My finance view

Verizon just can’t seem to stay out of hot water.

As of May 6, new, upgrading and moving Verizon DSL Internet users are being required to also purchase a landline telephone service package. That decision is causing a stir on Capitol Hill and with partner DirecTV (, Fortune 500).

Sen. Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee, wrote to Verizon (, Fortune 500) on Thursday, slamming the telecom giant for its new DSL rules.

"The bundling that Verizon now plans could potentially lessen competition, increase rates and lead to less innovation," Kohl said in his letter. "Consumers benefit when one service is competing with another, not when they must buy a package of services."

Kohl’s primary complaint was about the timing of the company’s move. Verizon’s decision comes soon after it struck a deal with rival cable companies Comcast () and Time Warner Cable (, Fortune 500) to sell wireless service to their customers.

Verizon’s move to reduce its competition with its new partners seems a little suspicious.

As Kohl put it: "It appears inconsistent for Verizon to argue, on the one hand, that the joint marketing arrangements and bundling wireless services with cable offerings increases customer choice, while on the other hand the company is tying voice and DSL services, compelling consumers to purchase bundled offerings."

Verizon’s residential DSL and landline telephone businesses is on the decline. In the first quarter, the company shed 89,000 DSL customers and 205,000 landline phone users.

"Our decision to adjust the way we offer DSL service after May 6 more accurately represents the broadband customer base at Verizon," Verizon spokesman William Kula said.

Ending standalone DSL sales lets Verizon "control our cost structure more effectively," he said.

Verizon said it is reviewing Kohl’s letter and "will respond appropriately."

Verizon is still waiting for regulatory approval of its arrangement with Comcast and Time Warner Cable. It agreed to purchase $3.6 billion of wireless spectrum from the cable companies. In return, the cable consortium will be able to bundle wireless service with their triple-play TV, broadband and phone packages.

"We have made a strong case that the spectrum purchase is in the public interest," said Verizon spokesman Ed McFadden.

Verizon’s plan is to take currently unused spectrum and use it to expand its 4G LTE wireless broadband services.

But the deal has raised eyebrows among consumer advocates and other competitors, since Verizon has its own FiOS triple-play package as well as its DSL service. Those both compete directly with the cable companies’ plans.

Related story: Are landlines doomed?

DirecTV, which bundles Verizon’s DSL service with its satellite TV offering, also opposes Verizon’s spectrum purchase. It said in a complaint filed to the FCC on Wednesday that Verizon’s DSL-landline bundling decision is a prime example of why the telecom’s spectrum deal with the cable companies is anticompetitive.

"Even in the short amount of time since the commercial agreements were finalized, Verizon’s behavior offers direct evidence of ways in which the proposed transaction will alter the market to the detriment of competition and consumers," the company said.

The DSL wrangle is just the latest in a recent slew of negative headlines about Verizon.

The company on Wednesday said it was planning this summer to begin forcing smartphone customers with unlimited data plans to switch to tiered plans when they upgrade.

Last month, Verizon said it would begin instituting a $30 upgrade fee when current customers purchase a new phone.

And just before New Year’s Eve, Verizon tried to sneak through a $2 "convenience charge" for customers who make one-time bill payments using a debit or credit card. Met with incredible consumer ire, Verizon abandoned that plan the next day. 

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Oil prices hovered near $93 a barrel Thursday in Asia as traders mulled whether concern over Europe’s debt crisis justifies extending a sharp sell-off during the last two weeks.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was up 26 cents to $93.07 a barrel at late morning Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.17 to settle at $92.81 in New York on Wednesday.

Brent crude for July delivery was down 46 cents at $109.29 per barrel in London.

Crude has plummeted about 12 percent from $106 two weeks ago amid investor worries that economic growth in the U.S. and China will slow more than previously expected. This week, political turmoil in Greece and growing anti-austerity sentiment in Europe have raised fears of a debt default and economic recession, which would undermine crude demand.

Some analysts say a slowly improving U.S. economy and signs of growing oil demand in developing countries should keep the crude price from collapsing further.

“A drastic weakening of sentiment brought oil prices down sharply, with sovereign debt fears a key element in a mounting loss of faith in economic, and hence demand, prospects,” Barclays said business card. “Crude oil prices may well remain capped on the upside in the next few weeks by fears of major economic upheavals.”

“However, given the actual economic and oil demand picture, Brent prices are more likely to remain protected around $110 rather than attempting to break through to a more extreme downside,” Barclays said.

