Finance & Business World

Want to be the first one on your block with a 3-D television? It will cost you about $3,000.

Samsung and Panasonic will start selling 3-D TVs in U.S. stores this week, inaugurating what manufacturers hope is the era of 3-D viewing in the living room. But because the sets require glasses, and there is for now little to watch in the enhanced format, it will take at least a few years for the technology to become mainstream, if it happens at all.

Samsung Electronics Co. announced Tuesday that for $3,000, buyers get a 46-inch set, two pairs of glasses and a 3-D Blu-ray player. Panasonic Corp. will start selling sets Wednesday.

The sales debut comes as moviegoers have shown considerable enthusiasm for the latest wave of 3-D titles in the theater totally free credit score.

Although it’s clear that 3-D sets for the home will appeal to technology and home-theater enthusiasts, it remains to be seen whether other consumers will be enticed to spend at least $500 above the price of a comparably sized standard TV and Blu-ray player.

TV makers hope so, because sets with the last big technological improvement — high definition — have come way down in price, below $500.

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ST. LOUIS — The Budweiser Clydesdales might be headed back to the Super Bowl after all.

Just two days after trumpeting a lineup of nine Super Bowl ads that did not include the popular horses, Anheuser-Busch said Thursday it has reconsidered. The brewer plans to release a Clydesdales ad and two other Budweiser ads on its Facebook page today to gauge public reaction.

The original Clydesdales spot — which fell short in focus group testing — has been reworked and might make it to the big game, according to A-B’s top marketing executive.

"This was a surprise opportunity that wasn’t in our hands until yesterday," Keith Levy, A-B marketing vice president, said Thursday evening.

Levy downplayed the notion that the change of heart was motivated by widespread criticism of A-B’s original decision to bench the Clydesdales, which have appeared in Budweiser ads for at least the last eight consecutive Super Bowls.

"We simply did not have a spot in our hands that did well" in testing, Levy said, although he noted A-B did "have some contact" from upset consumers that could have spurred A-B to revisit the ad.

Levy also said this was not part of an intentional publicity plan. Super Bowl advertising expert John Antil believed him.

"I think this is more about them just saving face," said Antil, a University of Delaware marketing professor. "I don’t think this is some kind of test."

Sidelining the Clydesdales drew plenty of criticism. Readers called and complained to the Post-Dispatch and on message boards. Twitter was burning. "Say it ain’t so! They’re the reason I watch!" wrote one woman. "What are they thinking?" lamented another. And: "Boo Hiss! Everybody loves the Clydesdales!"

The Clydesdales debuted in Budweiser TV ads in 1956 and have appeared in 15 Super Bowl ads. A-B bought five minutes of the pricey, precious ad time — an estimated $2.5 million for a 30-second spot— for the Feb. 7 football game, the year’s biggest advertising spectacle that is expected to be watched by at least 100 million people.

Levy said three ads would be released sometime before noon today at facebook.com/budweiser, the brand’s page on the social networking site. If the brewer selects the Clydesdales spot for the Super Bowl, it could result in a total reworking of A-B’s ad lineup because the new horse spot is 60 seconds long and would be replacing a 30-second spot.

The ad, created by Chicago ad agency DDB, opens with two baby horses — one is a Clydesdale — separated by a fence and running through a field. The ad follows the horses as they grow up together. It is a story about friendship and lifelong bonds, Levy said.

Kind of like those between some consumers and the Clydesdales.

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The Washington Convention and Sports Authority filed its own lawsuit in the dispute over a planned convention center hotel on Thursday, alleging that extortion attempts and abuse of the legal process by a local developer have paralyzed the authority’s attempt to build a convention center hotel.

Filed in D.C. Superior Court, the suit claims that Chevy Chase-based developer The JBG Cos. and two of its principals “unlawfully attempted to extort concessions” from a unit of Marriott International Inc. in negotiations over an unrelated property, the Washington Wardman Park Marriott.

JBG and CIM Group of Hollywood, Calif. are co-owners of Wardman Park and Marriott alleged in its own suit, filed Jan. 14, that JBG Managing Partner Ben Jacobs and Chief Development Officer Kenneth Finkelstein filed the suit only after trying to extract concessions from Marriot to build new housing at Wardman Park. The convention center authority, the claim reads, “has now learned that these suits have not been filed to redress legitimate grievances, but instead have been instituted by the defendants as a way of extracting concessions in unrelated business dealings defendants have with Marriott International Inc.”

The authority, the city and developers Capstone Development LLC and Quadrangle Development Corp fast cash. plan a 1,167-room Marriott Marquis for Ninth Street NW that convention planners believe can make D.C. a player for major shows and tourism dollars.

