business

Tata Motors buys Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford for $2.3 billion.

Here’s a huzzah for the post-colonial purchase of the car brands of viceroys, district commissioners, and other pukka sahibs. And one for the visionary leadership of Ratan Tata, who has snapped up everything from Tetley tea to aerospace design companies in his successful effort to create a world class conglomerate. But spare me, please, the over-the-top headlines like “Indian Tiger Rides Jaguar,” or the quotes from Indian commerce minister Kamal Nath that “the most important thing is that world is recognizing India’s credibility.”

News reports suggest that Apple is in negotiations with major record labels over an all-you-can-listen music subscription that would be bundled with future iPods and iPhones.

After the Financial Times broke the story, analysts scrambled to explain the deeper significance of Apple's move. Was this a good deal for the major labels? Peter Kafka of Silicon Alley Insider argued that a music subscription service would be a home run. Others wondered if Apple would offer unlimited music for the life of the device or impose a monthly fee structure, like the popular iTunes alternative Rhapsody.

Wall Street greets the resignation of Eliot Spitzer.

Republicans are gleeful at Spitzer's downfall, but if you want to witness real ecstasy, visit Wall Street. As New York's attorney general, Spitzer made his political career on attention-grabbing settlements with banks, insurance companies, and mutual funds, positioning himself as the only man willing to clean up Wall Street's mess. To Wall Streeters, however, he was a bully and a boor, less a legal eagle than a rogue prosecutor and one-man Star Chamber.

Many of the abuses he attacked were real. He went after the tendency of equity research to serve investment-banking clients, rather than the retail investors who were reading it. And his inquiry into mutual funds who were letting big clients profit by trading shares after market close ended a scandalous practice.

But his methods were deeply troubling. MORE

Home Depot reports that 4th quarter earnings fell 27% year-on-year, and the company said it was forecasting a decline in sales of 4-5%. This was sharply lower than expectations.

The drop reflects a broader trend in the housing market.  The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo) just reported that home prices fell 1.3% between the third and fourth quarters of 2007.  At that, they may be a trifle optimistic.  The other major housing tracker, the S&P/Case-Shiller Index, estimated that they fell 2.1% in the same period.  The full year drop was 9.1% -- the largest drop on record.

The market, oddly, doesn't seem to care.  Home Depot shares actually rose slightly, to close at 28.83.  The dark days in the home improvement industry are forcing change on a company grown complacent during the house-flipping mania.  And there's still the hope, however wan, that lower interest rates will stop the market's free fall.

The Writers Guild of America has ended its strike

Now thousands of writers -- not to mention thousands of gaffers, stuntwomen, best boys, make-up artists, bikini waxers, actors, costume designers, lunch-truck operators -- are headed back to work. Says Jonathan Handel, associate counsel for the WGA: "They successfully faced down six multinational media conglomerates and established a beachhead on the internet." Which is true. But will that be enough? As creative professionals, the writers represent an unusual slice of unionized labor: very well-paid, difficult to replace by maquiladoras or the Chinese, often drawn from privileged backgrounds. Yet they remain vulnerable for the same reasons GM's unionized workers are vulnerable: they are in an industry that is dying fast. As viewers turn to video games, user-generated content, and other active alternatives to the passive consumption of one-liners and soap opera pap, Hollywood will have to get smarter, leaner, and more flexible to survive.

Microsoft makes a hostile takeover bid for Yahoo! Google cries foul.

The notion of Microsoft as the ultimate corporate villain is so deeply ingrained that it's easy to forget that one of the most dominant brands in history is now the underdog.  MORE