PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - Oct 14


* People with eating disorders like anorexia are fighting insurers to pay for stays in residential treatment centers, an issue that is being considered by an appeals court in California.* A growing number of entrepreneurs in China, unable to make payments to illegal lenders, have gone into hiding to avoid physical harm or family dishonor.* The punishment for Raj Rajaratnam, the former chief of the Galleon Group, though less than the government sought, was the longest prison sentence ever for insider trading.* Google posts strong earnings and exceeds expectations. It’s core business, search advertising, seems so far to have weathered the economic doldrums that have hurt other sites and publications relying on ads.* European banks face deadline to raise capital levels. They are likely to oppose steps, including larger write-downs, that are designed to help deal with the sovereign debt crisis.* The controversy this week over an unorthodox circulation deal at the European edition of The Wall Street Journal complicates matters for News Corp leadership.* Research in Motion said it had resolved the technical issues that plagued service across five continents and that service had begun returning to normal.* Ford’s unionized workers, who haven’t received a raise in years, are upset with the big payouts to the company’s senior management.* The weakness in the global economy was underscored by reports published Thursday about the balance of trade in the United States and China.* In another sign of how the lines between profit-making and nonprofit are blurring, Wal-Mart on Friday will appoint a former senior executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to head its corporate foundation.* Despite a paper gain that helped lift earnings by nearly $2 billion, JPMorgan Chase & Company reported on Thursday that profit fell 4 percent in the third quarter amid lingering mortgage troubles and weak investment banking results.* Stocks fell on Wall Street on Thursday, weighed down by bank stocks after JPMorgan Chase reported that a slowdown in investment banking had hurt its results in the third quarter.* A bankruptcy court on Thursday approved the hiring of a chief restructuring officer at the California energy company Solyndra. Todd Neilson, who served as the bankruptcy trustee for the boxer Mike Tyson and the rap impresario Suge Knight, will now lead Solyndra as it struggles to emerge from bankruptcy.* In the midst of a deteriorating advertising climate, The New York Times plans to eliminate up to 20 newsroom positions and seek additional savings in the business units, the company said Thursday.

U.S. envoy to China says to lead trade missions to boost jobs


Speaking to a U.S. business group in Shanghai, Locke reiterated that a top priority of the administration of President Barack Obama was job creation.”Over the next year I’m committed to leading five trade and investment missions to China’s emerging cities,” Locke said.”We simply cannot wait for the Commerce Department or the Energy Department and other governors and mayors to lead trade missions here to China. There’s no reason why the Embassy and the consulates here can’t initiate these trade missions on our own.”Locke said the missions would recruit delegations with a focus on high-growth sectors such as clean and renewable energy, transportation, health care, aviation, and information and communication technologies.Locke’s comments come amid growing pressure from Washington for China to increase the value of its currency, the yuan, which critics say remains undervalued despite having risen by nearly a third against the dollar since mid-2005.The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that would pave the way for tariffs on some Chinese goods to compensate for Beijing keeping the yuan low to subsidise its exports at the cost of U.S. jobs.The bill now faces the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, whose leaders oppose the measure and warn that it could start a trade war.China on Thursday reported that its overall trade surplus narrowed for a second month in September, which some analysts said might help Beijing resist U.S. pressure on the yuan, making the case that it was dealing gradually with its economic imbalances.Locke did not mention the issue of the yuan in his speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, and none in the audience asked about the issue of the yuan during a question-and-answer session, although some complained in private about the bill, saying it could hurt U.S. business interests.Other U.S. business groups have been more vocal about the bill.The American Chamber of Commerce in China, a separate entity to AmCham-Shanghai, said on Wednesday that it regretted the passage of the bill in the Senate.”The Senate bill would damage the bilateral trade and investment relationship, weaken our standing in the World Trade Organization, and damage our national interests,” AmCham-China Chairman Ted Dean said in a statement. “We oppose it. It should not become law.”The US-China Business Council also said in a statement on Wednesday that it thought the Senate bill would do more harm than good.