But JBG’s suit against the city, for what the developer claims was an unfair procurement process, prevents the convention center authority from issuing bonds for the project, part of more a more than $200 million package the city is providing for the project.

Greg O’Dell, president and CEO of the convention center authority, issued a statement saying, “We intend to be aggressive in protecting the authority’s interest to make this shovel-ready headquarters hotel project a reality.”

In its suit, JBG alleged that D.C. unfairly and illegally provided a sweetheart deal to Marriott and its development partners. However, the authority attributed the dispute to JBG having purchased the Wardman Park “at the height of the real estate boom, and having seen values and profits plummet in the years since, sought in July to reduce their losses at Wardman Park by seeking concessions from Marriott in connection with Marriott’s management agreement for the Wardman Park.”

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The groundbreaking deal that will see Time Warner Cable Inc. pay News Corp. for over-the-air television programming illustrates the differences between the broadcasting models in Canada and the United States, observers say.

Time Warner and News Corp. agreed on a distribution deal Jan. 1, though details were not disclosed. Other broadcasters, such as CBS Corp., have also said they may seek payment for programming that is currently free.

News Corp. demanded to be paid for the rights to shows on Fox Networks, home of The Simpsons and American Idol as well as sports programming such as college and NFL football games.

If other networks seek similar terms, cable operators may have to fork out as much as $5 billion (U.S.) a year and would likely pass the cost on to subscribers, said Craig Moffet, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in New York.

"The broadcast networks are really struggling to find a viable business mode," Moffett said. "They’re looking at the cable networks that make money both on advertising and the money that the cable operators pay them and saying, `We need a dual revenue stream to survive, too.’"

These battles are playing out just as the television industry is coping with the wrenching changes brought on by new competition from the Internet.

In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has embarked on a sweeping review of the cable and satellite television industry business

Senate Democrats are preparing to drop a compromise health-care plan that would allow 55- to 64-year-olds to buy into Medicare because of opposition from Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, two senior Democratic sources said Monday.

"It’s what the White House wants, and there aren’t many other options that allow us to finish by Christmas," said one source.

Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has emerged as the majority party’s main obstacle to its efforts to get a health care bill through the Senate before Christmas. He ratcheted up his public opposition to the bill Sunday by threatening to join a Republican filibuster if the legislation contains either a government-run public health insurance option or a proposed alternative that would expand Medicare to people as young as 55.

"I think the danger always is you try to add too much onto a bill," he told reporters Monday evening. He said he supports the "core" of the bill, including tighter regulations on private insurers — but he wants Democrats to "take off some of this stuff that runs the risk of creating federal debt, and moves toward a government takeover of insurance, which I think would be bad."

Unanimous Republican opposition so far means Senate Democrats need all 60 votes in their caucus to close debate on the sweeping health care bill. Final passage of the bill would then require only a simple majority of 51.

Lieberman supported letting older workers buy into Medicare in 2000, when he was the Democratic vice presidential candidate, and as recently as September in comments to a Connecticut newspaper.

But he said Monday that the idea was "no longer necessary," since the Senate bill includes subsidies to help people over 55 and older buy insurance coverage before they become eligible for Medicare.

"I was suggesting various ideas for health care reform that did not involve the public option, and that was the focus at that time," he said. "But the important thing is I’m for health care reform, and if we get together, we’re going to deliver a health care reform bill that will provide the ability to get health insurance to 30 million people that don’t have it now."

And Lieberman spokesman Marshall Wittmann said that now, "We have a huge national deficit and a program that analysts indicate is in dire fiscal straits in 2009."

Emergency meeting Senate Democrats held an emergency meeting Monday night to discuss the issue, which threatens to derail the Obama administration’s push for a sweeping reform of U.S. health insurance. Although a final decision was not made at Monday night’s meeting, a second Democratic source said a final decision could be made at a White House meeting Tuesday between the Senate’s Democratic majority and President Barack Obama.

"I think there is a fundamental understanding of the direction we’re going in," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts. Before the meeting, liberal Democrats Tom Harkin of Iowa and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia indicated that the Medicare buy-in would likely be dropped.

While they didn’t like the idea, they suggested they would support a health care bill anyway payday loan lenders. Democrats "may have to do what Mr. Lieberman wants," Harkin told CNN. The Medicare expansion was part of a package of provisions announced by Reid last week as an alternative to a government-run public health insurance program, which lacked enough support among Democrats to break a filibuster.

Negotiated by a team of 10 Democratic senators — five liberal and five moderate — the compromise package was hailed by Reid, Obama and others as an important step forward in the health care debate. The package also would allow private insurers to offer non-profit health coverage overseen by the government.

