URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT

1107 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 20, 2007 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Topping the List: Health Care and Pay
BYLINE: By ELIZABETH OLSON
SECTION: Section H; Column 1; Small Business; Pg. 5
LENGTH: 596 words
WEEKS after the Democrats took control of Congress, important issues to small businesses, like the minimum wage and health care policy, top the agenda.

Since Congress convened on Jan. 4, bills have been introduced to address these matters, including one to require small businesses to offer sick leave to employees; another to simplify tax filing; and one requiring that interest be paid on small-business bank accounts.

Questions have also arisen about the financing and future of the Small Business Administration, the federal agency set up to help the nearly 18 million small businesses nationwide.

On the legislative front, proposals to lift the federal minimum wage quickly bogged down over a disagreement on how, or if, the added cost to businesses would be offset. Small-business lobbyists opposed raising the minimum hourly wage to $7.25 from $5.15 over two years, saying that many small businesses could not afford it.

Wrangling continues over whether to link the minimum-wage increase to tax offsets for small businesses, like a credit for small companies that hire disadvantaged workers, including wounded veterans or people living at the poverty level. The House first voted to increase the minimum wage without tax offsets, but the Senate adopted a version that included an $8.3 billion package of tax relief. House Democrats then came up with their own proposals, and the full House approved a $1.3 billion package last week. The final bill awaits House-Senate negotiation.

On the health care issue, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and the new chairman of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, introduced legislation to help small businesses lower their costs for providing health care.

Opposition from small businesses helped sink efforts by the Clinton administration to broaden health care coverage a decade ago. But the issue persists, and health care costs are a top concern of small businesses.

In his State of the Union address last month, President Bush proposed capping the tax exemption for employer-provided insurance, and allowing individuals to take a tax deduction for their insurance cost. It is similar to some proposals floated by lawmakers, but Todd McCracken, president of the National Small Business Association, said that broader measures were needed.

''We are actively courting change,'' Mr. McCracken said. ''Piecemeal solutions are not going to work. We need to have universal coverage and subsidize people who are least able to afford it.''

Mr. Kerry's bill, the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit Act of 2007, is considered an interim step. It would give a refundable tax credit to companies that have fewer than 50 employees and that pay at least half of their workers' health care insurance premiums. The provision would cover employees earning up to $50,000 a year. It is not clear what the chances are for the bill, but it is most likely to be among many proposals tackling the problem.

Also up for consideration is expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which would require businesses with 15 or more employees to provide workers with seven paid sick days. The Healthy Families Act, introduced by the Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy in the Senate and Rosa DeLauro, Democrat from Connecticut, in the House, would also cover certain part-time workers.

But small-business lobbyists say that temporary and part-time workers less invested in their jobs may take advantage of sick leave.

All these issues may not be resolved soon, but at least they are on the agenda.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: MINIMUM WAGE (94%); SMALL BUSINESS (92%); TAXES & TAXATION (90%); HEALTH CARE POLICY (90%); PUBLIC POLICY (90%); LEGISLATIVE BODIES (90%); WAGES & SALARIES (91%); TAX LAW (90%); HEALTH INSURANCE (89%); POLITICAL PARTIES (90%); SMALL BUSINESS ASSISTANCE (90%); TAX RELIEF (89%); US DEMOCRATIC PARTY (89%); LEGISLATORS (89%); EMPLOYEE HEALTH PLANS (78%); US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (78%); HEALTH CARE COSTS (78%); SMALL BUSINESS LENDING (90%); EMPLOYMENT (90%); NEW ISSUES (78%); POOR POPULATION (78%); LEGISLATION (89%); INSURANCE COVERAGE (78%); LOBBYING (78%); EMPLOYEE LEAVE (77%); TAX EXEMPTIONS (76%); MINORITY BUSINESS ASSISTANCE (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (73%); RECRUITMENT & HIRING (72%); TAX DEDUCTIONS (71%); COMMERCIAL BANKING (71%); INSURANCE PREMIUMS (68%); US PRESIDENTS (67%); EXECUTIVE MOVES (66%); MANAGED CARE ORGANIZATIONS (78%); INCOME TAX (70%) Labor; Finances; Budgets and Budgeting; Law and Legislation; Wages and Salaries; Health Insurance and Managed Care; Fringe Benefits ; Small Business; Labor; Minimum Wage
ORGANIZATION: SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (83%) Small Business Administration
PERSON: JOHN KERRY (54%); GEORGE W BUSH (53%) Elizabeth Olson
GEOGRAPHIC: MASSACHUSETTS, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (92%) United States; United States
LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2007
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