Should crude continue to fall or at least maintain the recent pullback, it should translate to lower prices for oil products such as gasoline, which would ease global inflation pressures and give policymakers more room to implement stimulus measures or loosen monetary policy to boost economic growth.

In other energy trading, heating oil was down 1.2 cents at $2.89 per gallon and gasoline futures slid 1.5 cents at $2.85 per gallon. Natural gas rose 1 cent at $2.63 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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McDonald’s Corp. says a key revenue figure rose in April as strength in the U.S. and U.K. helped offset weakness in Japan. But results missed analyst expectations and McDonald’s shares fell 2 percent in premarket trading.

The world’s largest hamburger chain says global sales rose 3.3 percent at stores open at least 13 months. But Thomson Reuters says analysts expected a 4.1 percent rise.

The figure is key metric because it excludes the impact of newly opened stores.

The figure rose 3 payday loans guaranteed no fax.3 percent in the U.S., driven by its new extra value menu offerings such as 20-piece Chicken McNuggets.

The sales figure rose 3.5 percent in Europe and 1.1 percent in Asia/Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. McDonald’s says positive results in China were offset by negative results in Japan.

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The Toronto stock market is negative after elections in France and Greece over the weekend resulted in another round of uncertainty about Europe

Never have I been less qualified to address a subject than the one you’ll read about today — fashion.

Let the record show I’m wearing jeans as I write this. It’s Wednesday. Not that it matters now that casual Friday has morphed into casual every day.

I once looped a tie around my neck every morning. It usually didn’t match my threadbare oxford shirt and always carried evidence of meals that didn’t quite make it from the plate-to-my-mouth. But it was, at least, a feeble nod toward professional attire.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I wore a tie to work or, for that matter, last purchased neck wear. Nor, apparently, can a lot of other people.

“There is no one way to dress for business anymore, where there used to be a set formula,” said Nancy Nix-Rice, a St. Louis image and wardrobe consultant.

Anyone who has paid a visit recently to an office occupied by small business or start-up can certainly attest to that.

Jeans, polo shirts and sweaters are standard attire in the boutique marketing firms, information technology and other companies with no designs of ever nailing down a spot on the Fortune 500.

In the small-business world, shorts are de rigueur summer wear for both men and women, and a tie is what happens when a soccer game ends with neither team scoring.

“There’s no doubt some people have taken business casual way too far,” said Nix-Rice. “And that sends a message that either says, ‘I’m an intellectual, and can’t be bothered by something so mundane as to how I look.’ Or, it’s a (finger gesture) approach that tells your employer, ‘You can’t tell me what to do even if you own the company.’”

Many trace the dressing down trend to young tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. But many medium-to-large corporations and law firms continue to buck the trend, unwilling to allow employees to dress as they see fit.

With the exception of casual Fridays in the summer months and occasional informal office celebrations, Edward Jones employees are expected to meet certain standards whenever they stroll into corporate headquarters.

For men, the rules call for a shirt, tie, suit or sport coat. For female employees, it means business attire.

Human resources executive Beth Cook said the Edward Jones dress policy rests on “the fundamental belief that being a professional is dressing like one.”

Monsanto, a little more lax, encourages its employees to arrive at the office in business casual.

The biotechnology giant’s dress code, in part to protect lab workers, bans open-toed shoes along with “shorts, skirts, tank tops and other garments that expose large areas of skin…”

The definition of professionally appropriate fashion started to evolve long before the first office worker through caution to the wind and wore shirt sleeves on a stifling August afternoon.

A reader responding to an informal survey on dress codes I posted to LinkedIn recalled the day when corporations required male employees to cover their heads.

“The hat you chose spoke to your status and position in the company as well as your attitude of professionalism,” the reader wrote remembering the co-worker who, in flaunting convention, was “henceforth known as ‘the man without a hat.’ A label he wore with pride.’”

Today, as often as not, the label will read Levi Strauss.

Nix-Rice has no squabble with jeans in the workplace. But she counsels it’s best to offset (preferably unfaded) denim with shirts and upper body wear that conveys a more, well, buttoned-down approach.

“Appearance is language,” she advises clients. “It’s what you are saying all day, even to yourself.”

In many ways, the folks at Edward Jones and other offices with strict dress codes have an easier time than those left to our own sartorial devices.

“Business dress today is confusing,” Nix-Rice acknowledged. “On one hand, you don’t want to look like the dork who didn’t get the business casual memo. But on the other hand, you don’t want to be the slob who doesn’t tuck in his polo shirt.”

Looking ahead, it’s not difficult to envision tomorrow’s corporate cubicle and office dwellers viewing mandatory business attire through the same prism with which we regard the rules that once placed a hat on the head of our grandparents.

