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SEATTLE – Apple Inc. co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs is back at work after a five-and-a-half-month medical leave, during which he received a liver transplant.

Jobs, 54, is working from Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters “a few days a week" and working from home the remaining days, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said Monday.

The Apple chief was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. He had surgery in 2004 and announced then that he was cured.

Last year, Jobs' dramatic weight loss prompted new questions about his health. In early January, he said in a statement that he was suffering from an easily treated hormone imbalance, but less than two weeks later Jobs said his medical condition was more complex than he initially thought. He announced he would take a leave of absence until the end of June.

Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tenn cash loans., said last week that Jobs had received a liver transplant, confirming an earlier report in The Wall Street Journal.

Jobs was recovering well and his prognosis was good, the hospital said.

Few CEOs are considered as instrumental to their companies as Jobs has been to Apple since he returned in 1997 after a 12-year hiatus. With Jobs serving as head showman and demanding elegance in product design, Apple has expanded from a niche computer maker to become the dominant producer of portable music players and a huge player in the cellphone business.

News and rumours about his health have sent Apple stock soaring or plunging.

Shares of Apple rose 43 cents to $142.87 in afternoon trading Monday.

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From David Nicklaus’ Mound City Money blog. STLtoday.com/moundcitymoney

Unanimity is rare in surveys of businesspeople, but the St. Louis Fed found it among area car dealers. The Fed’s latest Burgundy Book survey says all the dealers it talked to expect lower sales this year. Other retailers aren’t quite as pessimistic, but half expect sales to fall and only one-third expect sales to rise.

If Kansas City’s leaders want to learn about the economics of a 1,000-room convention hotel, they could drive 250 miles east and talk to the folks who recently foreclosed on the Renaissance Hotel in downtown St. Louis. Instead, they’re spending $500,000 for a feasibility study. According to the Kansas City Star’s Kevin Collison, our neighbors to the west are also establishing a 20-member steering committee to think about the idea.

We St. Louisans could save them plenty of time and money. Here are three pieces of free feasibility advice:
— It won’t work without a huge public subsidy.

— It won’t magically generate more convention business

— Even with a huge subsidy, it might not succeed.

The ESOP Association estimates that 10 million U.S. workers, about 10 percent of the private-sector work force, participate in employee stock ownership plans at 11,500 companies. Many people would look at those numbers and see upbeat, motivated employees, their incentives fully aligned with the employers’ goals affordable car insurance.

Sean Anderson, a visiting law professor at the University of Illinois, looks at ESOPs and sees a disaster waiting to happen. In an upcoming article, he says Congress should ban employer stock from all company-sponsored retirement plans. Here’s an Anderson quote, from a U of I News Bureau summary of the article that will appear in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. :

"ESOPs have a lot of intuitive appeal — the idea of having workers own a piece of the company they’re working for. But they’re Enron on steroids. At the end of the day, they put workers at terrible risk and more often than not work as a tool that benefits the company, not employees."

ESOPs prevent workers from diversifying their retirement savings, and workers don’t even control the price at which they invest.

My guess is that any proposal to abolish ESOPs would run into a firestorm of criticism from many of those 10 million employee-owners. I’ve talked with people who get a special sense of pride from working at an employee-owned company such as Graybar Electric or McBride & Son Homes. Any reformer would also have to contend with the ghost of Louis O. Kelso, the Cold-War-era thinker who conceived of ESOPs as a way to keep workers engaged with capitalism and opposed to communism.

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Jose Castro had several needs when he began looking for a second career in 2006. After spending about 20 years selling insurance, often in small towns around Missouri, Castro tired of traditional 9-to-5 hours and the exhausting, long car trips. He also wanted a job he could share with his companion, Mary Deacon, and one with a relatively low start-up cost.

That’s the short version of how an agricultural adviser from Peru eventually wound up running a crepes restaurant in downtown St. Louis.

Castro modeled the restaurant after his favorite spots in Peru. The restaurant features long tables to encourage strangers to interact, as well as a large mural and other art — all designed to create a welcoming, international feel. Castro also talks proudly about how servers in Peru are more like performers. He tries to bring a similar sense of showmanship to the restaurant, from the way he brings water to a table to how the crepes are prepared in plain view of customers.

Most of the restaurant’s food, of course, is not Peruvian. But Castro said he quickly learned while selling insurance how expressive American consumers are when it comes to embracing or rejecting products.

