Showing posts with label WSJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WSJ. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Debunking the "regulations burden business" argument

In a discussion of the provocative Wall Street Journal headline “Study: Strict Derivatives Regulation Could Cost 130,000 Jobs” John Parsons and Antonio Mello point out, "It’s always possible to ignore the system-wide purpose of a regulation and claim it is costly due to the burden it imposes..."

Not everybody cares about the Dodd-Frank reform of financial derivatives markets, but we've seen what happens without regulation(s): the markets crashed, foreclosures destroyed home values, and millions of our friends and neighbors are unemployed.

It's costly to control immigration, to restrict alcohol sales, enforce speed limits, verify the safety & efficacy of drugs, and register voters, but we choose to do all these things because we know we can't simply trust everybody to do the right thing.

Why should you care? How much is at stake in this smoke and mirrors game of derivatives trading? $600 trillion. Compare that to the debt-ceiling, or the budget for the entire U.S. Government. $600 trillion is in play. That's why the players, and the Chamber of Commerce, are lobbying so hard to be left alone, and trying to scare us with more jobs lost.
"...there is 'no upside' to imposing margin requirements on end users, said David Hirschmann, who heads the U.S. Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness."
Victoria McGrane
Wall Street Journal February 13, 2011
Recovering our standing as the world leader in agriculture and industry, and creating the millions of jobs our country needs, won't be enough to keep Wall Street greed from ruining our economy. Can the financial markets "create prosperity" beyond Wall Street? It's hard to prove, lately; it's hard to see any upside in leaving those with the most to gain in charge of regulating themselves when they've already abused the system, or trust the tired old assertions about "burdens on business" so quickly, thoroughly debunked by simple logic.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, former Congressional Campaign Manager, strategist, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.
You can follow him as @kabiu on twitter.


Saturday, June 20, 2009

WSJ: WSJ's Kara Swisher attacks Zennie on Twitter



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So a few days ago I wrote a blog post with a vlog about the Iran Elections or given what's going on over there the "Iran Revolution" and in preparing for it ran across an article who's take on Twitter, the main event in the Iran uprising, I disagreed with. It was written by Kara Swisher, the semi-well-known Wall Street Journal vlogger who covers "All Things D" or "Digital" as her blog site's called.



I wrote:

The amount of information communicated through Twitter has been of staggering proportions. While Kara Swisher may write that it's "inane and half-baked", the fact that Iranians can use their cell phones to tweet information and share photos has done more than the mainstream media in telling the World what's happening.

Well that sent her into a tizzy. She got on Twitter and publicly blasted me, writing things like:

karaswisher@zennie62 "inane and half-baked" were NOT my words and you said they were. I said it was simple which is different. Are you all-baked?

At first, I looked at her words with empathy and offered to make a correction, even though I totally disagree with her take. As a response, she wrote:

karaswisher@zennie62 it is not a favor to me for you to make an alteration. You attributed a quote to me I did not say. You made an error, so fix it.

After that, I reconsidered. After all it's my view, my opinion, and it's not against her at all. I like Kara's work and her -- not met her yet. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything she writes. In this case, no the words were not Kara's but she used them as a device to make a point and it's the use of the term I take issue with, as she didn't back away from it in her blog post.

And her title did use the words Inane and Half-baked. Maybe she'll go back and change it (please don't), but that's what was there.

So Kara, it wasn't personal. Ok? Twitter is a complex system to me. The rules of engagement on how to gain followers, following the right people, improving one's reach; that's a complex set of relationships in my view.

Twitter's not simple, and it's indeed revolutionary.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Who's killing the DJIA? Boskin needs a mirror before blaming Obama's budget.

Investors are skittish. Any news about GM, or AIG, or retail sales being weak, or below forecasts, etc., causes them to react. Michael Boskin wants you to hear that Obama's killing the DOW.