Don’t think it will happen? Consider this: Time MoneyLand last month reported the results of a survey in which 93 percent of millennials (20- and 30-year-olds) said they gravitate toward workplaces that allow them to dress “in a way that makes them comfortable.”

Jeans, evidently, symbolize the truest measure of comfort, with 79 percent of the respondents saying they should be allowed to wear denim to work at least some of the time.

Finally, a note to anyone tempted to invest their life’s savings in necktie futures. MTV has attached another moniker to an age group already tagged as millenials and Gen Y.

It’s the “No Collar Workforce.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“It must always be noted that these numbers are statistics—and complicated ones, based on tens of thousands of surveys from businesses and households, which are then massaged by a variety of quantitative techniques to produce the unemployment rate, the size of the labor force, and a host of other numbers. They are not absolutes, and they are not unequivocal facts. The definition of “unemployment” is not simply out of work; you can be without a job for years and not “unemployed” as a statistic; once you cease actively looking for work, you cease to be part of the workforce and hence are not “unemployed.” “Employed” also says nothing about wages. You can have two jobs and still earn less than the official poverty rate or be unable to support a family of five, and that indeed is the case for tens of millions of people.” - Primer by economist and money manager Zachary Karabell on how to interpret the federal government’s monthly report on unemployment.

Source: The Daily Beast

BY THE NUMBERS

$42,569 - The median salary for 2012 college graduates holding a bachelor’s degree at minimum — a 4.5 percent increase over the median salary earned by the Class of 2011.

Source: National Association of Colleges and Employers

FINAL WORD

“At G.M. you did the same thing every 48 seconds. In the nursing job, you don’t know what’s going to walk in the door.” — former autoworker Ken Harris on a new career path he took as a result of the type of retraining program now endangered by federal budget cuts.

Source: The New York Times  

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The head of the International Monetary Fund says she wants the fund to contribute euro28 billion ($36.7 billion) to a euro130 billion bailout for Greece.

Christine Lagarde said Friday that “the scale and length of the fund’s support is a reflection of our determination to remain engaged” in helping Greece.

The euro28 billion likely includes euro10 billion left over from the IMF’s contribution to Greece’s first euro110 billion bailout.

Lagarde said the IMF’s executive board would decide on the final contribution next week.

Debt-ridden Greece needs the bailout to avoid a disorderly default that could destabilize the rest of Europe.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) _ Greece’s private creditors agreed Friday to take cents on the euro in the biggest debt writedown in history, paving the way for an enormous second bailout for the country to keep Europe’s economy from being dragged further into chaos.

Greece would have risked defaulting on its debts in two weeks without the agreement, sparking turmoil in the financial markets and sending shock waves through the other 16 countries that use the euro.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos called the deal _ which shaves some euro105 billion ($138 billion) off Greece’s euro368 billion ($487 billion) debt load _ an important “historic success” in a televised address to the nation Friday night. “For the first time, Greece is not adding but taking debt off the backs of its citizens.”

The country said 83.5 percent of private investors holding its government debt had agreed to a bond swap, taking a cut of more than half the face value of their investments as well as accepting softer repayment terms for Greece.

The radical swap aimed to put the country’s debt-ridden economy on the road to recovery, and was a key condition to secure a euro130 billion ($172 billion) rescue package from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.

Charles Dallara, the managing director of the Institute of International Finance, which negotiated the deal with the Greek government on large investors’ behalf, described the bond swap as “the largest ever” restructuring.

“This has been painful and the pain is not over yet. But I now can see light at the end of the tunnel for the Greek economy,” Dallara told Greece’s Mega television. He estimated Greece could return to the markets “within a few years” and said that if recovery continues, “I think the risk for Greece and the risk on the eurozone will be very manageable.”

Of the investors holding the euro177 billion ($234 billion) in bonds governed by Greek law, 85.8 percent joined. The deadline for those owning foreign-law bonds was extended to March 23.

Creditors holding Greek-law bonds who refused to sign up will be forced into the deal _ breaking a taboo that the eurozone had upheld until just weeks ago.

The decision to force losses on some bondholders means that the debt relief will trigger payouts of so-called credit default swaps, a type of insurance on bonds.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the private organization that rules on such cases, said its committee “resolved unanimously that a Restructuring Credit Event has occurred.”

When the debt relief plan was first announced last year, eurozone leaders and the European Central Bank worked hard to avoid a credit event because they feared the payout of credit default swaps could destabilize big financial institutions that sold them.