Castro said it’s one of the things he likes best about America. It’s also why he was confident about opening a new restaurant in the midst of an economic downturn.

So when you started looking to get out of selling insurance, how did you eventually decide on a crepe restaurant?

You don’t need a big investment to do the crepes. You just need the little (electric griddle). … If you want to do burgers, yeah you need a grill, but now you need a (range) hood. And that can be very expensive. … You just plug (the grill) in and it can go anywhere.

Also, the fact that there are not too many places doing crepes in the area. We thought we can just combine so many flavors here. That’s the other part, every culture has some kind of food you put in a wrap. You call it a tortilla, you call it wrap. And this is the crepe. You can put whatever inside … and most people like it.

How has starting this business gone?

We started the business in a most difficult time. (Previously, he ran his crepe business out of the office services and coffee bar Washington Ave. Post). I mean, we started in October and two weeks later President Bush announced that we’re in a recession. So all that bad news was mounting. When the loan was approved, we had to think hard about if we were going to take it, because who wants to open in a terrible time?

I felt I had no choice. … If you’re pushing hard and that’s all you know how to do at that point, to back up after all this time — to do what? It’s not me, you know? I was so involved with it and it was my dream, that I felt, if I do this, people are going to come. If we present something nice and different, people are going to come.

What drew you to St. Louis from Peru?

I was about to get married (to a St paydayloan. Louis native) at the time, and we made the choice to (live in) Peru. But in between, terrorism started and it was of the worst kind. Very, very violent. …

I was an agricultural adviser. I worked for a large farming company and also I researched land pollution from mining companies. So I had to be on those lonely roads all the time. And it was like, can’t do that anymore. People with machine guns were attacking. I didn’t want to be in my own car and have them take it or who knows what — ransom or kidnap me or whatever.

At that time, it was not that bad, but I had to make a decision, I had to look into the future and ask, "Are things going to get better?" My assessment was it would not, and I was right. I only knew that later. It got really bad, not only on those lonely roads, but in Lima (the capital). It would’ve been easier for me to adapt to this situation (in America) than for her to adapt to that situation.

So you see yourself and your servers as performers?

Oh, they are. They’ve got to be. … Every time there is an exchange — it could be that they dropped a fork and you bring another one — don’t just put it there. Make that connection. Allow for appreciation. See if (the customer) likes that. It’s part of the experience. You’re doing your job when you allow for that person to say, "Thank you."

When you put a plate down, you’re always looking at the person. It’s always that eye contact. We all are in a show. It’s got to be a show.

Any of my employees can tell you I say, "Have you ever seen or heard that Mickey Mouse was in a bad mood? Do you think it would be all right if Cinderella was angry that day? Probably not. So why here? What’s the difference? People don’t care about your personal problems." That’s one thing I learned by practicing and working at Lucas Park Grille.

How have you enjoyed performing everyday?

I liked it. One of the owners at Lucas Park Grille told me once because of the good comments from the clientele, "You’re one of the features here."

For me, maybe it was natural. I’ve got to be that way. The excellence of service I was getting in Peru, it goes well in that environment, but it’s much more formal. Here, people want to engage with you. In the very first week here in the United States, one of the things that came to my attention was people would be talking in the line at the grocery, and they would be engaging the cashier.

In Peru, its strictly formal. I’m the employee and you’re the client and show a lot of respect and formality. But the thing about social or economic class is not brought up all the time. Here, you don’t know with whom you’re talking.

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Giant movie studio Pinewood Shepperton says it hopes to get the beleaguered Toronto movie industry moving again by leveraging its internationally known brand to funnel movies into Canada.

But its local competitors yesterday cried foul over the city using taxpayer dollars to take an ownership stake in a newly built waterfront studio that will be run by the British company, saying it may put them out of business.

Pinewood Shepperton announced yesterday that the studio – formerly known as Filmport – will now be called Pinewood Toronto Studios

"We are competing with a major foreign studio who is running a taxpayer-funded facility," said Peter Lucas, president of Showline Ltd., which has five studios in Toronto. "The city is providing benefits to a foreign player that they have not provided to us, which means the playing field has been tilted substantially."

Toronto Mayor David Miller has said that it isn’t the city’s intention to be a long-term equity owner in the business, but an investment was necessary in order to keep the studio going.

Battered by a surging loonie, a series of industry strikes and competition from other cities, Toronto’s movie business has taken a beating over the past several years, with production companies spending $690 million in 2008, down 23 per cent from the prior year and far from the $1.3 billion peak in 2000.

