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Barnes & Noble Inc. said its board's audit committee will conduct a review of the company's stock-option practices after a shareholder filed a lawsuit alleging that the New York-based bookseller improperly backdated dozens of options grants to executives. Federal authorities are investigating the options practices of more than 50 companies to determine whether they backdated or otherwise manipulated grant dates to make them more lucrative. Stock options give employees the right to buy shares in the future at current prices, so retroactively giving executives lower-priced options can translate into significant additional pay for executives. Barnes & Noble said there was...

Critics of Section 936, while acknowledging that the incentive did help create new jobs in Puerto Rico, nonetheless assert that it was an "inefficient" mechanism for creating jobs. As evidence of Section 936's "inefficiency," they cite the fact that in recent years pharmaceutical employment on the island has increased "precisely when Section 936 benefits were being phased-out." What these critics fail to recognize - but what the recent GAO report on Puerto Rico confirms - is that many companies operating in Puerto Rico in this post-936 era continue to benefit from a tax incentive somewhat equivalent to Section 936 but...

I attended a recent Investment in China and India Summit hosted by Financial Research Associates. I will use this forum to share some of insights that were given at this summit for the benefit of those hoping/thinking/planning on investing in an Asian country -- China, India, or Japan. Growth Capital- Dominant type of fund in Asia by number, especially in country-focused funds; focused on backing firms that are already established but are looking for capital to support strong growth. Buyouts- True control buyouts are a more recent phenomenon in Asia. Most funds focused on buyouts are larger Pan-Asian funds or...

Apollo Group is the biggest of the ForPro education groups. It owns the University of Phoenix. Yesterday its stock fell 2 percent after reporting lower third-quarter profits because of higher costs. Corinthian Colleges is another of the big players. It, too, reported a loss of 3 cents/share. DeVry lost 15 cents, and Educational Services lost 3 cents/share as well. Everybody's trading down, albeit down very little. Does this mean that the quality of education provided by these groups has also dipped? Are students losing out 2% on their classes? or 3 cents/dollar they spend on their tuition? Hardly. One of...

Jack Welch gives advice on how the new graduate can succeed in American companies. It seems to be good advice to succeed in any company -- anywhere. His number one piece of advice: OVERDELIVER - This is very un-American -- and very un-student-like. In school, students learn to meet certain objectives -- answer certain questions within certain time parameters. In the workforce -- it's not that way anymore. To get an A+ in business, Welch says, a person -- 22 years old or 62 years old -- needs to: 1. Expand the organization's expectations of what you can do --...

Grand Canyon University might be a school for ultramarathoners (super marathoners) -- guys and gals who run multiple marathons in one day. I know of one race that goes from rim to rim of the Grand Canyon and back all in one day. But that is not relevant here. Sorry. Grand Canyon School was a traditional University with an annual shortfall of $12 million to $15 million as late as 2004. It broke even last year and is now turning a profit. The difference is, it was bought by a significant other -- Significant Education -- and turned into a...

Berkery, Noyes & Co. LLC is a leading independent investment bank that provides M & A services to the global information, publishing, and IT sectors. The group has been involved as an advisor for most major transactions, buying and/or selling, related to the education market in recent years. 1. National Geographic Society bought Hampton-Brown Co. 2. ProQuest bought Voyager Expanded Learning. 3. Touchstone Applied Science Associates just purchased Questar Educational Systems. I reckon Berkery, Noyes figures it better get someone on board who knows something about post-secondary schools and other forms of higher-ed, including the fopros. So, they have hired...

Sakhalin Island is a remote and sparsely populated area in the farthest east section of Russia. It sits to the north of Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. Its ports freeze over part of each year because, well, it is so dang cold. But Sakhalin is where the future may lie -- at least for Russia's big oil. The island is about 600 miles long -- about the length of California but about one/fourth the size -- and there are an estimated 45 billion barrels of oil equivalent that lie beneath its seas. California probably has that much, too, but the...