1108 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 20, 2007 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

A Clash of Cultures, Averted
BYLINE: By ERIC DASH
SECTION: Section C; Column 2; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1690 words
When Bank of America announced its $35 billion acquisition of MBNA in summer 2005, many people questioned whether it would work.

MBNA, a stand-alone credit-card giant, took pride in its fast-paced and entrepreneurial spirit, its freewheeling spending and a secretive corporate culture that seemed more like a cult.

Executives roamed its opulent headquarters in Wilmington, Del., where the phrase ''Think of yourself as a customer'' was spelled out in small gold capital letters on both sides of at least 1,700 doorways, and paintings by Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell adorned the walls.

They enjoyed generous salaries and lavish perks -- from its private golf course and fleets of corporate jets to yachts and vintage cars. Employees carried around the MBNA corporate precepts on small note cards and sported MBNA logo pins on their lapels.

Bank of America, based in Charlotte, N.C., was a no-nonsense, low-cost operator. With almost 5,800 branches, the bank believed that size and smarts were far more crucial than speed. It was also an acquisition machine, transforming itself from a small regional bank into a national powerhouse by imposing its will on the companies it swallowed.

That did not exactly happen with MBNA. Even as they moved swiftly to reduce its high costs, Bank of America executives worked hard to ensure that many of MBNA's practices remained intact.

''On Day 1, I was directed that this was not like the ones you are used to,'' said Clifford A. Skelton, a former Navy fighter pilot who helped manage Bank of America's 2003 takeover of FleetBoston Financial before leading the MBNA transition last year. ''For us to come in like the Huns and say, 'We are taking it over, you're doing it our way' '' just would not work.

The MBNA acquisition perhaps signals the end of an era.

Next week, Kenneth D. Lewis, Bank of America's chairman and chief executive, is expected to present to investors his plans for a new approach: to steer the company away from acquisitions and toward more internal growth. Bank of America is hampered by a federal deposit cap, and Mr. Lewis has said he feels no ''strategic imperative'' to do another big deal.

But the careful measures that Bank of America took in digesting MBNA suggests an interest in acquiring skills as much as size. Indeed, it is a case study in the lengths to which a company will go to ensure that two vastly different cultures can peacefully coexist.

When the MBNA integration began in early July 2005, the task seemed daunting. But the payoff was potentially enormous. In one fell swoop, the transaction gave Bank of America a combined 122 million consumer cardholder accounts and vaulted it ahead of Citigroup as the country's largest credit-card issuer. The deal also placed it within striking distance of Citigroup as the nation's biggest bank by market capitalization.

Executives began comparing thousands of practices. Everything, from high-level customer service metrics to the role of the call-center operator, was reviewed.

On many of the bigger business issues, Bank of America elected to follow the MBNA methods it had long admired -- from its partnership marketing expertise to its aggressive debt collection techniques and reliance on high fees. Bank of America retained MBNA's huge technology system. It kept all 12 of MBNA's major call centers while shedding a few of its own. It also locked in several top MBNA executives.

But smaller details were similarly debated as the transition team sought compromise. Take the employee dress code, for example.

In keeping with its button-down culture, MBNA employees came to work each day in a jacket and tie. Bank of America workers were strictly business casual.

Transition team managers surveyed employees to identify the ''voice of the associate.'' They analyzed the potential impact of any change in the dress code on culture. Ultimately, the team reached a middle ground: business suits are still required in the credit-card division's corporate offices and in front of clients, but back-office functions are mainly business casual.