Many senators have reserved judgment on the compromise proposal until the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provides its analysis of how much it costs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would discuss no specifics of a bill after Monday night’s caucus, telling reporters he would wait until the CBO finished its estimate of a revised bill’s price tag.

But he said the measure "saves lives, saves money, and saves Medicare." "I am confident that by next week we’ll be on our way to forward this bill to the president," he said.

Backing public option Most Democrats support the public option as a non-profit competitor to private insurers that would expand coverage and bring down prices. Republicans and some moderate Democrats, along with the health insurance industry — one of the major employers in Lieberman’s home state — oppose a public option, calling it a first step toward a government takeover of the U.S. health care system.

Lieberman first expressed possible opposition to the health care bill in late October, saying he would join a GOP filibuster if the measure contained the public option. Asked about Lieberman’s position then, Reid said: "Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid’s problems."

Another potential obstacle for Reid is moderate Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who said Sunday said he cannot support the Senate bill without tighter restrictions on federal funding for abortion. The Senate last week defeated an amendment proposed by Nelson and two other senators that would adopt tougher language on abortion funding contained in the House health care bill.

A compromise on the abortion language is possible, said Nelson, one of 10 Senate Democrats who negotiated in private last week on the public option compromise.

If the Senate eventually passes a health care bill, its version will have to be merged with the version the House of Representatives passed in November, which includes a public health insurance plan.

The final bill would then need approval from both chambers before going to Obama to be signed into law. Obama and Democratic leaders have said they want the bill completed this year. The Senate would need to finish its work this week to leave a realistic chance of meeting that schedule.

–CNN’s Dana Bash, Ted Barrett and Tom Cohen contributed to this report.  

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The Translational Genomics Research Institute and Scottsdale Healthcare are testing an Italian pharmaceutical firm’s new drug for thymic cancer.

Scottsdale Healthcare is the world’s first site for the Phase I trial of a new oral drug, being called NMS-1286937. The hospital had conducted a Phase II trial for another of the Italian company’s drugs, called PHA-848125ac for advanced thymic cancer. This new research is based on the earlier promising results of PHA.

The thymus is a small organ near the lungs and heart that is a key part to the body’s immune system during fetal and childhood development.

The Italian company, called Nerviano Medical Sciences, is working in conjunction with TGen and SHC on both the thymic cancer drugs. The goal is to quickly turn these discoveries into targeted therapies at SHC’s Virginia G paydayloans. Piper Cancer Center in Scottsdale.

Mark Slater, senior vice president of research at Scottsdale Healthcare, said while SHC is the only U.S. site for the study, France and Italy also are conducting studies.

“Our partnership with TGen has allowed us to bring in novel therapies, really cutting-edge treatments that have addressed new mechanisms for rare cancers and cancers that have not responded well to standard therapy,” Slater said. “Our approach is to target our therapies using advanced molecular diagnostics.”

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Options traders are growing less bullish on the yen after efforts by Japanese officials to boost the world’s second-biggest economy and a U.S. jobs report led to the currency’s biggest weekly decline in a decade.

Japan’s currency plunged 2.5 percent against the dollar and 1.3 percent versus the euro on Dec. 4 after the U.S. Labor Department said employers cut the fewest jobs since the recession began. The yen sank 4.5 percent versus the greenback for the week, the most since February 1999 and retreating from a 14-year high. Traders sold yen and bought dollars on speculation interest rates in the U.S. will increase before June.

“The improving U.S. jobs market suggests the Federal Reserve won’t stand pat on interest rates longer than the Bank of Japan,” said Kazutoshi Yasuda, general manager of the markets department in Tokyo at FX Prime Corp., a unit of Itochu Corp. Increased U.S. borrowing costs would lead traders to favor using yen to finance higher-yielding investments, leading to more losses for the Japanese currency, he said.

Options showed declining bets the yen will rise. The odds for a gain to 84.5 yen per dollar by the end of March from 90.56 last week fell to 38 percent from 80 percent on Nov. 30, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Chances of a decline to 92 versus the dollar by Dec. 31 reached 63 percent. Options grant buyers the right to purchase or sell an asset at a predetermined price.

Weekly Tumble

The yen tumbled 3.6 percent versus the euro last week, the sharpest slide since the five days to April 3. The yen also fell 4.5 percent against the dollar, the most since the week ended Feb. 19, 1999, when it slumped 5.9 percent. The yen’s biggest drop during the week came after the U.S. Labor Department said payrolls dropped by 11,000 last month, the smallest decrease since the recession began.