Knowledgeable traders with years of experience are killing the DJIA as they react to the aftershocks of the policies Michael Boskin wants to retain. The DOW is a symptom, it's a measure. He's gone so far as to submit his fear-mongering to the Wall Street Journal, the very same place all the practitioners of derivative voodoo look to when they want to read the tea leaves.

Investors react to fear-mongering by losing confidence - and selling off their stock, which fuels the fears that Boskin has already stoked. When Obama warned people that the other side would use fear to attain their goals, I wonder if he anticipated somebody willing to extend the economic crisis that is causing such suffering in the middle class?

Obama isn't killing the DOW by trying to reverse the momentum of the U.S. economy; we can't survive Boskin's idea, which is to sit by and hope it gets better. That's not how hope gets used, but it's apparently how Boskin uses the WSJ.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Wall Street Journal Doesn't Get Redistributing Wealth Which Is The Problem

The Wall Street Journal's opinion section is at times not the best place for intelligent pondering.  I know that's a terrible remark, but I write that for a reason: the lack of circular, systemic thinking.   The WSJ writes that having a non-refundable tax credit, which is something that can't be taken back -- it's a grant of sorts (I prefer an outright subsidy check) -- is bad thing.

Here's what the rest of us are thinking.

We just have AIG Insurance $120 billion (not million) to save it's corporate hide and several of its execs go out on a retreat at a luxury resort valued at over $400,000!   What's that?  It came from our government!

That opinion "work" is a piece of work, and shows why the rest of America is so angry with Wall Street.  The WSJ is not helping the political needs of the Street and should just back off on the rhetoric, at least untill we're way out of this mess.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Chevron Ecuador Scandal: Did Chevron Pollute Ecuador?



There's a massive scandal brewing regarding Chevron and Ecuador and involved a nasty oil spill that the government of Ecuador's blaming Chevron for, when it appears that their own state-run oil company (not that I have anything against something state-owned) seems to be at fault. The people leading this charge against Chevron are Ecuador's leftist leader, Rafael Correa, and Pablo Fajardo and Luis Yanza, one a lawyer, the other the leader of the Amazon Defense Front.

Here's the story:


Chevron: Ecuador Tests Flawed

REAL CULPRIT: Chevron says Ecuador's inefficient state oil company Petroecuador is to blame for any contamination in the Amazon.

Chevron denounces faulty "evidence" and "expert" bias in the $6 billion contamination case in Ecuador.
BY LATIN BUSINESS CHRONICLE STAFF

They want U.S. oil company Chevron (CVX) to pay for alleged damages in the Ecuador Amazon. But their tests are flawed and they have blocked eight attempts to inspect the laboratory they use for their tests. Welcome to the $6 billion case against Chevron in Ecuador, which the U.S. oil company says is increasingly becoming "a judicial farse".

More than 75 percent of the laboratory data presented by the group suing Chevron in Ecuador comes from the Havoc laboratory located in Quito. However, an independent test of soil and water samples by the laboratory shows results that are seriously flawed, Chevron says.

"This independent analysis verifies what we have suspected and what the plaintiffs are clearly trying to hide – the Havoc lab is incompetent and the reports they have prepared [on] behalf of the plaintiffs cannot be trusted," Ricardo Veiga Managing Counsel for Chevron Latin America, said in a statement last week.

Chevron has presented the results to the Superior Court of Nueva Loja. U.S.-based laboratory Wibby Environmental at Chevron’s request sent water and and soil samples spiked with specific, known amounts of hydrocarbons and metals to Havoc laboratories to determine if Havoc could get the correct results. "The Havoc laboratory’s analysis showed levels of barium, cadmium, copper & nickel that exceeded the concentrations in the samples they were sent," Chevron says in a statement. "Havoc’s analysis for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or “PAHs” (petroleum compounds) was incomplete. The lab's analysis of soil samples showed “unacceptable” results for barium, cadmium."

The source of the samples, and the sponsor of the analysis, was withheld from Havoc in order to ensure an unprejudiced result, the statement says.

HIDING SOMETHING?