Sea-Based Missile Defense System Works, but Will Congress Fund It? by Baker SpringPosted Jun 16, 2006In 1995, The Heritage Foundation’s Missile Defense Study Team proposed to Congress a comprehensive plan for developing and deploying an effective global defense against ballistic missiles. The panel was chaired by the former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, and among its recommendations was a proposal to evolve the existing AEGIS weapons systems onboard Navy surface ships for air defense into a missile defense system. Last month, the Navy demonstrated the wisdom of this approach by successfully testing modified versions of...

Iran's defense minister on Thursday vowed that his country would "use nuclear defense as a potential" if "threatened by any power." Speaking following a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Hassan Ali Turkmani in Teheran on Thursday, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar emphasized that Iran "should be ready for confronting all kinds of threats." Teheran has denied accusations by the US and its allies that Iran was seeking uranium enrichment technologies in order to develop nuclear weapons, saying its program was only meant to generate electricity. Meanwhile, Turkmani told reporters that Syria and Iran's "policy is the policy of strengthening...

A Texas company has decided to duke it out with IBM in India. Electronic Data Systems is located in Plano, TX. Mphasis is located in India's silicon valley - Bangalore. After IBM announced its increased interest in India, EDS decided to show just how much interest they have in the country as well - to the tune of $380 million. Compare that to the $6 billion that IBM has pledged to India, and I think IBM hardly noticed EDS' gesture. Where do these companies get this money? EDS bought 52% of Mphasis shares. Their goal - to add overseas jobs...

The US Chamber of Commerce is on a tour of the US called China Business 2006 Initiative. The purpose of the tour is to encourage exchanges between the little guys. They want to pair up US business executives, legal experts, government officials, academics who have on-the-ground experience in China with local business owners, and community officials who might benefit from opportunities in the Chinese market. For example - China is the third largest buyer of products in Kansas! And the fifth largest buyer of Missouri exports. West Coasters are not the only ones who can do business with China. And...

www.motorola.com and www.nokia.com are going head-to-head in the southern city of Madras, India. But, Nokia is throwing the bigger punches. Nokia announced plans to build a $150-million plant near Madras. Motorola countered with a plan to invest $100 million in a plant of its own. Where do these companies get all of this money? $150 mill, $100 mil, and yesterday Yahoo put up $60 mil to invest in South Korea. Could someone please drop a million near me, or invest in me? India is one of the fastest growing handset markets. Gee, I wonder what country is number one. Nokia...

I read that it used to cost about $70 on average for a computer geek to walk from cubicle to cubicle to install the needed software on individual PCs at different work stations. Now, IBM has 200 people in Toronto running a software installation factory for clients worldwide. Packages are delivered over the Internet to machines at 20 cents per PC. Whoa! Big difference! Giants in the PC market don't have the luxury of making gradual changes in the way they do things anymore. Indian companies have rewritten the rules of competition - because Indians can do it cheaper and...

Toyota is planning to voluntarily recall about 2/3 of the Prius cars they have made. Someone in Japan learned that when you turn the steeling wheel and drive real slow into a curb, it can break something in the steering mechanism. Trust me, you drive very slowly in Japan a lot, with the steering wheel turned all the way the left or right. Usually, its bad business for a car company to do something like this. However, Toyota is sucking it up, making the changes on their own dime BEFORE a tire blows out, or a car rolls over and...

Labor leaders in Korea are not disappointed to see Hyundai CEO, Chung Mong Koo, take a fall. What union leaders ( I hate unions ) hope for is that this will give Hyundai Motors a chance to make another leap forward because they will be out from under the 'emperor-like' rule of Chung. Hyundai is the world's number 7 auto-maker and Chung now owns 5.2% of it from jail. Though he owned such a small portion he had near absolute control and was even said to be a micro manager to the point of deciding what color the parts under...

