believes that Microsoft’s is trying to take advantage of the recent weakness in the company’s share price to “steal” the company. The decision to reject the offer signals that Yahoo’s board is digging in its heels for what could be a long takeover battle. The company is unlikely to consider any offer below $40 per share, the person said.

It’s unclear whether Microsoft would be willing to pay such a premium, which would increase the value of its original cash and stock bid by more than $12 billion. The rejection comes as Yahoo’s board has been considering various other scenarios, including a search advertising partnership Google Inc. Yahoo’s directors are still considering that and other options that would safeguard the company’s independence, people close the company say.

Yahoo’s board appears to be betting that Microsoft doesn’t want to “go hostile” and try to acquire the company against the wishes of management and the board. Such a course could cause deep resentment among the rank-and-file engineers whose cooperation is crucial to the company’s success. A hostile takeover could also make it more difficult to get the deal past regulators if Yahoo management tries to convince authorities that the deal is anticompetitive.

Yahoo has taken “poison pill” provisions to prevent an unwanted takeover. Microsoft would likely have to oust the board in order to overturn them.

Google Says Microsoft’s Bid for Yahoo Is `Troubling’

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc., owner of the world’s most used Internet search engine, said the proposed takeover of rival Yahoo! Inc. by Microsoft Corp. “raises troubling questions” for Web users.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, made a $44.6 billion unsolicited bid for Yahoo Feb. 1, moving to combine the second- and third-biggest Web search providers. The companies have some of the most popular e-mail and instant messaging programs and both sell graphical, or display, ads over the Web.

Buying Yahoo, also the owner of the most visited group of Web sites in the U.S., would help Microsoft quadruple sales from online advertising. Today, Google questioned whether the deal would let Microsoft “attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet” that it did with personal computers.

“This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another,” Mountain View, California- based Google said in a blog posting on the Web. “It’s about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.”

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, surged $9.20, or 48 percent, to $28.38 on Feb. 1 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, the biggest advance in over a decade. Microsoft fell $2.15, or 6.6 percent, to $30.45. Google lost $48.40, or 8.6 percent, to $515.90.

Yahoo’s Options

The offer from Microsoft is one of many options Yahoo is evaluating to boost the value of its stock, Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock said in a Feb. 1 e- mail to employees obtained by Bloomberg News. The board will respond after completing “a careful review of all of our strategic alternatives,” according to the message.

Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith countered Google’s claims in a statement, saying the transaction would help improve “openness, innovation, and the protection of privacy on the Internet.”

In 2001, a U.S. appellate court found Redmond, Washington- based Microsoft illegally defended its Windows monopoly by forcing Internet service providers to feature Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. The court also found the company put restrictions on personal computer makers to bar them from changing the way Windows looked when users turned on machines.

A settlement with the U.S. Justice Department forced Microsoft to allow computer makers to highlight rival software on Windows without fear of retaliation.

In 2004, European regulators ordered Microsoft to license information to rivals and sell a version of Windows without a built-in video and audio player. Under the decision, Microsoft also had to pay a record 497 million euro ($735.7 million) fine. The European Commission last month opened two new antitrust probes into Microsoft’s behavior.

Google has its own regulatory issues. Microsoft objected last year to Google’s $3.1 billion offer for display ad provider DoubleClick Inc., saying it would give Google too much control in the online ad market. The deal is under review by European regulators.

via//Bloomberg

David Davis’ bugging warning letter in full

ExxonMobil, Shell break own records for annual profits

Shell CEO: Figures are “satisfactory”

Exxon Mobil Corp. shattered its own record as the world’s most profitable publicly traded corporation, as rising oil prices helped the company bring in better-than-ever income and revenue for the fourth quarter and 2007.

Irving, Texas-based Exxon’s net income rose 3% to $40.6 billion in 2007, surpassing its 2006 record of $39.5 billion.

Chevron Corp. also posted strong earnings despite lower production and lagging profit from making and selling gasoline. Full-year profit at the San Ramon, Calif.-based oil company jumped 9% to $18.7 billion.

Royal Dutch Shell has been forced onto the defensive after its announcement of record profits sparked calls for a windfall tax and complaints from motorists about soaring pump prices.

While investors fretted about whether the $27.6bn (£13.9bn) profits based on the current cost of supply masked deep problems facing the world’s second largest non-government oil company, Shell received a barrage of complaints that its earnings were “obscene”.

The annual profits, which were up 9pc, are a record for a European listed company and were driven by last year’s soaring oil price, which averaged $90 a barrel for the last three months of 2007.

The company’s chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, said the figures were “satisfactory”, but the Unite union and the AA motoring organisation said the government should skim off some of the oil giant’s profits.

via//Los Angeles Times & The Telegraph

VP Cheney makes strong pitch for telecom immunity

United States Vice President Dick Cheney gave a policy address yesterday to the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank. During his speech, Cheney endorsed proposals to expand the scope of warrantless electronic surveillance, called for such programs to be made permanent, and advocated granting retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications service providers that were complicit in potentially illegal government wiretapping activities.