Meanwhile, even local Ecuadorian authorities have been unable to inspect the Havoc laboratory. The eighth attempt by the 20th Civil Court of Pichincha since February 2006 was scheduled to occur three weeks ago, but was like the previous attempts - blocked by the attorneys for the group suing Chevron.

"Plaintiffs’ lawyers are afraid that if the truth were exposed about this lab, the Court and the world would see that their allegations against Chevron are made up of nothing but lies and fabrications," Veiga said. "We insist that the plaintiffs’ attorneys and the activist groups that have brought this baseless lawsuit be called to explain the deceit and the fraud they have perpetrated against the Court, their clients, and Ecuador."

The U.S. oil company calls the last-minute maneuvers to prevent a judge of the Civil Court of Pichincha from inspecting the laboratory "a shocking and deliberate attempt to obstruct justice."

The inspection was aimed at determining whether the Havoc lab was qualified and had the necessary equipment and technology to undertake the required analysis of water and soil samples from oil sites in the Oriente region. The Civil Court of Pichincha ordered the first inspection last year after Chevron had noted to the Superior Court of Lago Agrio that the laboratory was not properly accredited by the Ecuadorian Accreditation Organization (OAE) to perform the necessary analyses required in the environmental trial against Chevron.

CHRONICLE OF BLOCKED ATTEMPTS

On the first attempt - on February 17, 2006 - the Civil Judge of Pichincha, Dr. Germán González del Pozo, went to the Havoc laboratory himself on the day of the officially scheduled inspection only to find its doors locked and access to the laboratory's facilities denied. The same happened when he tried to inspect the lab the following month. Thereafter, the attorneys for the group suing Chevron presented him with motions to stop his next two attempted inspections in March and May.

In August last year, the judge requested both parties to appoint the experts for the next inspection. Havoc failed to appoint an expert, and, therefore, once again the judge was forced to cancel the inspection, Chevron points out. Then - in October - another inspection was scheduled, but a few days before, the lab's attorneys filed a recusal claim, which forced suspension of the inspection. The seventh attempt - scheduled for April 24 this year - was stopped when attorney's for Havoc and the group suing Chevron filed a legal motion to stop the court from carrying out the inspection.

Chevron is also denouncing that Richard Cabrera, the court-appointed engineer responsible for overseeing the ongoing expert determination in the suit - is using unsanctioned teams to conduct unsupervised and unapproved field research, in clear violation of court directives.

In a petition to the Superior Court of Nueva Loja, Chevron has detailed how Cabrera has deployed unidentified teams of researchers to search for evidence of environmental impacts outside the scope of his court-mandated obligations without first receiving the necessary judicial approvals. The teams began their work in advance of Cabrera even being appointed to and days before his official inspection began, Chevron says.

NULL AND VOID

The U.S. oil company has therefore asked the court to declare the evidence collected by the teams to be considered null and void. Chevron has previously denounced Cabrera's bias against the company (see Chevron: US Victory, Ecuador Doubts). However, its petitions urging the court to reconsider Cabrera's appointment have gone unanswered, as have its requests seeking that he be required to comply with court orders regarding how his work should be carried out.

Separately, several Ecuadorians have also sued Chevron in the United States alleging they got cancer as a result of Chevron-instigated contamination in the Oriente region of Ecuador's Amazon. Their case was thrown out last month by a U.S. federal court.

Last week an independent study released by Chevron showed that the consensus view of leading epidemiologists and tropical health experts is that there is no evidence to support the claim that the Oriente region is experiencing higher rates of cancer, or that cancer in the region is the result of exposure to oil field sites.

"There is no question that the people of the Oriente face a series of challenges regarding their personal and community health," Silvia Garrigo, a Chevron attorney, said in a statement. "However, these people are being deceived in the worst possible way by the lawyers and activists who have brought this lawsuit."

ECUADOR'S RESPONSIBILITY

The major health concerns in the Oriente region are not the result of oil operations, but the lack of water treatment infrastructure, the lack of sufficient sanitation infrastructure and inadequate access to medical care, Chevron says.

