DealBook: Buffett’s Annual Letter Plays Up Newspapers’ Value

Over the last half-century, Warren E. Buffett has built a reputation as a contrarian investor, betting against the crowd to amass a fortune estimated at $54 billion.Mr. Buffett underscored that contrarian instinct in his annual letter to shareholders published on Friday. In a year when Mr. Buffett did not make any large acquisitions, he bought dozens of newspapers, a business others have shunned....

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Euro Watch: Euro Zone Unemployment Rose to New Record in January

PARIS — The unemployment rate in the euro zone edged up in January to a new record, official data showed Friday, as the ailing European economy continued to weigh on the job market. That, and new data showing a decline in inflation in the euro zone, could prompt the European Central Bank to take steps to stimulate the economy when its Governing Council meets this week, analysts said. ...

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High & Low Finance: Report Lays Out Plan to Reduce Government Role in Home Financing

Can the American mortgage market ever function again without Uncle Sam guaranteeing that lenders will be repaid? It is amazing just how few people think it can. “For the foreseeable future, there is simply not enough capacity on the balance sheets of U.S. banks to allow a reliance on depository institutions as the sole source of liquidity for the mortgage market,” stated a report on...

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DealBook: J.C. Penney’s Poor Showing Is Another Retail Miss for Ackman

With J.C. Penney‘s awful fourth-quarter results, William A. Ackman has found success in retail investments elusive once more.It’s hard to call J.C. Penney’s latest quarterly report anything but breathtaking. The retailer lost $552 million for the quarter, which at $1.95 a share far exceeded the 17-cent loss that analysts had been expecting. Same-store sales tumbled nearly 32 percent from the same...

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Economic Scene: Medicare Needs Fixing, but Not Right Now

What’s the rush? For all the white-knuckled wrangling over spending cuts set to start on Friday, the fundamental partisan argument over how to fix the government’s finances is not about the immediate future. It is about the much longer term: how will the nation pay for the care of older Americans as the vast baby boom generation retires? Will the government keep Medicare spending in check by asking...

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Time Inc. and Meredith Prepare to Join Magazine Businesses

Mary Chind/The Des Moines RegisterMeredith, a magazine company, is headquartered in Des Moines. When Jack Griffin, the former president of the magazine company Meredith, took the reins at Time Inc., he threw a holiday party for his staff on the 34th floor of the Time & Life Building. For many employees at the famously hierarchal company, their first visit to the rambling executive suites that...

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Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent. With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps...

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Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent. With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide...

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Combes Named to Lead Alcatel-Lucent Through Troubled Time

BERLIN — Alcatel-Lucent, the struggling French telecom equipment maker, on Friday hired a former Vodafone and France Télécom executive, Michel Combes, to lead the company through what might be a major downsizing. Mr. Combes, 51, will take over for Ben Verwaayen, who had failed in four years to bring the equipment maker, created by the 2006 merger of Alcatel of France and Lucent Technologies...

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Citi Changes Terms of Executive Bonuses

Citigroup responded to anger about the size of its executive pay packages on Thursday by changing the way it calculates the bonuses given to top executives. Starting with last year’s compensation, a portion of the bonuses paid out to Citi’s executives will now be linked to the company’s performance relative to that of other big banks. Citi has been a prominent symbol in the debate...

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DealBook: Anheuser- Busch InBev and Justice Dept. Ask for Halt in Antitrust Case

Anheuser-Busch InBev and the Justice Department said Wednesday that they were in talks to resolve antitrust concerns over the beer maker’s planned deal with Grupo Modelo, the maker of Corona beer and other brands.The parties said they had jointly requested a temporary stay of an antitrust suit filed by the Justice Department while they work through the options.Last year, Anheuser-Busch InBev had offered...

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Nanotubes Seen as an Alternative to Silicon Circuits

SAN FRANCISCO — In the next decade or so, the circuits etched on silicon-based computer chips are expected to shrink as small as they can physically become, prompting a search for alternative materials to take their place. Some researchers are putting high hopes on carbon nanotubes, and on Monday a group of researchers at Stanford successfully demonstrated a simple microelectronic circuit...

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DealBook: Reader's Digest Files for Bankruptcy, Again

Executives at Reader’s Digest must be hoping that the magazine’s second trip to bankruptcy court in under four years will be its last.The magazine’s parent, RDA Holding, filed for Chapter 11 protection late on Sunday in another effort to cut down the debt that has plagued the pocket-size publication for years. The company is hoping to convert about $465 million of its debt into equity held by its...

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S.E.C. Inquiry Into China Film Trade Unnerves Hollywood

LOS ANGELES — Hunkered down. Lawyered up. Looking over your shoulder for the prosecutors. That is a not a comfortable way to do business. But it may become business as usual for those who have been struggling to make China both a customer for Hollywood films and a partner in the production of them. Last March, word reached several studios of a confidential inquiry by the Securities...

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The Education Revolution: In China, Families Bet It All on a Child in College

Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesWu Caoying studied English under her father’s watchful eye in 2006. She is now a sophomore in college. More Photos »HANJING, China — Wu Yiebing has been going down coal shafts practically every workday of his life, wrestling an electric drill for $500 a month in the choking dust of claustrophobic tunnels, with one goal in mind: paying for his daughter’s education. ...

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U.S. Signals Support for Japan’s Yen Policy

MOSCOW — Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, strongly indicated on Friday that the United States did not intend to censure Japan for weakening its currency over the last several months, something that has aided Japanese exporters and angered its competitors. Mr. Bernanke spoke in brief introductory remarks at a conference in Moscow of the Group of 20, a club of the world’s...

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Media Decoder Blog: CBS Reports Record Operating Income for 4th Quarter

The CBS Corporation set records in the fourth quarter for operating income and adjusted operating income, the company said Thursday, but the results were short of some analysts’ expectations, causing its share price to fall slightly in after-hours trading.The adjusted net earnings of $414 million produced earnings per share of 64 cents, also a new quarterly record for CBS, though some analysts had...

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Stock Indexes End Mixed

The stock market lacked direction on Wednesday, as a slump in McDonald’s stock helped pull the Dow Jones industrial average below 14,000. Other major market indexes were marginally higher. McDonald’s was among the biggest decliners in the Dow, losing $1.10, to $94, as investors worried that Americans were spending less on eating out after a rise in Social Security taxes at the beginning...

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Media Decoder Blog: Netflix Teams With DreamWorks Animation to Create Cartoon Series

LOS ANGELES — Continuing a campaign to deepen its appeal to children, Netflix on Tuesday announced a partnership with DreamWorks Animation to create an original cartoon series.The show, expected to make its debut on the streaming service in December, will be based on DreamWorks Animation’s coming movie “Turbo,” about a snail who gains the power of superspeed. The Netflix spinoff will be called “Turbo:...

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