Cheney’s speech articulated the Bush administration’s position on surveillance issues in anticipation of the imminent expiration of the Protect America Act, a temporary surveillance bill that was enacted in response to a ruling from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that reportedly reined in intelligence-gathering activity. The Protect America Act broadly expanded federal surveillance power and eliminated many requirements for judicial oversight, making it possible for the executive branch and some of its direct subordinates to authorize warrantless interception of communications between people “reasonably believed to be outside the United States.”

Cheney framed this policy as an effort to modernize the FISA process and is calling for Congress to make permanent those provisions of the Protect America Act. Cheney also asserts that domestic telecommunications service providers who cooperate with government requests for information should be granted legal immunity for their potentially unlawful behavior.

“First, our administration feels strongly that an updated FISA law should be made permanent, not merely extended again with another sunset provision. We can always revisit a law that’s on the books—that’s part of the job of the elected branches of government. But there is no sound reason to pass critical legislation like the Protect American Act and slap an expiration date on it. Fighting the war on terror is a long-term enterprise that requires long-term, institutional changes. The challenge to the country has not expired over the last six months. It won’t expire any time soon—and we should not write laws that pretend otherwise,” said Cheney during his speech. “Second, the law should uphold an important principle: that those who assist the government in tracking terrorists should not be punished with lawsuits. We’re asking Congress to update FISA and especially to extend this protection to communications providers alleged to have given such assistance any time after September 11th, 2001. This is an important consideration, because some providers are facing dozens of lawsuits right now. Why? Because they are believed to have aided the U.S. government in the effort to intercept international communications of al Qaeda-related individuals.”

Critics of the government surveillance program note that telecom involvement in warrantless wiretapping likely violates section 222 of the Communications Act, which prohibits disclosure or provision of access to customer network information. The legality of the program, however, is in dispute because the FCC has declined to investigate, the telecom companies have refused to disclose information about the program to Congress, and the FISC ruling regarding the legality of the program is classified and remains a guarded secret.

The Bush administration has demanded retroactive immunity grants for the telecom companies and has threatened to veto any surveillance bills that do not include said provisions. The telecoms themselves have also been vigorously lobbying for immunity. There are allegations that the telecom companies have attempted to use political leverage to obtain the immunity grants, but the veracity of those allegations cannot be evaluated yet because the DoJ has—in clear violation of the Freedom of Information Act—been stonewalling the EFF’s formal requests for information regarding interaction between telecoms and politicians.

Concerns have been expressed by critics that the kind of surveillance made possible by the Protect America Act is only the beginning and that basic privacy rights will be further eroded as the government continues to push the boundaries of law. Indeed, Cheney also passingly endorses a proposal made by intelligence chief Mick McConnell that reaches far beyond the current FISA dispute and would enable the government to intercept virtually all network traffic in the United States, an unprecedented level of surveillance.

In light of consistent abuses of basic surveillance powers granted to federal law enforcement agencies, it’s not a stretch to believe that more secretive surveillance programs would also be rife with abuse in the absence of more direct transparency and oversight.

via//Ars Technica

Former British PM Blair takes part time position at JPMorgan for $980,000/yr

LONDON (Reuters) – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped into the private sector on Thursday, joining U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase and Co Inc as a senior adviser to its board and clients.

The bank said Blair, who is working as a Middle East peace envoy for the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, would advise its chief executive and senior management team on global politics on a part-time basis.

He would also take part in company events with key clients — with his name and contact seen by some as a major draw.

Blair biographer Anthony Seldon said there would inevitably be allegations he was selling out, but that ultimately his new job was likely to come second to his global political work.

“Maybe this is a harbinger of a new Tony Blair,” he told Reuters. “But he has never struck me as someone who enjoys particularly the trappings of wealth except foreign holidays with his children.”

“I don’t think this will be nearly as important to him as his other priorities such as the inter-faith dialogue work and the Middle East,” he added.

Seldon said Blair had immersed himself in international affairs probably more than any other European politician and was therefore a very high-profile global name for such a job.

BETTER THAN BUSH?

“He is about as good as it gets,” he said, contrasting Blair with the U.S. president whom he said was seen as a less lucrative brand once he leaves office. “Most firms would rather have George W. Bush advising their competition.”

Blair said of his new job with JPMorgan: “I look forward to advising them on how they approach the huge political and economic changes that globalization brings.”

London’s Evening Standard newspaper said the role was rumored to be worth 500,000 pounds ($980,000) a year, and contrasted his wealth with the hardship of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan — both wars begun under Blair — who have struggled for compensation.

JPMorgan refused to comment on Blair’s pay deal.

The Financial Times, which first reported the move on its Web Site, said the job was the first of a series that Blair — who stood down last year after a decade in office — intended to take in the private sector.

Blair is credited with bringing his Labor Party out of years in opposition to win a landslide election in 1997, but his popularity was damaged in Britain by the Iraq war and his staunch support for Bush.

“I have always been interested in commerce and the impact of globalization,” Blair told the Financial Times.

Former prime ministers have often relied on private sector work or lucrative public speaking fees — particularly in the United States — after leaving office, but some analysts were unfazed by Blair’s move.

“When I come to look at my earnings estimates for JPMorgan I certainly wouldn’t be making an adjustment for the Tony Blair factor,” said Richard Staite, banking analyst for Atlantic Equities in London. “It is a pretty marginal issue.”

via//Reuters