The Mysterious Big Apple iPhone Lockdown

Today’s Wall Street Journal offers an in-depth look at hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, who's been charged with some serious insider trading. The front-page piece traces Rajaratnam’s rise and fall and includes a few juicy details (handwritten notes, nicknames, etc.) that paint him as a people-person who has been evading suspicions of shady business dealings for years. The paper says that its own reporting “gives the clearest picture yet of how, for two decades, he persuaded executives at some of America's most prominent companies to risk their careers by passing corporate secrets.”

BusinessWeek tries to figure out the now-resolved but still really weird freeze on iPhone sales in New York. A common theory floating around is that AT&T (ATT) is worried that its network can’t support a growing number of data-intense smartphones concentrated in major cities. The article says, “AT&T offered little explanation for the halt in sales, and Apple (AAPL) kept mum on the subject. ‘We periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels,’ AT&T spokesman Fletcher Cook said in a message sent via e-mail. Some analysts speculated that the change, however short-lived, was further confirmation that AT&T's equipment is too flimsy to handle the heavy data use typically associated with the iPhone.”

Big television networks are pressuring cable operators to pay up for the content they’re providing. The New York Times reports, “The News Corporation (NWS) is threatening to remove its Fox stations from Time Warner Cable systems at the end of this week if the cable company does not agree to pay sizable subscriber fees, the same way it does for cable channels. In negotiations, the News Corporation is pushing for about $1 a month for each subscriber, potentially setting a precedent for broadcasters that are seeking a new revenue stream to offset advertising declines.”

The Federal Reserve may have found a way to get rid of the extra cash it doesn’t want sitting in its reserves. The AP via the WSJ explains, “The Federal Reserve on Monday proposed selling interest-bearing term deposits to banks, a move the U.S. central bank would make when it decides to drain some of the liquidity it pumped into the economy during the financial crisis. The new facility is intended to help ensure that the Fed can implement an exit strategy before a banking system awash with Fed money triggers inflation.”

AIG’s (AIG) general counsel is on the way out the door with millions in her pocket. The Wall Street Journal reports that the lawyer—who had threatened to resign if her pay was cut—has successfully convinced the firm that she should get her full severance payment. The paper says, “American International Group Inc. is preparing to pay its outgoing general counsel Anastasia Kelly several million dollars in severance after she resigned over federal pay curbs, according to people familiar with the matter. AIG determined that its top in-house lawyer was entitled to the money under the company's severance plan, whose terms say certain executives can resign and collect severance if their pay is reduced significantly, the people said.” While on the topic of compensation, the Journal also reports that Morgan Stanley is introducing a more conservative pay plan for top executives.

Finally, Washington Post reports that on Christmas Day, for the first time in Amazon’s (AMZN) history, its sales of e-books surpasses sales of physical books. In a recent press release, the online retailer’s chief executive Jeff Bezos called the Kindle the "most-gifted item ever in our history." The Kindle isn’t only boosting the bottom line at Amazon though. The e-reader and its competitors are putting pressure on one tiny Taiwan company that has so far dominated the market for e-reader screens. The Wall Street Journal says, “With e-reader sales booming, other companies, many of them far bigger than Prime View, want a piece of the action. Rivals in Taiwan, Japan and the U.S. are racing to roll out new technologies and features like color screens—on the top of users' wish lists, and key to newspapers and magazines making the transition to e-readers.”