''The good news is that we have gotten more conscious about how we look and pay more attention to it,'' Mr. Skelton, Bank of America's transition leader, said. ''Our new MBNA teammates are able to ratchet down some of the formality, and with that formality, some of the hierarchy.''

Still, Bank of America bowed to some MBNA traditions. Shortly after the merger, MBNA employees were given pins with the Bank of America logo. They traded in their ''green and gold spirit points'' for similar Bank of America incentives, and were steeped in the Charlotte bank's core values. Bank of America executives have put MBNA's signature gold ''Think of yourself as a customer'' letters up on their own buildings' walls.

Even Bruce L. Hammonds, the former MBNA chief executive who now oversees Bank of America's credit-card business, was surprised. ''I would have guessed that most companies would have bought us and said right away, 'Take that off,' '' he said, referring to the omnipresent MBNA motto. ''Everybody commented what a great concept it was.''

Not everything, of course, has gone smoothly. Bank of America managers say some of their MBNA colleagues can come across as arrogant and autocratic. MBNA executives, by contrast, complain that Bank of America's bureaucracy has slowed the company down. Others note that some of MBNA's best and brightest have recently departed.

Senior MBNA managers either swallowed a steep pay cut or found themselves out of a job. And with many employment agreements set to expire soon, former employees and industry analysts openly question whether others will remain.

But financially speaking, even the most skeptical analysts say the MBNA deal has turned out better than expected.

While it is still early days, Bank of America executives say that the $1.25 billion cost savings achieved in the first year nearly met their two-year target. And even though loan delinquency rates are rising, Bank of America is excited about the new opportunities the deal brings.

Already, the two companies are borrowing from each others' playbooks. Bank of America, for example, is pushing about 300 of MBNA's 5,000 affinity credit cards -- like those carrying the logo of Habitat for Humanity or a Major League Baseball team -- through Bank of America retail branches.

Executives say that has more than doubled the number of new accounts opened at branches each month, to about 50. It is cheaper, too. At MBNA, it used to cost about $140 to sign up a new customer because of its heavy use of direct-mail offers. Now, it costs Bank of America less than $22 in its branches.

Tests are under way to expand the partnership strategy to other bank products, like mortgages, checking accounts and home-equity loans. And the bank is also borrowing from MBNA's ''judgmental lending approach,'' which allows credit analysts to override computerized lending decisions and make loans to illegal immigrants and others with little or no credit history. MBNA had always been one of the credit card industry's leading innovators ever since its founder, Charles M. Cawley, came up with the affinity marketing concept that ignited its growth. But success led to excess, and in recent years its expenses soared as its growth limped along with the rest of the industry.

Mr. Hammonds, who took the helm of MBNA in late 2003, recognized the need to pare down.

He got rid of a number of the company's paintings, jets and boats and halted a major corporate expansion. The corporate golf course was sold back to the state of Delaware. More than 1,000 employees took buyouts or started hunting for new jobs.

Instead of shocking the system, the Bank of America deal accelerated that effort. It consolidated about 26 big data centers and call centers to 17 and shed more than 6,000 positions nationwide from both companies.

Bank of America quickly dispensed with most of MBNA's remaining cars, a helicopter and all but one of the corporate jets. Many of the paintings that were not sold are now displayed in the old MBNA headquarters in Wilmington, where the combined credit-card division is now based. The in-house barbershop and nail salon are now offices.

More challenging, however, were many of the decisions that affected daily operations, like what to do about the huge technology system.

MBNA had long relied on a proprietary computer system to generate monthly statements and keep track of customer accounts. That gave MBNA greater flexibility to quickly make changes to their card offerings. And because it was designed and maintained by company programmers, the system was also a source of jobs and institutional pride.

Bank of America, in contrast, outsourced their operating platform to Total System Services, which offered more features at a lower cost.

Executives studied the costs and benefits of each system for nearly four months before making their decision: Bank of America would upgrade MBNA's technology, but keep the system in-house.

