The $39 billion proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile could save the companies a lot of money.
For everyone else, it could cost a lot more.
No sooner did the two companies announce a $39 billion merger on Sunday than
industry analysts began assessing the impact on the biggest potential losers in the deal:
consumers.
If approved by regulators, the merger would leave just three major cellular carriers in the United States,
Goldman Sachs has said it will pay off an expensive 2008 investment from Warren E. Buffett,
hoping to put one of the most difficult periods in its history behind it.
In total, the investment netted the billionaire investor $1.7 billion, or roughly $190,000 a day.
The Federal Reserve on Friday blessed the balance sheet of the Wall Street firm,
paving the way for it to pay back the $5 billion investment,
made during the darkest days of the Black September financial crisis.
iWoz: Culture Shiok in Singapore. Credit: tsevis
10 March 2011
Rajat K. Gupta, was accused of insider trading by the US Securities and Exchange Commission as a board member of Goldman Sachs. The charges are devastating and deeply embarrassing for the firm – if the allegations are true, Gupta, a senior executive betrayed everything betrayed the firm and the firm’s clients (including Warren Buffett) by passing on confidential information.
In the half century since Wisconsin became the first state to give its public workers the right to bargain collectively,
government employee unions have mushroomed in size and power — so much so that they now account for more than half of the US’s admittedly paltry union membership.
But the legislative push by Wisconsin’s new governor, Scott Walker, a Republican, to slash the collective bargaining rights of his state’s public employees
Why do millions of costumers endure the frustration and hassle of assembling their own flat pack furniture?
Because Ikea’s products are stylish – and they’re affordable to everyone.
Mikael Ohlsson, who took over as chief executive of IKEA Group in September 2009 says “We hate waste”.
Last year his designers found a way to pack the popular three-seater “Ektorp” sofa compactly, doubling the amount of sofa they could cram into a given space. Shaving $135 from the price tag.
24 February 2011.
A study prepared for The New York Times by academics at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, has analyzed some 1,450 Supreme Court decisions since 1953.
It showed that, during the five terms in which John Roberts has been Chief Justice,
the percentage of both business cases on the Supreme Court docket and cases won by business interests has grown visibly.
The Roberts court ruled for business interests 61 percent of the time,
23 February 2011.
Two weeks ago, we took an extensive look at the process by which “Team China” has taken over various Western corporations.
Today, we look at the other side of the Western / China corporate interface: the experience of Western companies with joint ventures in China.
Alibaba.com, one of China’s most successful Internet start-ups, shook up its top management yesterday
after an internal investigation revealed on-going fraud at the company.
The fast-growing Chinese e-commerce site, partly owned by Yahoo, said its long-time CEO, David Wei, and COO, Elvis Lee, had resigned.
In a statement released late Monday, Alibaba said they had not been involved in the fraud,
but had resigned after accepting responsibility for failing to stop it.
21 February 2011.
In order to lighten the mood in the darkness of Chile’s San José Mine, from which 33 trapped miners would eventually be rescued,
they would playfully imitate Leonardo Farkas Klein, donning makeshift wigs to simulate the long curly blond mane of the flamboyant mining executive.
“Farkas,” as everybody in Chile’s mining industry calls him, gained international fame
by helping save the miners’ families with generous donations of $10,000 each —