IBM is staffing up in low-cost countries. To know one's surprise two of those countries are India and China. One more country is Brazil and IBM is also taking aim at Eastern Europe. But just how much is IBM depending on these countries and for what? Eastern Europe - IBM has grown from 2,900 workers to 5,125 workers since 2003. Eastern Europe provides data centers, service skills centers and Linux development labs. The work force in Brazil has doubled since 2003 - 4,500 to 9,000 and they are providing data centers, call centers and Linux development. The Chinese work force...

Jack Welch gives his reasons why a company should go to China... 1. China has a vast market 2. China has low-cost manufacturing 3. China has increasingly strong technical talent. 4. Companies that 'make it' in China leap into another competitive league, leaving their competitors behind. and why a company should not... 1. China is littered with companies that went to China...just to go to China. 2. The China-or-bust mantra was invoked on them in B-school. 3. Because everyone is going.... How about your company? Should it go to China? Why? Why not? What do you think?

As a physician who has devoted 21 years to advocacy in tobacco control, conducting research and publishing a number of studies on the hazards of secondhand smoke, it is not surprising that I favor a wide range of anti-smoking measures. But anti-smoking tactics adopted by some municipalities, companies and organizations do not serve smokers or the public. The methods are mean-spirited, unsupported by science and attempt to stamp out smoking by punishing and marginalizing smokers. They go too far. The City Council in Calabasas, Calif., recently enacted an ordinance - supported by several anti-smoking groups - that bans smoking in...

Under pressure from the Hill, the Securities and Exchange Commission is pushing the adoption of the so-called "Katie Couric" clause. The SEC wants publicly traded companies to give shareholders more information about multimillion-dollar salaries of their executives and employees. The name comes from the "Today Show” co-host, who is leaving NBC at the end of May to join CBS as anchor and managing editor of the to be retitled "CBS Evening News With Katie Couric. " It’s been widely reported that Couric is to receive $15 million over five years. The SEC proposal – primarily aimed at requiring the disclosure...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 27, 2006 SPYCHIPPED LEVI'S BRAND JEANS HIT THE U.S. Levi Strauss Confirms RFID Test, Refuses to Disclose Location It may be time to ditch your Dockers and lay off the Levi's, say privacy activists Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre. New information confirms that Levi Strauss & Co. is violating a call for a moratorium on item-level RFID by spychipping its clothing. What's more, the company is refusing to disclose the location of its U.S. test. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a controversial technology that uses tiny microchips to track items from a distance. These RFID microchips...

I might sound a bit conceited with this statement, but to any other person an article about a new SEC rule might have seemed trivial. To me, it was a significant statement about the current American values; and I don't mean a positive statement. In their never ending campaign to create class warfare, the mainstream media, hypocritical wealthy Democrat politicians, Hollywood limousine liberals, and the left in general have regularly expressed a hatred toward corporate CEOs for their "bloated" salaries, benefits, and pensions. There's no rational reason, according to these socialists, for a man to earn in one week what...

Yahoo's general counsel, Michael Callahan, will join executives from Google, Microsoft and Cisco before the House subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations on Wednesday. All four companies have come under fire for their dealings in China — from agreeing to censor their search or blogging tools to providing hardware that makes government surveillance of Internet users easier. The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders revealed last Wednesday that a Chinese division of Yahoo had provided information to authorities that contributed to the conviction in 2003 of Li Zhi, a former civil servant who had criticized local officials online....

(CBS) It's lunchtime at the Scotts Miracle-Gro headquarters near Columbus, Ohio, and the eating is healthy. "I'll have some salmon," a worker said. That's because the company that helps Americans grow their gardens is trying to trim its workers waists — and $24 million pear year in health care costs. So there's a full time doctor and a new clinic, which is free to workers and families enrolled in the company medical plan. There is a drive through pharmacy with generic drugs — and right next door: the new gym. It's also free to those who work out more than twice...

SEC to Propose Overhaul of Rules On Executive Pay Changes Would Increase Transparency in Reporting Perks, Retirement Benefits By KARA SCANNELL Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL January 10, 2006 WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission, responding to rising criticism of soaring -- and partially hidden -- executive pay, is poised to propose the most sweeping overhaul of pay disclosure rules in 14 years, seeking to push companies to divulge much more about their top executives' perquisites, retirement benefits and total compensation. The proposed changes, according to SEC officials, would for the first time require corporate proxy statements...

