Harold Maass of The Week The Best of Today's Business

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Clear Channel agrees to lowered buyout price

Clear Channel Communication agreed to a buyout at the reduced price of $17.9 billion, or $36 a share, after the banks financing the deal reached a legal settlement with buyout firms Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners. When the deal was announced almost two years ago, the price for Clear Channel, the top U.S. radio broadcaster, was $39.20 a share. (AP in Yahoo! Finance) The lawsuit settled yesterday accused the six banks of reneging on providing $22.1 billion in financing, after the credit crunch made such financing more expensive. The agreement still requires shareholder approval. But Highfields Capital Partners, which owns 7.7 percent of Clear Channel, already backed the new terms. (Bloomberg)

Sony returns to profit

Sony Corp., the world's No. 2 consumer electronics maker, reported a quarterly profit of $277 million, after a loss a year ago, as it trimmed losses from its PlayStation 3 video game business. For the full fiscal 2007, Sony posted a better-than-expected profit of $3.5 billion, a record for Sony. (AP in CNNMoney.com) However, Sony had an unexpected operating loss of $45 million in the quarter, amid losses in its financial services unit. (Reuters) A forecast of 20 percent growth in operating income this year, including profitability at its PS3 division, sent its stock up early today. "I don't think we have to worry about Sony's game business anymore," said Naoki Fujiwara at Shinkin Asset Management. (Bloomberg)

Icahn looks at Yahoo! intervention

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has acquired about 50 million shares of Yahoo! in the past week, and is reportedly leaning toward launching a proxy fight to replace some members of Yahoo! board. The share purchase, which gives him about 3.6 percent of Yahoo!, is designed to pressure the board into reopening merger talks with Microsoft. (Reuters) The deadline for nominating a proxy slate is tomorrow. The move carries some risk for Icahn, especially since Microsoft might not be willing to come back to the negotiating table. "We think Icahn has the resources, reputation, relationships, and mettle needed to be potentially successful," said Standard & Poor's analyst Scott Kessler. (Los Angeles Times, free registration)

Studying abroad shifts to emerging markets

With the dollar especially weak against the euro, the British pound, and other currencies in Western Europe, U.S. college students are increasingly opting to study abroad in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Almost 250,000 students studied abroad in 2005-06, and the shift away from Western Europe started before the dollar's slide. This is due largely to the increasing importance of Asia, the Middle East, and other regions in the global economy. But the weak dollar has turned the trickle into a stream. "We used to be able to say the cost of a semester abroad was the same as a semester here," said Syracuse study-abroad spokeswoman Daeya Malboeuf. "We don't say that anymore." (The Wall Street Journal)

BEST COLUMNS OF THE DAY

A great reconfiguration, a big decision

The U.S. used to be "the great middle-class nation," says Thomas Frank in The Wall Street Journal, but that may not be true any longer. "Real hourly wages for most workers" have risen only 1 percent since 1979, while productivity is up 60 percent. Americans work more hours than in any other "advanced economy, even Japan," and health care, pensions, and even "bathroom breaks" have all been slashed. Meanwhile, the top earners are earning much more. This "huge social reconfiguration" is not the result of "a natural disaster like 'globalization'"; it's a "man-made catastrophe." And as such, we now have to choose: do we want to be "a land of equality? Or a bankers' utopia."

A great pessimism, unwarranted

If you look at the past century, says Zachary Karabell, also in The Wall Street Journal, today's economic problems don't really rank as "especially notable or dramatic." The "current financial morass is deep and painful," yes, but "something else is going on -- namely a cultural rut of pessimism." If you hear somebody compare today to the Great Depression, or even the "grim economy" of the 1970s, "stop them." Things are nowhere near as bad now. We used to be a nation of optimists, even 10 years ago. And while hard introspection can be a strength, "there is a fine line between self-criticism and self-excoriation," and today's "deep pessimism and fear places us at serious disadvantage globally."

GOOD DAY FOR: Pet fish, after the cost of food for dogs and cats has risen sharply in the past few months, and is expected to rise even more. Some brands are packaging the food in smaller containers to mask the price hike. But pet owners tend to have high brand loyalty. With pets, "you can't just change on them -- I'm going down-brand today, here's your new food," says Wedbush Morgan analsyt Joan Storms. (BusinessWeek.com)

BAD DAY FOR: Discretionary spending, after a new poll found that only 19 percent of respondents think the U.S. will be in better financial shape in six months, while 37 percent expect it to be worse. Oil prices and inflation topped concerns. The survey was taken before stimulus checks started arriving, but the rebate will just "put gas in my tank," said respondent Joan Danley in Missouri. (Los Angeles Times, free registration)

NOTED: U.S. home foreclosures filings shot up 65 percent in April, versus a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac. The 243,353 homes receiving filings -- or one in every 519 households -- was also a rise of 4 percent over March. RealtyTrac blamed the rise on weak sales, falling prices, and tightened lending criteria that prevent homeowners from refinancing when they owe more than their house is worth. (AP in Yahoo! Finance) Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan predicted early today that the housing market wouldn't hit bottom until early 2009. (MarketWatch)

This column was written by Peter Weber of TheWeekDaily.com.