But since then, that prospect has started to look less threatening. The ISDA said that if triggered, overall payouts will be significantly below the $3.2 billion in net outstanding CDS contracts linked to Greece. The exact level of payouts will be determined on March 19.

“We do not foresee a significant impact of the Greek credit event on financial markets,” ISDA CEO Robert Pickel said.

The Fitch ratings agency downgraded Greece to “restricted default” over the bond swap _ a move that had been expected. Fitch was the third agency to downgrade Greece into default, after Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. The agencies are expected to raise the country’s credit rating after the completion of the swap.

Earlier Friday, finance ministers from the 17-nation eurozone said Greece had fulfilled the conditions to get approval for the bailout next week. The IMF has set a tentative date of March 15 to discuss the size of its own participation.

The ministers also released up to euro35.5 billion ($47 billion) in bailout money to fund the debt swap. Investors exchanging bonds will receive up to euro30 billion _ or 15 percent of the remaining money they are owed _ as a sweetener for the deal and euro5.5 billion for outstanding interest payments.

European leaders hailed the deal as a seminal moment in their effort to stem the crisis and get Greece on its feet.

“The page of the financial crisis is being turned,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

And Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told Parliament Friday: “I believe everyone will soon realize that this is the only way to keep the country on its feet and give it a second historic chance that it needs.”

“A window of opportunity is opening” to reduce the country’s euro368 billion debt by euro105 billion, or about 50 percentage points of gross domestic product, he said.

However, some economists are concerned that Greece is merely buying time. The breather allows European governments and banks to strengthen their financial defenses, leaving them less vulnerable if Greece eventually cracks.

The deal and expected bailout do “more to protect Europe from Greece than for Greece itself,” said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Europe also has to contend with spiraling debt problems of Spain, Portugal and Ireland and Italy.

Markets, which had rallied on Thursday on expectations of a successful deal, were muted on Friday. The Stoxx 50 of leading European shares was up 0.6 percent, but the main stock index in Athens closed down 2.15 percent. The euro retreated 1.19 percent from recent highs to $1.3110.

On the streets of Athens, however, many were skeptical about the deal and pessimistic about the future. Panayiotis Theodoropoulos said the writedown was good “for them.”

“For us? Nothing. Everyone looks out for themselves. In a while the people will be living on the streets,” he said.

The debt crisis, sparked by years of overspending and waste, has left Greece relying on funds from international rescue loans since May 2010. Austerity measures including repeated salary and pension cuts and tax hikes have led to record unemployment with more than 1 million people out of work, a fifth of the labor force.

The country released statistics Friday showing the recession in the last quarter of 2011 was deeper than initially forecast, reaching 7.5 percent instead of 7 percent. The economy is expected to shrink for a fifth straight year in 2012, stagnate in 2013 and modestly expand in 2014.

____

Gabriele Steinhauser reported from Brussels. Nicholas Paphitis, Derek Gatopoulos, and Demetris Nellas in Athens and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

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Ontario residents with low to moderate incomes may get a nasty surprise when filing their 2011 tax returns.

Their refunds are disappearing, thanks to a low-key provincial decision to stop giving lump sum tax credit payments once a year.

Instead, it has combined several tax credits into the Ontario Trillium Benefit. This will be paid monthly, starting in July, to those who receive relief for energy costs, rent, sales tax and property tax.

The government made the move after consulting welfare experts, who said a monthly benefit would provide a steady income flow to pay bills.

But that

Manufacturing in the New York region expanded in February at the fastest pace since June 2010, a sign factories are propelling the expansion.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Japan

Discount chain 99 Cents Only Stores Inc. said Tuesday that it has agreed to be acquired for about $1.6 billion by private equity firm Ares Management LLC and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the latest big investors to bet on the increasingly popular dollar store industry.

The $22 per share cash offer is 7.4 percent higher than the retailer’s shares finished at on Monday. But it is a 32 percent premium over the company’s closing price on March 10, the day before 99 Cents Only disclosed that it had received an acquisition offer from a different private equity firm.

Dollar store operators like 99 Cents Only have thrived in the weak economy. Shoppers have turned to the discounters for deals on necessities like food and cleaning supplies, and for bargains on toys and other household goods one hour payday loan.

99 Cents Only, based in Commerce, Calif., operates 289 stores in the Western U.S.

99 Cents must have its deal approved by its shareholders. The retailer’s board is recommending approval. And members of the Schiffer-Gold family, which founded the company, said in a statement that they support the deal. They will hold a significant minority stake after the deal is complete.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.

Shares of the company rose 90 cents, or 4.4 percent, to close at $21.39 Tuesday.

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