America's corporations are under increasing pressure not only to accommodate homosexuality but to celebrate it and to punish employees who object. Over the past two decades, hundreds of companies have adopted varying degrees of homosexual activism in their official policies. As a result, a growing number of Christians have been disciplined or fired for resisting the trend. Elizabeth Birch, former president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest homosexual pressure group, said in 2004 that she was happily surprised that corporations have become "the driving engine" of "gay" activism.1 The HRC Web site's National Corporate Sponsors page has this...

Wal-Mart, Ford Motor Co., AT&T, and Fannie Mae are among the major U.S. corporations whose foundations fund the liberal groups now waging war against Samuel Alito's nomination. The left-wing Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary has launched a series of advertisements aimed at defeating Alito. The group describes itself as “a national coalition of public interest organizations,� and includes NARAL Pro-Choice America, the NAACP, the National Organization of Women, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State among others. The Alliance for Justice, People For the American Way, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights head the Coalition....

Not only were neither Saddam Hussein nor Iraq mentioned in a film about the Iraq-Kuwait war, but the Manchurian corporation's technicians rewire the brains of the abducted U.S. soldiers with false memories of al-Qaida-type jihadists so that they will lay the blame for their terrorist acts on an innocent Muslim jihadist. Why don't the movies have plausible, real-world villains anymore? One reason is that a plethora of stereotype-sensitive advocacy groups, representing everyone from hyphenated ethnic minorities and the physically handicapped to Army and CIA veterans, now maintain liaisons in Hollywood to protect their images. The studios themselves often have "outreach...

[...] Inventors have always held a special place in American history and business lore, embodying innovation and economic progress in a country that has long prized individual creativity and the power of great ideas. In recent decades, tinkerers and researchers have given society microchips, personal computers, the Internet, balloon catheters, bar codes, fiber optics, e-mail systems, hearing aids, air bags and automated teller machines, among a bevy of other devices. [...] A larger pool of Mr. West's colleagues echoes his concerns. "The scientific and technical building blocks of our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Corporations are being asked to donate tens of thousands of dollars to fund Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's upcoming trade mission to China and some will be along when he talks to officials there, it was reported Monday. The governor, who came to office on a promise to take state government away from special interests, is raising money to pay for the trip through a nonprofit foundation that is not required to publicly reveal the names of donors, the Los Angeles Times said. Some companies have been asked to give $50,000 to the California Protocol Foundation, the Times...

If what's good for business is good for Texas, as our state leaders routinely remind us, then the employee handbook of, say, SBC Communications, should be required reading for lawmakers clamoring to ink their "values" into the Bill of Rights. That'll never happen, of course – at least not before a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage goes before voters Nov. 8 – but who better than corporate America to teach business-friendly legislators about "values" that embrace, rather than condemn, diversity? Make no mistake: Market forces, not liberal ideologies, demand that companies take an enlightened view of creating cultures that appeal...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California's budget has received a $1.2 billion boost from unexpected revenue since July 1, the start of the fiscal, according to the state Department of Finance. Revenue in September alone was $897 million over the projected estimate. State finance officials said Thursday that most of the unanticipated income probably was due to several one-time factors instead of any surge in the overall California economy. More than one-third of the unexpected income last month came from a jump in personal income taxes, which rose $376 million above estimates. Analysts said they suspect some of that additional income was...

Bill Clinton is building on Jimmy Carter's example and creating a new paradigm for ex-presidents. They're ba-aack. Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, America's political odd couple, are teaming up for another big roadshow, this time to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Last week, they stood shoulder to shoulder with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, the 59-year-old Clinton now completely gray and looking a bit fragile, and the 81-year-old Bush looking stooped and a bit weary. Later the pair appeared together in Houston, chatting with evacuees at the Astrodome and the Reliant Center Arena....