Texaco operated an oil field consortium with Petroecuador from 1964 to 1990, when the Ecuadorian company took over management of the oil field. Texaco continued with a minority stake in the consortium until 1992. In 1995, Texaco agreed with the Ecuadorian government to conduct a $40 million environmental remediation in the area of the former concession. Three years later, the government of Ecuador declared that the remediation was completed according to the terms and parameters agreed upon and released Texaco from any future liability.

In 1993 a group of Indians in the affected areas filed a lawsuit against Texaco in the United States, claiming the U.S. company had contaminated the area. That case was dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit in 2002, but another lawsuit was filed in Ecuador.

Chevron also says Petroecuador - widely considered one of the most inefficient state oil companies in Latin America - has to take the blame for any oil contamination. In the seven-year period from 2000 to 2006, Petroecuador was responsible for a total of 882 oil spills, Chevron points out.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

San Diego Fire - 1,750 Homes Destroyed or Damaged, 100 Businesses Effected



This is the forth day of the raging series of fires that have destroyed or damaged 1,750 homes, closed 100 businesses, and scorched 263,000 acres of land. All of this has resulted in over 500,000 people being displaced from their homes over this time.

I've heard reports of people coming down just to volunteer to help. If you're anywhere but there, it's hard to understand exactly what's going on or the enormity of it, untill you see something like this Google Map here.

The map shows that it's not one fire but many fires spread around a vast area. I count 20 in all, and raging in size from the 200,000 acre Witch Fire to the 160 acres Walker Fire. Whatever the case, the fires -- even the small ones -- are very large in size.

So large, they dwarf the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire. That disaster covered 1,520 acres; this one consists of several blazes, all save for three between 10 and 100 times larger than the Oakland Hills Fire.

It's a series of fires too large for standard fire fighting systems to tackle.

In a mess that really can be traced back to Proposition 13, San Diego County has no fire department, only "a hodgepodge of operations". LA Biz Observed explains this problem in more detail:

Expect a bunch of stories over the next few days about how San Diego was not prepared for this week's firestorms - despite the area having gone through the Cedar Fire disaster in 2003. Steve Erie, the prominent UC San Diego political science professor, tells the WSJ that "the only lessons applied were those that don't cost any money. ...In terms of new fire prevention or fighting capabilities, we have barely made any progress." One central problem, Erie says, is that unlike L.A. County, San Diego doesn't have a countywide fire department. That leaves what he calls a “hodgepodge” of operations.

And while the region tries to cope with a giant disaster without the tools needed to do so properly, Qualcomm Stadium fills with evacuees, seen as a "constant panorama of families in pain and kids trying to figure out why their worlds were grabbed from them.”

So are we.

More on this, but for now, let's watch this video made by Cory Williams, "Mr. Safety" on YouTube, who lives in the fire area:

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Rupert Murdoch Wins His Bid for Dow Jones-WSJ - Wall Street Journal Now His



WSJ staff should thank Murdoch for saving what was becoming a stale publication.

Murdoch Wins His Bid for Dow Jones
Bancroft Family Agrees
To $5 Billion Offer
After Deal on Fees

By SARAH ELLISON and MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG - WSJ

August 1, 2007 12:13 p.m.
A century of Bancroft-family ownership at Dow Jones & Co. is over.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. sealed a $5 billion agreement to purchase the publisher of The Wall Street Journal after three months of drama in the controlling family and public debate about journalistic values.

One of the oldest and best-known franchises in the newspaper industry, beset in recent years by business pressures, now enters a new era as part of a world-wide media conglomerate. The 76-year-old Mr. Murdoch, whose properties range from the Fox television network to the Times of London, negotiated hard to win the paper he long coveted. He has promised to invest more in Dow Jones journalism.

