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NewsTrust - Stories for Review from Business Week
- GM Cuts Costs to the Bone
Business Week - By David Welch - Oct. 23 (News Report) - Cash is getting so tight at General Motors (GM) that management has launched another wave of cost-cutting. The company is even scrutinizing the electricity bills.Auto sales are in their worst slump in decades, resulting in a cash burn rate of about $1 billion a month at GM. The company is selling assets to raise money, but as the economic slump appears to be gaining traction, GM is now delaying new models, cutting benefits, laying off salaried workers, and looking at even small items like utility bills.The latest round of cuts show just how quickly the world has changed around GM and how much pressure the company is under. In July, Chairman and CEO G. Richard Wagoner announced a plan to boost cash by $15 billion through cost-cutting, asset sales, and some borrowing. He said that the $15 billion would be enough even if sales fell to 14 million vehicles in the U.S. Last year, Americans bought 16.2 million vehicles.NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - 2 reviews - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer
- High Rate of H-1B Visa Fraud
Business Week - By Moira Herbst - Oct. 15 (News Report) - A report released Oct. 8 by the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) reveals that 13% of petitions filed for H-1B visas on behalf of employers are fraudulent. Another 7% contain some sort of technical violations.NewsTrust Rating: 3.1 average (not enough reviews) - 2 reviews - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer
- UAW: health care trust needs automakers' cash
Business Week - By Jeff Karoub - Oct. 07 (News Report) - United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said Tuesday that the union isn't willing to accept more overtures by cash-strapped Detroit automakers to delay payments to a trust fund that will take over retiree health care costs in 2010.NewsTrust Rating: 2.9 average (not enough reviews) - 1 review - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer
- Wall Street Bailout Could Crimp CEO Pay
Business Week - By Theo Francis - Sep. 23 (News Report) - As Congress and the Bush Administration negotiate over the terms of a financial rescue bill, Democrats on Capitol Hill are drafting language designed to rein in executive compensation, in particular controversial severance packages at foundering companies. And for politicians concerned about the growing backlash on Main Street over what many see as a bailout of Wall Street fat cats, executive pay is a ripe target. After all, average total pay for a CEO at one of the 500 biggest companies last year was $12.8 million, double what it was a decade ago.But compensation attorneys and experts say many of the restrictions could prove tough to enforce.NewsTrust Rating: 4.6 average (not enough reviews) - 1 review - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer
- Pelosi promises to protect Fla. from oil drilling
Business Week - By Brendan Farrington - Sep. 11 (News Report) - As Republicans increasingly call for more domestic offshore drilling, Florida's Democratic House members said they convinced Speaker Nancy Pelosi to make sure drilling off the state's gulf coast isn't included in energy legislation being considered in her chamber.NewsTrust Rating: 2.9 average (not enough reviews) - 1 review - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer
- A Roadblock to Russian Oil and Gas
Business Week - By Steve LeVine - Aug. 12 (News Report) - Washington has spent more than a decade of diplomacy and arm-twisting to erect what it calls an East-West Energy Corridor connecting the countries of the Caspian Sea with NATO ally Turkey. The result has been a network of oil and natural gas pipelines, ports, and tankers that can feed a million barrels a day to the world market. Washington has sought to expand and link that network directly to Europe, where Russia is currently the dominant supplier.NewsTrust Rating: 3.2 average (not enough reviews) - 2 reviews - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer
- As Olympics Open, China's Economy Slows
Business Week - By Frederik Balfour - Aug. 07 (News Report) - In a worrisome sign that China's growth streak is losing more steam, the latest official statistics on manufacturing show the output of Chinese factories may have actually contracted in July. The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) fell to 48.4 in July, the first time it has dropped below the 50 boom-bust line since the government introduced the measure three years ago.That fall suggests manufacturing is shrinking, as levels of both new orders and production fell month over month. "China's manufacturing sector is facing tough challenges due to the slowdown in the global economy, rising production costs, tight credit conditions, power shortages, and currency appreciation," Lehman Brothers (LEH) economists wrote in a recent research note.NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - 1 review - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer
- NGOs: China Is Breaking Olympics Promises
Business Week - By Bruce Einhorn - Jul. 31 (News Report) - As thousands of journalists arrive in China, authorities are blocking Web sites of Amnesty International and other groups.In the months preceding the Beijing Olympics, officials from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) assured wary journalists they would have unfettered access to the Internet while reporting the Games. In April, for instance, IOC official Hein Verbruggen, who was head of the inspection team in Beijing this spring, told reporters the Chinese government would not impose Internet censorship on Olympics journalists.Now, as athletes are arriving and the media center is up and running in Beijing, thousands of journalists are realizing that their fears have been confirmed: Chinese authorities are indeed blocking Web sites of Amnesty International as well as Tibetan and Taiwanese groups. "The Chinese government won't allow the spread of any information that is forbidden by law or harms national interests on the Internet," the official Xinhua news agency reported on July 31. "If a few Web sites are difficult to browse, it's mainly because they have spread content that is banned by the Chinese laws," Xinhua quoted Sun Weide, the Beijing Olympics spokesman, as saying at a press conference in Beijing's Oly