Vietnam’s communist government knows that it is impossible to monitor the country’s 5,000 cyber cafes, so it’s forcing the cafe owners to be its eyes and ears. Last July, a government directive informed cafe owners that they will have to take a six-month course so that they can better monitor their cyber customers. The Vietnamese government is justifying its move for reasons of “national security and defense” — that is, to protect itself against online journalists who, it says, “provide sensationalist news and articles while others even publish reactionary and libelous reports and a depraved culture.” Reporters Without Borders (RWB),...

...The straightforward generosity of the corporate sector has been well reported. [D]onations had exceeded $200 million. Besides cash, companies have handed out free drugs, suspended finance payments on cars and mortgages and helped emergency personnel with equipment. As interesting, though, has been the application of corporate best practices-- from supply-chain management to logistics-- to a natural disaster. The private-sector planning began before Katrina hit. Home Depot's "war room" had transferred high-demand items -- generators, flashlights, batteries and lumber -- to distribution areas surrounding the strike area. Phone companies readied mobile cell towers and sent in generators and fuel. Insurers flew...

Hewlett-Packard Co. is the latest business to take advantage of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. HP announced that in the third and fourth quarters, it will repatriate $14.5 billion in cash from foreign earnings. As a result, it added, the company took a $988 million adjustment on an after-tax basis in the June quarter, primarily related to a tax adjustment resulting from this repatriation. HP Brings Home Money, but Not Jobs The timing of Hewlett-Packard's $14.5 billion repatriation is more than a little ironic. Stephen Taub, CFO.com August 18, 2005 Hewlett-Packard Co. is the latest business to take...

Althought the title is a bit overstated it is pretty close to my state of mind right about now. I have had a couple of bad run ins with some companies I have been doing business with for quite a while. The first is Bank One/Chase. I have been banking with Bank One, now Chase, for several years. Well, they got bought out by Chase, and this is part of my disatisfaction with them. I had recently made a credit purchase at Circuit City. I had the account about three months when all of a sudden I received a call...

Last month the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Connecticut case of Kelo vs. New London, gave local governments the power to seize the homes of property owners and give the land to private companies. Florida Attorney General Charles Crist and other sources have been quoted as saying that Floridians don’t have to worry about this decision because state law provides greater protection for private-property owners than the U.S. Constitution or Connecticut law. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Florida’s Community Redevelopment Act that allows “blighted” areas to be condemned by local governments under eminent domain gives public entities unbridled discretion in...

Conservatives called it the most important case in the Supreme Court this year. It was the latest skirmish in a war that pitted liberals against conservatives who desperately fought to limit government control over private property. This case, Kelo v City of New London Connecticut, would decide whether local governments could seize private property and give it to another private party under an expanded view of eminent domain. And when the 5 to 4 decision was announced on Thursday it was a victory for the Supreme Court's liberal wing. And the conservatives Justices were livid. But conservatives weren't the only...

Employees of United Airlines recently got a frightening lesson in the “ownership society.” The lesson was: If you don’t own and control your retirement assets, they can be slashed or taken away at any time. A federal bankruptcy judge approved United’s request to dump its pension plan into the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., a federal agency that takes over insolvent retirement plans. More than 120,000 United employees and former employees — including many who are already retired — will see major cuts in their retirement benefits. For decades, United has promised its workers generous payments in retirement. As other industries...

The Supreme Court has now ruled that it was excessive prosecutorial zeal and inadequate jury instruction that destroyed Arthur Andersen in 2002, not the merits of the federal obstruction-of-justice case.... Thus, the excesses of a few corporate swingers led to suspicions that hanky-panky was the ruling ethos in every corporate boardroom. Naderites, Hollywood pundits, Marxist professors and left-wing journals piled on with assurances that they had been right about capitalists all along. [A] Congress never reluctant to make work for fellow lawyers whooped through the Sarbanes-Oxley bill.... The sour public mood has had other effects. Staffers at the Securities and...