The yen traded at 89.90 per dollar as of 11:53 a.m. in Tokyo from 90.56 last week, and was at 133.87 versus the euro from 134.54.

“What the job numbers do is firm up expectations that the Fed interest-rate hike is coming,” said Camilla Sutton, a strategist in Toronto at Bank of Nova Scotia, the nation’s third-largest lender. “That should be a strong-dollar story.”

Federal-funds futures contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade show a 43.3 percent probability the U.S. central bank will raise its target rate for overnight bank borrowing to 0.5 percent by June from the current range of zero to 0.25 percent, up from 12.6 percent odds a month ago.

‘Finally Turning’

UBS AG expects the Fed to set its key rate at the top end of its 0.25 percent range in April and follow with a quarter- point increase in June. The jobs report and last week’s gains “suggest the greenback is finally turning,” Mansoor Mohi-uddin, the Zurich-based bank’s global head of currency strategy, wrote in a note to clients.

The yen was the best performer against the dollar among the 16 most-traded currencies the past four years, Bloomberg data show. It surged to 84.83 on Nov. 27, the strongest since July 1995, from 124.13 in June 2007. The yen tends to advance amid financial turmoil because Japan’s trade surplus reduces reliance on foreign capital.

Record low U.S. interest rates have kept the dollar under pressure at the expense of the yen, making the greenback the favorite for so-called carry trades, where investors raise funds in countries with low borrowing costs and use the proceeds to invest in countries with higher returns.

Benchmark rates of as low as zero in the U.S. and 0.1 percent in Japan compare with 3.75 in Australia and 2.5 percent in New Zealand.

Libor

The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, for three- month loans in the U.S. currency has been below the equivalent yen rate since Aug. 24. In the decade before then, the dollar rate averaged 2.94 percentage points more than the yen rate.

Contracts betting the yen would climb against the dollar rose to 51,710 on Nov. 27, the most since May 2008, according to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission in Washington based on contracts at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. As recently as June, there more contracts betting on a decline than a gain.

Such “extreme” positioning may suggest that the decline in the yen represents traders unwinding “long” positions rather than an outright bet on the currency’s depreciation, Marc Chandler, the global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York, said in a note to clients on Dec. 4.

The median estimate of more than 30 strategists surveyed by Bloomberg is for the yen to end March at 92 to the dollar and 136 to the euro.

‘Urgent Steps’

Fujio Mitarai, head of Japan’s largest business lobby, called on the government to take “urgent steps” on Nov. 27 to curb gains in the yen, which make Japanese exports less competitive and threaten corporate profits. The same day, Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said in Tokyo the nation will “do what is necessary” and he may contact U.S. and European officials to act.

Exports make up about 12 percent of Japan’s economy, compared with 6 percent in the U.S. The nation’s gross domestic product is forecast to shrink 5.7 percent this year, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That compares with a contraction of 2.4 percent in the U.S.

The Bank of Japan announced an emergency 10 trillion yen ($113 billion) credit program on Dec. 1 to combat falling prices and the stronger yen. The spread between dollar- and yen-based Libor narrowed to 2.72 basis points on Dec. 4 from as much as 7.25 basis points on Sept. 8.

Stimulus Plan

“The BOJ’s action worked,” said Masato Mori, senior manager of the business and marketing department at NTT SmartTrade Inc. a unit of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. “Stopping the yen’s advance will require additional spending from the government.”

A stimulus plan worth as much as 4 trillion yen may be agreed upon today, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said last week. The government planned to announce the measures on Dec. 4 before disagreements between Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan and coalition partners, who want a larger package, caused a delay.

Bonds to be issued in the fiscal year starting April 1 may reach 146.2 trillion yen compared with a revised 132.3 trillion yen this year, according to Citigroup Global Markets Japan Inc.

“There is probably enough in the policy action in Japan by the government and the BOJ to argue for further upside on cross- yen currencies near term,” said Greg Gibbs, a foreign-exchange strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in Sydney.

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The Canadian Auto Workers says it will reaffiliate with the Ontario Federation of Labour after an absence of more than a decade.

CAW president Ken Lewenza said Friday that the union is currently talking to OFL leaders about conditions for a return that will likely come in the first quarter of next year.

"We’re not reaffiliating just to reaffiliate," Lewenza told more than 800 delegates at a CAW council meeting earlier. "We’re affiliating because we believe the labour movement needs us and we need the labour movement."

Union delegates had passed a resolution at a council meeting earlier this year to start a "constructive and respectful" dialogue that could lead to possible reaffiliation.