The Bancrofts worried about protecting the reputation of the Journal, the nation's second-largest newspaper. They feared Mr. Murdoch would meddle in the paper's editorial affairs and import the brand of sensationalist journalism found in some of his properties such as the New York Post. Some Bancrofts sought other buyers.

But ultimately, Mr. Murdoch's $60-a-share bid -- a 67% premium above Dow Jones's share price when it became public -- was the only serious offer on the table. Key family members, spurred by Dow Jones's board and advisers, decided they had no choice.

"On the one hand it is quite sad, but on the other it was the only reasonable thing to do," said Elisabeth Goth Chelberg, a Bancroft family member who unsuccessfully tried a decade ago to get the family more involved in management. "Now I look forward to a better Dow Jones. It's going to have more money and a world presence and all of the things that it could have and should have had but didn't."


Opponents of the deal called it a dark day for journalism. Leslie Hill, a family member who opposed the deal, resigned as a Dow Jones director late Tuesday afternoon. In a letter to the board, she conceded the deal was a good one in financial terms, but said it failed to outweigh "the loss of an independent global news organization with unmatched credibility and integrity."

In an increasingly pinched landscape for newspaper companies, the alternative to selling was a future fraught with risk -- in particular, that deep cost cuts would be needed to prop up the stock price and make up for dwindling advertising.

For every person who argued that the News Corp. takeover threatens Dow Jones's reputation for quality, someone else insisted that Mr. Murdoch's deep pockets and strategic know-how could turn around its prospects. Mr. Murdoch said Tuesday in an interview that he might add four pages of news a day to the Journal.

Family's Attention

"The money got [the family's] attention and enforced their consideration of reality," said Peter Kreisky, a media consultant. "It focused the minds of the family and the board on how difficult it would be to maintain the newspaper in the long term as an independent entity."

The company's offer received support from Bancroft family members holding about 37% of Dow Jones's voting power, more than half of the family's total voting stake of 64.2%. When added to the 29% of Dow Jones's voting stock held by public shareholders -- most of which is expected to go in News Corp.'s favor -- that support gives Mr. Murdoch enough to win a full shareholder vote comfortably. The vote is likely to be held later this year.

News Corp.'s board signed off on the deal at a brief late-afternoon meeting. After the approval, top executives and advisers broke out glasses for a toast. They were served an Australian Shiraz.

The Bancroft family has controlled Dow Jones since 1902. While Dow Jones accounts for less than half the family's fortune of roughly $2.5 billion, the company had long been the Bancrofts' source of pride and prestige. Dow Jones was also the main glue holding together the family, which today consists of nearly three dozen adult members scattered across the globe. Some deliberated on the offer from vacation destinations around the world, including China, Spain, the Austrian Alps and waters off the coast of Corsica.

Their bonds were tested during the debate over the deal. Cousins and siblings were pitted against one another. Parents fought their children.

In the days leading up to the deal, the stress was severe. Just hours before a Monday deadline for the family to vote on the transaction, William Cox Jr., the only living Bancroft who spent his entire career at the company, went into a diabetic shock. He was briefly admitted to a hospital in Massachusetts, where he summers on Nantucket, before returning home, according to relatives.


The final vote tally followed a last-minute scramble by Dow Jones's board and the family's advisers to win over holdouts. Most of the family's shares are held in a series of trusts. News Corp. had won support from shareholders owning only about 25% of voting power by Monday afternoon, shortly before a deadline for votes set by the family's adviser. That crept up to 28% by Monday evening and then topped 30% Tuesday morning, as a collection of small trusts threw their support behind the deal.

M. Peter McPherson, Dow Jones's nonexecutive chairman, personally called resistant family trustees in Boston and Denver to remind them of the risks they were taking in opposing the deal, according a person who was briefed on the calls.

The shareholder making a decisive swing was a group of Bancroft family trusts overseen by a Denver law firm holding 9.1% of Dow Jones's voting shares. The firm, Holme Roberts & Owen, had been holding out for a higher offer from News Corp. -- a request repeatedly rejected by Mr. Murdoch. The Denver trusts pushed other Bancroft family trusts to hold out for more money, at least for the holders of Class B supervoting shares. These shares, which have 10 times the voting power of Class A shares, are mostly held by the Bancrofts. But when some Boston-based trusts consented to a News Corp. deal late Monday, the Denver trustees lost much of their bargaining power.