''It was a really big deal to the people at MBNA when they decided to keep the MBNA platform,'' said Brent Samuels, a former MBNA executive who now works for First Annapolis Consulting, a payment industry firm. That decision, he added, sent a message that ''they have a stake in the card operations,'' and helped improve morale.

On the surface, executives at both companies say that the cultural fit is even better than they expected. It even led two Bank of America managers to croon about how they came together. They penned new lyrics to the U2 anthem ''One,'' ironically a song about the sometimes caustic nature of relationships.

But deeper down, subtle differences remain. At Bank of America meetings, junior employees are invited to participate in discussions. At MBNA meetings, the boss's views were rarely challenged.

''I had to tell people that it was O.K. to question Bruce,'' said Henry Fulton III, once head of Bank of America's credit card business, referring to Mr. Hammonds, the former MBNA chief who is now his boss. ''That took some adjustment.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: BANKING & FINANCE (90%); CORPORATE CULTURE (90%); PAYMENT CARDS & SERVICES (89%); MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS (89%); CREDIT CARDS (89%); COMMERCIAL BANKING (89%); TAKEOVERS (78%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); CASE STUDIES (71%); WAGES & SALARIES (69%); DIVESTITURES (66%); MOTOR VEHICLES (54%); PAINTING (73%) Banks and Banking; Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures; Company and Organization Profiles; Credit and Money Cards; Banks and Banking
COMPANY: BANK OF AMERICA CORP (94%); CITIGROUP INC (58%)
ORGANIZATION: Mbna Corp; Bank of America
TICKER: BAC (NYSE) (94%); BAC (LSE) (94%); 8648 (TSE) (94%); CGP (LSE) (56%); C (NYSE) (58%); 8710 (TSE) (58%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS522110 COMMERCIAL BANKING (94%); NAICS551111 OFFICES OF BANK HOLDING COMPANIES (94%); SIC6712 OFFICES OF BANK HOLDING COMPANIES (94%); NAICS523120 SECURITIES BROKERAGE (58%); NAICS522210 CREDIT CARD ISSUING (58%); SIC6021 NATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANKS (58%)
PERSON: KENNETH D LEWIS (82%); MICHAEL MCMAHON (53%) Kenneth D Lewis; Eric Dash
GEOGRAPHIC: CHARLOTTE, NC, USA (79%) NORTH CAROLINA, USA (79%); DELAWARE, USA (72%) UNITED STATES (79%)
LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2007
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: Photo (Illustration by The New York Times)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

1109 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 19, 2007 Monday

Late Edition - Final

Help for Boomers Heading Toward Bust
BYLINE: By JANETMASLIN
SECTION: Section E; Column 1; The Arts/Cultural Desk; BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Pg. 11
LENGTH: 1002 words
Leap!What Will We Do With the Rest of Our Lives?By Sara Davidson 317 pages. Random House. $25.95.

Oh how they laugh, the geriatric Woodstock types interviewed by Sara Davidson in ''Leap!'' Ms. Davidson is asking them about the loss of status, confidence, stability, family, sexuality and future prospects. This is serious business, bordering on grim. No matter: stamped into commercial shape by Ms. Davidson, it elicits enough warm, huggy sentiment to fill a Hallmark store.

So celebrities laugh about their fading careers. A plastic surgeon laughs about shaving in the shower because he can't bear to look at his aging face in the bathroom mirror. The most popular dentist in Boulder, Colo., laughs about wanting to get away from his patients. (Funny line: ''Leave me the hell alone!'' ) Even in Macedonia, among volunteers delivering supplies to refugees, Ms. Davidson's book finds a relief worker who is a laughing Muslim.

What's so funny? Nothing, except for Ms. Davidson's lazy use of shared-laughter shtick as the obligatory ending for any rueful conversation. Years of writing for television and magazines (she is a contributing editor for ''O: The Oprah Magazine'') have sapped the spontaneity from her writing and perhaps hardened her professional identity.

When Ms. Davidson wrote ''Loose Change'' in 1977, she took on the voice-of-a-generation mantle. Years passed. Her generation didn't do anything interesting. But now it's in a pickle, and it needs a voice again.

