« January 28, 2007 - February 03, 2007 | Main | February 11, 2007 - February 17, 2007 »
Roger Ailes says Fox is starting a new business channel because CNBC is a bunch of left-wing, anti-capitalist money haters. Edward Wyatt reports in the New York Times:
At a media conference in New York yesterday, Mr. Murdoch said the Fox Business Channel would be “more business friendly than CNBC,” which he said was quick to “leap on every scandal,” according to a report on his remarks by BusinessWeek.com, whose parent, McGraw-Hill, sponsored the conference.In a separate interview, Mr. Ailes elaborated. “Many times I’ve seen things on CNBC where they are not as friendly to corporations and profits as they should be.”
He added: “We don’t get up every morning thinking business is bad.”
Posted by dan at 04:01 PM
My latest in Slate, on HSBC.
Posted by dan at 03:59 PM
The website of the giant bank HSBC tells us that its name is an acronym for The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
Given the company's recent woes in the U.S. housing subprime market, here are a couple of alternative readings:
Holding Sad Building Collateral
Holy S***! Bad Credit!
Posted by dan at 01:51 PM
This continuing run of hospital leveraged buy-outs is a little mystifying. Yesterday, Triad Hospitals, the nation's third-biggest hospital chain, agreed to a $4.7 billion buy-out deal. HCA, the largest hospital chain, has already gone private. And as Bloomberg News notes, via the New York Times:
"Since Jan. 1, 2006, 24 buyous of United States hospital and nursing-home companies have been announced with a total value more than $42 billion."
So what's surprising about this? Hospital chains became cheap takeover targets in part because many of their uninsured customers simply can't afford to pay the bills. Every quarter, they're forced to write off a significant chunk of revenues as uncollectible, and they've been shamed into either giving away more care or sharply reducing the fees charged to the legions of uninsured Americans. And of course, five years into an economic expansion, the percentage of Americans without health insurance hasn't gone down. Will that change quickly?
A second potential problem involves another big hospital customer that is indicating it might not be willing to pay its bills: the federal government. Medicare and Medicaid provide a significant chunk of hospital revenues. And in his current budget proposal, President Bush is seeking to slash the payments they receive. Jane Zhang reports in the Wall Street Journal:
Hospitals would bear the brunt of President Bush's proposal to cut Medicare spending by $65.6 billion over five years.The plan, detailed yesterday in Mr. Bush's fiscal 2008 budget, would cut payments to medical providers -- such as hospitals, hospices, ambulance services and skilled-nursing facilities -- by 0.65% in the fiscal year starting next October. The budget also calls for the elimination of the practice of Medicare reimbursing such providers when beneficiaries fail to pay their bills.
In total, hospitals would see about $30 billion in Medicare payment cuts over the next five years, industry analysts said. Industry lobbyists vowed a fierce fight to block the proposed cuts. . .
In addition to hospitals, long-term care facilities would be hit, as well as physicians. Though not mentioned in the proposal, doctors will see their payment rates cut, starting from 10% in 2008 according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The president also proposed cutting Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor, through $13 billion in spending cuts and $12.7 billion in administrative-cost savings over five years.
No wonder the private equity industry has just formed a lobbying organization.
Posted by dan at 09:17 AM
Forget about Sarbanes-Oxley. Clay Risen, writing in the New Republic, identifies a more plausible threat to U.S. economic leadership: the shabby way we treat foreign business travelers.
Laptop theft is only one of countless complaints coming from international business travelers. Some are picayune, such as long lines and impolite border officials. Others, though, are more ominous: high-power European executives sitting through hours of interrogation by U.S. officials, lengthy delays in attaining visa-application interviews, and even the occasional, unexplained denial of entry. Not surprisingly, two-thirds of business travelers surveyed in a 2006 poll by the Discover America partnership, a coalition of travel-industry groups, called the United States "the worst country in the world" in its handling of foreign guests.
Posted by dan at 09:01 AM
I've argued several times that the meme being promulgated by think tank denizens, Wall Street executives and their fellow travelers on how Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulations are causing the U.S. to lose market share in IPOs and other capital market functions is bull. But don't take it from me. Take it from former Treasury Secretary John Snow. Greg Ip reports in the Wall Street Journal:
On a separate issue, Snow said, “I don’t think a case can be made that Sarbanes-Oxley is making U.S. capital markets fundamentally less competitive,” referring to the 2002 law that tightened the responsibilities and oversight of public corporations in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals.Much of the loss of market share by U.S. capital markets, he said, reflects the natural, growing sophistication of other markets. “Just like we’ve lost manufacturing because other people could do manufacturing at comparable quality and lower cost, it applies in financial markets as well. As other substitutes develop for whatever it is you’re selling, you’re going to have a lower market share.”
Posted by dan at 08:55 AM
My latest in Slate, on the many similarities between the listing Ford Motor Company and the listing Bush administration.
Posted by dan at 08:53 AM
Jenny Wiggins of The Financial Times reports ($ required) that the parent company of Mars and Snickers won't pitch ads to the under-12 set.
Masterfoods, the makers of Mars and Snickers chocolate bars, is to stop marketing confectionery to children younger than 12 by the end of the year - the first time a major foodmaker has set such a high global age threshold for such products.The measure reflects mounting concerns about the links between advertising and childhood obesity and follows moves by some public authorities to bring in tighter food regulations such as last year's ban on trans fats in New York's restaurants. The move by Masterfoods, one of the world's top 30 advertisers, is the biggest shift in marketing policy by a large food group since European officials threatened companies with regulation two years ago. It could drive other companies to adopt similar practices. . . .
But in a letter to Robert Madelin, the European Commission's director-general for health and consumer protection, the company says: "We have decided to make an official policy change to a cut-off age of 12 years for all our core products."
Core products include snack foods and confectionery. The letter says the policy, which will apply to all advertising, including online and new media, will be adopted by the end of the year.
This self-imposed ban doesn't seem enforceable given the way advertising is consumed in this world: on billboards visible to everyone, including those under 12; in newspaper inserts visible to everyone, including those under 12; on television programs of all types, visible to everyone, including those under 12; on the internet, visible to everyone, including those under 12.
Sure, a consumer products company can say it won't run ads on Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel, where it knows most of the audience are kids. But what about sports shows, or American Idol, or Dancing With the Stars, or the Olympics--all of which attract an audience that ranges up and down the demographic scale. If you want to make sure your ads won't reach people under 12, you would essentially have to make sure that you advertise only on shows that nobody under the age of 12 would be caught dead watching. So expect to see ads for the Snickers bar on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, CNBC's "Power Lunch," and MSNBC's Tucker.
Posted by dan at 08:17 AM
Krishna Guha of the Financial Times flags a report from Hope Street about the plight of the middle class. (The report does not yet appear on Hope Street's website.)
Economic opportunity grew more slowly for the average American household than for either the upper or lower end of the income scale over the past two decades, according to an index compiled by Hope Street, a not-for-profit organisation.The study, led by Andrew Tilton, an economist at Goldman Sachs, tries to estimate how expected lifetime income has evolved for different segments of the US population. It finds that the expected lifetime income of the median US household did increase, from $1.3m to $1.7m (after inflation) from 1985 to 2005, but less rapidly than for other groups.
Posted by dan at 08:13 AM
On the front page, the Wall Street Journal picks up ($ required) on the problem of the housing vacancy rate (which this blog noted on January 30).
Posted by dan at 08:11 AM
My latest in Slate, on the trevails of truckers.
Posted by dan at 10:32 AM