More than 200 lawmakers have rushed to correct travel-disclosure statements in recent months as reporters on Capitol Hill discover more discrepancies in the wake of questions about travel by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. "You're dealing with hundreds," said Kent Cooper, co-founder of PoliticalMoneyLine, a Web site that compiles the forms after they're filed with the clerk's office and makes it available at www.fecinfo.com. "There's a ton more for staffers." Mr. Cooper said his figure covered parts of April and May, a period during which the scrutiny of gift travel — which is funded by corporations and outside interest groups...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger raised between $2 million and $3 million for his expected special election campaign during a three-state swing last weekend, his chief fundraising consultant said Thursday. The governor said he intends to continue his aggressive fundraising schedule in hopes of pressuring Democrats to negotiate over the various measures he wants to place before voters in November. "Just remember, math says we need around $50 million altogether to fight the hundreds of millions of dollars the special interests and the unions are spending against our initiatives and against our reforms," Schwarzenegger told reporters during a media...

dude... corporations have like, money.

I have a co-worker who needs some advice. He ownes a farm in southeasern Nebraska. It has a creek running through it as well as a railroad track, which is owned by an electric company (if I understand him right). They never use it anymore however. He had always planned to build a house on a hill that overlooked the creek. He has found out, however, that the power company is going to be building a high voltage main feeder powerline, running from Nebraska City to Lincoln and they are now going to take it right through his farm. Where...

If the Democratic chieftains in Washington really want a window into why heartland residents are tuning out our party, they should stop huddling with loopy linguists from Berkeley like George Lakoff and just start reading Frank Rich's commentaries in the New York Times. There they will find a perfect distillation of the arrogance and narrow-mindedness that typifies the cultural thinking of our elites--and turns off red-state voters. In the view of Mr. Rich and his acolytes, freedom in our culture has been "under attack" ever since 9/11. Indeed, Mr. Rich has argued that this attack is being led by "new...

Otherwise eco-activists will keep the world’s poor impoverished, hungry, and disease-ridden. The litany of alleged offenses follows a script: fragile ecosystems, environmental devastation, irresponsible investment, huge profits, human rights violations, indigenous people imperiled. So do the demands: transparency, accountability, ethics, social responsibility. The tactics are equally familiar. Launch website, issue denunciations. Enlist grade school teachers whose students can write letters to the CEO. Harass the CEO at home. Stage protests at corporate offices. Claim to be stakeholders who must be given a role in all decisions, so that company policies henceforth reflect activist demands. Confrontational? Disingenuous? Of course. Effective? Absolutely....

Ask nearly any business executive to name the biggest menace facing corporate America, and the answer is apt to be a number: ''404.'' That refers to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires massive reporting by publicly held companies to prevent recurrences of WorldCom, Enron, Tyco and other scandals. For honest corporate officers, this is classic governmental over-regulation -- a dagger aimed at the heart of the U.S. economy. This is a peculiar state of affairs to be brought about by a government under Republican control. William H. Donaldson, the Bush-picked SEC chairman, sides with his commission's Democratic members...

The U.S. economy ended 2004 with brisk momentum on the strongest surge of corporate profits in three years, the government reported on Wednesday, though there were signs that price pressures might be picking up. Gross domestic product, which measures total output within U.S. borders, expanded at a 3.8 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter, the same as estimated a month ago, the Commerce Department said in its third and final estimate of GDP performance. That was slightly less than the 4 percent GDP pace that Wall Street analysts had forecast but still reflected healthy growth, only slightly less...

It's said, often and rightly, that reporters aren't big on good news. There’s something we hate even more: a Big Bad Trend that goes away, or worse, gets fixed. It's possible -- just possible -- that is precisely what's happening with the corporate crime wave that dominated financial news for the past four years. Let me take the potential bullet for Team Journalism here. In November, 2003 I wrote a column headlined, "The Predator Class." It argued: I believe there is now a professional, well-trained elite, supported by large institutions, that is adept and willing to use corrupt practices to...