Dow Jones's board had rejected the request for a higher price for Class B shareholders. Instead, what emerged from the talks was a deal under which Dow Jones agreed to pay the family's legal and banking bills. News Corp. will assume these liabilities when it buys Dow Jones. The family's fees, to be paid to firms including Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and the law firms Hemenway & Barnes and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, could total at least $30 million, according to people familiar with the situation. That figure doesn't include fees incurred by the Dow Jones board, which had its own advisers.


The payment serves as a modest sweetener for the Bancrofts. When spread out over the family's 16.5 million Class B shares, the $30 million equals an additional $1.81 a share, a roughly 3% increase for the family. Family members would otherwise have had to bear these fees out of their own pockets, effectively bringing their take below $60 a share.

James H. Ottaway, whose family controls 7% of Dow Jones's voting power, called the fees "outrageous." In a statement, the outspoken opponent of a News Corp. deal said: "It is ironic indeed for the Bancroft family to have to pay 30 shekels of silver to their investment bankers, and 30 shekels of gold to their corporate lawyers, for scaring some of them into betraying their 105-year family loyalty to Dow Jones independence." (See full statement.)

Division of the spoils among the advisers promises to create another fight. Merrill Lynch is expecting to receive an $18.5 million fee, according to a person familiar with its plans. Wachtell Lipton's hoped-for fee is expected to be somewhere near $10 million, said one family member, with a host of other fees for a group of lawyers and bankers advising various Bancroft branches.

Christopher Bancroft, one of the most outspoken family opponents of a deal, said that his fiduciary responsibilities required him to vote against any deal not in the best interests of the family and the company. He has called the offer a bad deal for Dow Jones, arguing it undervalues the company's potential. "As a trustee, I could not roll over," he said. Mr. Bancroft, a Dow Jones board member, didn't attend the board meeting to approve the deal.

In an effort to sweeten his victory, Mr. Murdoch telephoned Mr. Bancroft, according to people familiar with the matter. During the call, Mr. Bancroft agreed to abstain from voting on the family's biggest trust -- the so-called Article 3 trust with 13.2% voting power -- in return for written assurance that News Corp. would pay for all family expenses, including personal attorney fees for Mr. Bancroft and other family members. But Dow Jones's board later refused to endorse the proposal, and it appeared that trust rules wouldn't allow him to abstain.

Delicate Situation

Mr. Bancroft's cousin, Jane Cox MacElree, who also opposed the deal, faced a delicate situation because she was a trustee of some trusts whose beneficiaries favored the deal. Ms. MacElree ended up resigning from some trusts -- deferring to her relatives and shielding herself against potential liability -- while voting the Class B shares she owned against the deal.

Some on Wall Street were surprised that the family wasn't able to squeeze out a higher bid from Mr. Murdoch. By the rituals of Wall Street deal making, a buyer's first offer is almost never the final price agreed to in a transaction -- although Mr. Murdoch's first offer in this case represented an unusually generous premium.

Mr. Murdoch was able to hold his ground because he faced no serious rival -- although some of the nation's largest corporations and wealthiest men took a look over the past three months. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates were approached by a family representative to gauge their interest. Both declined to bid.

Several big companies tried to join together to meet the $60 bid, including General Electric Co., which at various points attempted to form a group with Microsoft, IAC/InterActiveCorp's Barry Diller, and Pearson PLC, owner of the Financial Times. Pearson weighed a separate plan, under which it would have contributed the Financial Times to Dow Jones in exchange for stock, according to a person familiar with the situation. But none of these arrangements got off the ground.

Nor did efforts by the union that represents some of Dow Jones's employees to join forces with a California supermarket magnate get much traction. Internet entrepreneur Brad Greenspan tried to put together investors, but fell short of making an offer for the whole company.