With fewer productions to go around, the competition has been vicious.

"So far, the city of Toronto has kicked in millions of dollars to keep (Pinewood) afloat," an angry Steve Mirkopoulos, president of Cinespace Film Studios claimed in a statement. "How is any studio supposed to compete when Filmport has had its operating expenses cut through taxpayer subsidies?"

Showline’s Lucas says he has invested at least $25 million in his business over the past three decades, where movies such as Hairspray starring John Travolta have been filmed.

"If I had known this would happen, I would have put my money in another business," says Lucas.

The controversy is a sour note in what some see as a potential upside to the industry if the Pinewood brand and connections can attract productions to Canada quick payday loan.

This will be the first overseas-managed studio by the company famous for the James Bond and Harry Potter films and partly owned by directors Tony and Ridley Scott. Recent films include Quantum of Solace and Mamma Mia.

In a conference call yesterday, Pinewood CEO Ivan Dunleavy said, "This is an exciting day for Pinewood. Our role will be to use the experience we’ve had over 75 years to bring … film and television production to Toronto."

Dunleavy did not address the concerns of his competitors, but said bringing more production to Toronto would be a net benefit to the city as a whole.

Still, he conceded that the studio’s giant sound stage in Toronto remains dark.

When asked whether any films had been booked, he said the company was working with potential clients but nothing that could be announced.

Under the terms of the agreement, Pinewood will take a managerial role, in a five-year contract that will see the company earn fees based on bookings.

The studio has seven sound stages on an 4.5-hectare site.

As first revealed in the Toronto Star earlier this year, the city of Toronto is a 20 per cent investor, joining other investors such as Pinewood’s long-time Toronto partner Alfredo Romano of Castlepoint Developments and ROI Capital, who have purchased the 80 per cent share formerly held by studio founder Sam Reisman of Toronto’s Rose Corp.

Paul Bronfman, CEO of Comweb Group, will be the chairman of the studio and retains his 20 per cent stake. Outgoing studio president Ken Ferguson, a popular figure in the industry, is being replaced by industry veteran Edith Myers as the new managing director.

The deal means that Pinewood finally has a foothold in the Toronto market after the studio, along with partner Romano, narrowly lost out to Rose Corp. on a controversial deal to build the studio in 2004.

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The Book of Proverbs warns that "pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall," but who knew what to expect from Manulife Financial?

Who recognized the trouble such a big, proud company could get its investors into by refusing to hedge or otherwise insure the capital and income guarantees it was providing to legions of stock and bond market investors in Canada, the United States and Japan.

The tentative conclusion reached by some leading class-action lawyers and investigators at the Ontario Securities Commission is that not enough of Manulife’s stockholders knew ahead of time.

After coasting above the rest of the financial sector for much of last year, Manulife’s stock price was slashed in half in the final quarter. It had to draw down a $3 billion loan.

Analysts started asking about its hedging practices and whether it needed to raise more capital.

Then came billion-dollar losses in its latest two financial quarters.

While the index of financial service stocks is now roughly back where it was a year ago, Manulife’s stock is still down about 40 per cent.

Now the company has revealed the Ontario Securities Commission is questioning whether it provided investors with adequate disclosure but has yet to decide whether to take enforcement action.

Siskind, Cromarty, Ivey & Dowler LLP of London, Ont., has announced it is investigating a potential class-action lawsuit on behalf of investors who bought shares between Jan. 26, 2004 and March 26, 2009, when Manulife released its year-end results.

Manulife is not saying much at this point, except that it believes that its disclosure satisfied applicable requirements. Spokesman David Paterson declined yesterday to point to where and how the company warned of the potential risk for investors.

Clearly, various experts were well aware that Manulife was taking on considerable risk as its sales of so-called guaranteed living benefits or variable annuities soared over the past few years affordable health insurance quotes.

While consulting to Manulife, Moshe Milevsky, of York University’s Schulich School of Business, began urging financial advisers, starting in 2007, to ask how companies were hedging those guarantees.

"I am simply arguing that the living benefits arms race is leading to promises and guarantees that might become difficult to keep," Milevsky wrote for Researchmag .com.

Brent Fullard, a lobbyist against changes in taxation of income trusts, raised such questions as: "Whose credit risk are your investors exposed to? Yours or somebody else’s? Where is this disclosed in your advertising? How do you provide your Income Plus investors with ongoing reporting of this shifting risk aspect of your product over time?"