Ms. Davidson establishes ''Leap!'' as an exploration of one overarching question: What will workaholic baby boomers do after they are forced to switch gears but before they reach the cement-free, no-pesticide funeral parks now being created by young entrepreneurs? Then she travels and dabbles, framing big issues with song titles (''My Sweet Lord,'' ''Get a Job,'' ''Sea of Love,'' etc.) and coming up with a string of anecdotal answers.

Finally she packages ''Leap!'' as a Diane Keaton movie waiting to happen. She tells a story in which a plucky 60-ish heroine flutters adorably through places where she doesn't quite fit in.

''What stops me is the dogma, which they take literally,'' Ms. Davidson writes, by way of explaining why she isn't 100 percent comfortable after spending a week ''in a place of beauty, with love at the core and the society of brilliant women who're also witty and passionate.'' This is a Connecticut abbey full of boomer-age Benedictine nuns, so dogma really shouldn't surprise her. Sounding savvier, Ms. Davidson does, in another chapter, touch base with a fellow journalist from the '60s, Sally Kempton, who spent decades in an ashram, then renounced her vows at 59 to discover Urban Outfitters and get a spray-on tan.

All of ''Leap!'' is staged on a hill of privilege, high above the success line. Failures, drug burnouts and those with major health problems are not part of this equation unless they have names worth dropping. Lemons become lemonade. ''I feel juicy,'' says Ray Manzarek, who still plays keyboards even though his heyday with the Doors began more than 40 years ago.

Ms. Davidson herself complains of feeling over-the-hill but then moves to Boulder, seeking a teaching job. The response: ''Oh, my God. Are you that Sara Davidson?'' Followed by: ''I teach you in my classes. I feel like William Faulker just dropped into my office and I didn't recognize him.''

Here are some differences between Faulkner and Ms. Davidson: He would probably not have attended tantric sex workshops for research purposes. (''Then Zack and I found ourselves in a green and secret glade, shot through with a sense of the wonder and love in all things.'') And he probably didn't know anyone who (like Ms. Davidson's various interviewees) contemplated learning the sacred hula or spending time with a chamber music group or finding a house on a cliff in Big Sur and then reading for a year. Nor would he have known anyone moving to enlightened retirement communities with street names like Easy Rider Lane. Faulkner could not have explored a part of Costa Rica where post-hippies now own condos and sushi can be found.

One of the names most successfully dropped in ''Leap!'' is that of ''Andy Weil.'' That's Dr. Andrew Weil to you. Dr. Weil is the reigning expert in the booming genre of ''Now what?'' books for boomers and, as a friend of Ms. Davidson's, he occasionally figures in her story. His message about aging is better delivered than Ms. Davidson's, but it's essentially the same: Don't fight it. Get used to it. Accept and embrace it. Take care of your health and sanity while making the best of new opportunities. To the extent that she communicates these thoughts in more entertaining, less medical form, Ms. Davidson really is conveying valuable information.

As a full spectrum of books on this subject emerges, and it will, Ms. Davidson's will be at the fluffy end. Her narcissism is too prominent, her compromises too apparent (she has a chronic weakness for puffery), her myopia too limiting (she spends a couple of weeks helping at an orphanage in India, then describes the ceremony in which the orphans thank their visitors) for her book to have real heft. Whenever she has a spiritual experience that reflexively ends with bliss rolling in, credibility rolls out.

And yet she's onto something. This subject has staying power, and it hasn't yet gotten the attention it warrants. There is something profoundly moving -- and comical -- about what happens as the values and experiences of the 1960s face the test of time, and Ms. Davidson fares best when she describes it without manipulation.

When a group of like-minded boomers start planning a shared community, the outcome is perfectly believable: They can't agree about anything but can't resist the urge to make rules. Ms. Davidson's reaction is simple, funny and real. She sees why the situation is hopeless. And she is suddenly reminded of why she never joined Students for a Democratic Society in her easier-riding days.

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