WSJ's Dennis Berman comments on whether the Journal's credibility can be maintained, and how the Bancroft family got caught up in the Wall Street deal machine.
Even some who had initially declared firm opposition to the bid softened over time. On the weekend of July 21-22, Bancroft family member Martha Robes hosted former Dow Jones chairman and CEO Peter R. Kann and his family at her house in Maine to celebrate Mr. Kann's retirement. At the gathering, Ms. Robes and her family gave Mr. Kann a handmade green wooden rowboat named "Joy" and a puzzle that depicts various aspects of his life, including a newspaper, a typewriter and a golf cart, according to people familiar with the matter. (Mr. Kann famously crashed a golf cart at a Dow Jones retreat years ago.)

At the gathering, these people say, Mr. Kann, who had been a long-time champion of Dow Jones's independence, told attendees that given the family's divisions, he could see the arguments for a deal with Mr. Murdoch. Some family members saw his comments as permission to vote for the deal, these people said.

Other family members exchanged impassioned views by email and phone about missed opportunities and the family's shortcomings. One supporter of a deal, Crawford Hill, told his relatives in a nearly 4,000-word email that it was time for "reality check."

In a statement early Wednesday, Dow Jones said it expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter, but didn't give a date for the shareholder vote. Mr. Murdoch's advisers suggest shareholder approval is a fait accompli. With family members contributing about 37% voting power to support the deal, News Corp. must still win over the remaining shareholders, who control 29% of Dow Jones's voting power.

News Corp. anticipates that about 80% of these shareholders will vote for the deal, meaning another 23% in support of the transaction -- or about 60% approval overall.

That leaves a slim opportunity for the remaining shareholders to threaten to withhold support with hopes of getting a higher price, as happened in recent takeover fights at Clear Channel Communications Inc. That could be why the company sought a greater margin of support from the family as the process entered its last days.

News Corp. will need to get regulatory approval for the deal, although Mr. Murdoch has said he doesn't expect that to be an issue. Assuming the deal is approved, closing could take place by the end of the year.

The deal raises questions about the future of some senior Dow Jones executives, including Chief Executive Richard Zannino. Once Dow Jones becomes a subsidiary of News Corp., Mr. Zannino may eventually move on.

Severance Packages

Some top executives may be eligible for big severance packages once the sale is completed. Dow Jones implemented change-in-control provisions for more than 100 top managers in early June, a month after the bid was made. Mr. Zannino stands to receive some $19 million if he loses his job or has his duties cut after a change in control.

Mr. Murdoch has argued that The Wall Street Journal will be able to take advantage of News Corp. synergies to gain ground in Europe and Asia, take on national rivals in political coverage.

While he has been vilified for years in the media over issues ranging from union-busting to sensationalist journalism, he has always showed a thick skin, secure in his belief that his critics are antibusiness elitists. Still, the drama preceding the sale of Dow Jones exposed him to unprecedented scrutiny and often harsh criticism.

Now Mr. Murdoch must persuade some factions of Dow Jones's newsrooms, and outside critics, that he will act responsibly as he weighs changes to the Journal and other Dow Jones publications.

In letter to readers, Journal Publisher L. Gordon Crovitz wrote, "The same standards of accuracy, fairness and authority will apply to this publication, regardless of ownership."

News Corp. agreed as part of the deal to invite one Bancroft family representative onto its board of directors and to create a committee to protect Dow Jones's journalistic independence. The committee members are slated to be Louis D. Boccardi, retired CEO of the Associated Press; Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab; Jack Fuller, former president of Tribune Publishing; Jennifer Blackburn Dunn, a former congresswoman from Washington state; and Thomas Bray, the former editorial-page editor of the Detroit News and a writer for OpinionJournal.com. Mr. Bray will be chairman.

--Dennis K. Berman, Susan Warren and Susan Pulliam contributed to this article.