But one of the earliest to warn insurers they should be properly hedging the risk of a stock market crash, or a 10-year period of low or negative returns, was Mary Hardy, a Waterloo professor of actuarial science.

The author of the 2003 instructional text for actuaries, Investment Guarantees, says her research pointed to the need for hedging but Manulife was openly opposed to the idea and argued publicly about why she and a fellow researcher were wrong.

"There is nothing you can throw at a hedging plan that makes it more risky than not hedging," Hardy insists.

Manulife relied instead on having enough of its own capital – or more properly, its investors’ capital – to back its promises.

Hardy says that approach is not without cost, and waiting to put hedges in place while stock markets are falling, is even more expensive.

Siskind lawyer Dimitri Lascaris says it’s not enough that experts knew the risk Manulife faced: "Disclosure of public corporations is not intended to be something only elite investors can understand."

jdaw@thestar.ca

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HELSINKI–Nokia Siemens Networks said Saturday it will buy the wireless operations of Canadian-based Nortel Networks in a $650 million (euro465 million) deal to strengthen its position in North American markets.

The Finnish-German joint venture said it will purchase the LTE and CDMA assets of Nortel, a former telecom equipment giant now operating under bankruptcy protection.

CDMA, or code division multiple access, is a rival standard to the dominant cellular standard GSM, or global system for mobile, while Long Term Evolution, or LTE, is a next-generation wireless network technology.

The transaction is subject to the approval of U.S. and Canadian courts because of Nortel’s bankruptcy process, Nokia Siemens said, adding it expected such approvals by July. It described the planned acquisition as "a significant step towards strengthening its leadership" in LTE wireless technology.

"The acquisition of Nortel’s profitable CDMA business would significantly improve Nokia Siemens Networks’ presence in North America and make it a leading supplier of wireless infrastructure products in the region," the Espoo, Finland-based company said.

Nokia Siemens Networks is a joint venture of Nokia Corp., the world’s top mobile phone maker, and German Siemens AG free business cards.com. It employs 60,000 people worldwide.

Under the deal more than 2,500 Nortel employees, mostly in Canada and the United States, would be transferred to Nokia Siemens Networks. Canada’s government-owned export credit agency, Export Development Canada, would support the transaction with a $300 million loan commitment, Nokia Siemens said.

Toronto-based Nortel reported a first-quarter net loss this year of US$507 million with revenue falling by 37 per cent from 2008 to $1.7 billion.

Nortel’s customers, including Bell – Canada’s leading telecommunications company – welcomed the deal which Nokia Siemens said would ensure the continuation of Nortel’s research and development sector.

"As Nortel’s largest customer in Canada, Bell supports Nokia Siemens’ plan to continue to foster Nortel’s long history of research and development in Canada," said Stephen Howe, spokesman for Bell Mobility.

"This news eliminates industry uncertainty and enhances CDMA … today and in the future," said Dan Hesse, CEO of Kansas-based Sprint Nextel.

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some rays of hope for the unemployed. Can the recovery last? Most important: Where are the jobs?

Get the answers when Anderson Cooper and Ali Velshi host our panel of experts and check in on virtual town halls across the country.

Thursday, June 18 at 8p.m. ET

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A key survey of manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia area jumped to its highest level since September, and a future indicator hit a 5 1/2-year high, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said Thursday.

The Philadelphia Fed index, a reading on manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region, improved to minus 2.2 in June from minus 22.6 in May.

The report far surpassed estimates. Analysts expected a reading of minus 18, according to a consensus survey from Briefing guaranteed payday loans.com.

The Business Outlook Survey is a barometer of the U.S. manufacturing industry and a precursor to a national report from the Institute for Supply Management due on July 1.

The headline index has been negative for 18 of the past 19 months, as the recession has hammered business and consumer spending power alike.

In June, indexes for new orders and shipments each jumped 21 points. New orders stand at minus 4.8, while shipments turned positive to 2.1. But continued decreases in the indexes for employment and work hours suggested ongoing weakness.

The current employment index improved 5 points from May but remained a relatively weak minus 21.8. A separate government report released Thursday showed initial jobless claims rose last week. The average workweek index improved 3 points, to minus 26.6.

Six-month indicators: Most of the indicators of future activity continued to improve, the report said, "suggesting that the region’s manufacturing executives are becoming more optimistic that a recovery in business will occur over the next six months."

The future general activity index remained positive for the 6th straight month, jumping to 60.1 in June from 47.5 in May . That’s the highest reading since September 2003. The index has now increased 71 points since December.