The CAW, one of the province’s biggest private sector unions, left the federation in 1997 after it could not get assurances of representation among the OFL’s top four officers payday loan online.

It has about 225,000 workers across the country including a majority in Ontario.

Lewenza said the labour movement in the province needs a united front in the growing attack on workers by corporations and governments.

The umbrella federation represents about 700,000 workers in scores of unions.

The split between the federation and the CAW has weakened the labour movement during the last decade as the groups pursued different strategies and agendas with less collective power, according to some labour analysts.

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The U.S. Defense Department is moving the Boeing EA-18G Growler to full production, Boeing said Monday.

Boeing’s EA-18G program, which is based in St. Louis, will now begin building 22 aircraft per year for U.S. Navy, the Pentagon said.

The news represents a $386 million modification to a previously awarded contract, according to the Pentagon.

The EA-18G is derived from the F/A-18F aircraft and includes electronic attack capabilities.

Work will be performed in Baltimore (46.5 percent); Bethpage, N.Y. (22.7 percent); St. Louis (13.5 percent); Melbourne, Fla. (5.5 percent); Fort Wayne, Ind. (3.7 percent); Thousand Oaks, Calif. (3.7 percent); Wallingford, Conn. (2.6 percent); Nashua, N.H. (1.1 percent); and Westminster, Colo. (0.7 percent), and is expected to be completed in December 2012.

Chicago-based Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) is prime contractor on the Growler. The team also includes Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Electric Aircraft Engines.

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Despite the frenetic pace of bank failures this year, 552 lenders are still at risk of going under, according to a government report published Tuesday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said that the number of banks on its so-called problem list climbed to its highest level since the end of 1993. At that time, the agency red-flagged 575 banks.

Mounting bank failures have proven costly for the FDIC, the government agency created to cover the deposits of consumers and businesses in the event that a bank is shut down.

On Tuesday, the agency revealed its deposit insurance fund, as a result, slipped into the red for the first time since 1991.

At the end of the quarter on Sept. 30, the value of the fund was $8.2 billion in the hole. But that number accounts for $21.7 billion the agency has set aside in anticipation of future bank failures.

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, who has won praise both in Washington and on Main Street for shepherding the industry through a particularly difficult period, said the industry’s fate is tied to the broader recovery.

"I think that it really is all about the economy at this point," said Bair.

The banks that end up on the problem list are considered the most likely to fail because of difficulties with their finances, operations or management.

Still, history has shown just 13% of banks on the list have failed on average.

Regulators however, never make public the names of the banks on the list out of fear the publicity could cause customers to pull out their deposits.

Tuesday’s report did reveal that the number of assets controlled by those institutions climbed to $345.9 billion from $299.8 billion in the previous quarter.

The ongoing recession has already claimed 124 banks so far this year. But fears persist that the number will multiply in months ahead because banks are still taking losses on mortgage-related loans and face growing problems with commercial real estate.

In the event of a failure, the FDIC fully insures individual accounts up to $250,000 for single accounts.

Fund in focus

In anticipation of future bank failures, the FDIC has been scrambling to shore up its ailing deposit insurance fund low fee payday loans.

Earlier this year, the agency imposed a special assessment on all banks. And just recently, it approved having banks prepay their insurance premiums for the next three years.

The move is expected to generate roughly $45 billion for the FDIC. However, due to accounting rules, the fund would not be back in the black until 2012.

One lingering question is whether, at some point, the agency would need to tap its $500 billion credit line with the Treasury Department, which was approved earlier this year.

The agency however, has been averse to the idea, hoping instead it can instead navigate the crisis using the tools already at its disposal.

Mixed signals

Tuesday’s report however, wasn’t all bad news.

The roughly 8,100 institutions that make up the nation’s banking industry earned $2.8 billion during the third quarter. In the previous quarter, banks were in the red, losing a combined $4.3 billion.

Stronger sales and the rising values of some securities certainly helped, but those gains were capped as lenders again set aside massive amount of cash to cope with future loan losses. All told, banks earmarked $62.5 billion for future loan losses.

While that was down slightly from the previous quarter, Bair cautioned not to read too much into the numbers, adding that number could jump back up in the current quarter.

"I think we need to live with this a bit longer," she said. "I wouldn’t read too much in quarter-to-quarter trends."

One persistent trend, however, was that credit continued to remain tight. In fact, loan balances at the nation’s lenders fell 2.8% of $210.4 billion, representing the largest quarterly decline since banks started reporting this figure in 1984.

Some economists have argued that the lack of available credit to borrowers, such as small business owners, is choking off the economic recovery. Banks, on the other hand, have argued that demand for loans is way off, as both consumers and businesses try to pay down debt. 

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