The indexes for future new orders and shipments each improved 12 points this month, while the future employment index improved by 3 points and the future workweek index increased 24 points.

For the second straight month, the percentage of companies expecting employment to increase over the next six months, 21%, exceeded the percentage expecting a decrease, 8%.

The percentage of companies expecting more spending, 21%, nearly matched the percentage expecting a decline, 19%.  

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Gas prices have risen for 50 days in a row and the pain at the pump is taking a toll on household budgets across the nation.

Nationwide, gas prices now average $2.679, motorist group AAA said Wednesday. Prices have risen every day since April 29, when the national average stood at $2.05 a gallon.

Drivers in every U.S. state, with the exception of South Carolina, now pay an average of at least $2.50 a gallon. In the Palmetto State, gas averages $2.49 a gallon.

The runup in gas prices comes at a time when drivers are already struggling with record high unemployment and an abysmal housing market.

"The rise is gas prices is putting a large dent into our household budget at a time when we are already feeling some pain," said Michael Clark, a technologies business analyst in Phoenix.

Clark, who said prices at his local station have gone up more than 90 cents since May, was recently asked by his employer to accept a 15% pay cut.

"I do not understand how the stock market can be up and the price of oil rising when everybody I know is hurting so badly," he said.

Many economists worry that consumers like Clark will be forced to cut back on spending on other items to make up for higher pump prices.

That could pose a serious threat to the already battered economy, since consumer spending makes up the bulk of U faxless cash advance.S. economic activity.

The spike in gas prices comes on the back of a surge in the price of crude oil, which is the main ingredient in retail gasoline.

The price of oil has more than doubled since late December, climbing from a low of $33.87 a barrel to more than $70 recently. Meanwhile, gas prices have followed a similar trajectory, jumping more than $1 a gallon over the same time period.

Oil prices have been driven higher as investors bet the world’s once-robust demand for energy is poised for a rebound. However, many analysts say the recent runup is overdone, and that oil prices at current levels are not justified based on sound economic fundamentals.

Has the rebound in gas prices caused you financial hardship? Are you spending less on other items to help with the cost of driving? Have you postponed summer driving plans? We want to hear your experiences. E-mail your story to realstories@cnnmoney.com and you could be part of an upcoming article. For the CNNMoney.com Comment Policy, click here. 

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U.S. industrial production slid a steeper-than-expected 1.1% in May from the prior month with output off sharply at factories, utilities and mines, a Federal Reserve report showed Tuesday.

Economists polled by Reuters were expecting a 0.9% decline after a revised 0.7% drop in April, initially reported as a 0.5% decrease.

The data suggest that any slowdown in the pace of the recession that many economists have pointed to in recent weeks may be uneven credit reports.

The capacity utilization rate for total industry, a measure of slack in the economy, fell to 68.3%, the lowest level on records dating back to 1967. 

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Accused by Monsanto Co. of patent infringement, DuPont fired back on Tuesday, claiming its Creve Coeur-based rival initiated the case to stifle competition by keeping new biotech trait combinations out of the hands of farmers.

The response from DuPont comes just over a month after Monsanto sued the company in federal court in St. Louis.

The Monsanto lawsuit claims DuPont’s agricultural unit, Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., violated a license agreement by combining an herbicide resistance trait that it’s developing with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready trait.

In its answer, Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont challenged the validity of Monsanto’s patents and said the 2002 license agreement doesn’t prohibit it from combining the genetic traits.
DuPont says combining, or "stacking," genetic traits for herbicide tolerance would provide farmers with better weed control than Monsanto’s Roundup Ready technology can deliver by itself.

"We will vigorously defend our rights to bring valuable new technologies to the market," James C default payday loan. Borel, a DuPont vice president said in a statement.

Monsanto was the first company to develop a gene for herbicide resistance with its 1996 launch of Roundup Ready soybeans. Today, Pioneer and other seed companies pay Monsanto for the right to use the Roundup Ready trait.

DuPont says the technology is used in about 95 percent of soybean acres in U.S., and that Monsanto has used strict license agreements to exclude competition and raise prices to farmers.

Monsanto claims DuPont chose to combine the biotech traits in soybean seeds to "cover up" problems with a rival technology, Optimum GAT.

"DuPont’s filing today is yet another smoke screen to divert attention from its problem-plagued product," Scott Partridge, deputy general counsel for Monsanto, said in a statement.

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