Corporation

Consultants, self-help gurus and moms agree: Mistakes are how we learn. Small-business owners tell us their biggest error. Here is this week's: Business owner: Sarah Shaw Companies: Sarah Shaw Handbags, Entreprenette What I Did: Gave away my own name Background: I'm a consultant, and I teach women how to market tangible products. The Mistake: I had a handbag company, and about two years in I brought in investors. I had never trademarked my name, Sarah Shaw, so they had the attorney file the trademark for Sarah Shaw Handbags.

WASHINGTON - Apple Inc., one of the most successful and valuable companies on the planet, will be tested Tuesday when Chief Executive Tim Cook testifies about the company's controversial tax practices before a hostile Senate subcommittee. Should the company, as Apple and Cook argue, be applauded for creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and paying $6 billion in federal taxes last year, among the most of any U.S. corporation? Or should Apple be reviled for stashing a hoard of cash overseas so it could legally skirt an additional $15 billion in taxes over four years, making it potentially one of the country's biggest tax avoiders?

When Mitt Romney vowed to cut government funding for the Public Broadcasting Service during Wednesday night's presidential debate, network chief Paula Kerger says she “just about fell off the sofa” out of shock. Romney's remarks - and in particular his decision to single out the beloved Big Bird -- sparked an immediate uproar on social media . And on Thursday, PBS issued an unusually strongly worded statement in response to the attack. “Governor Romney does not understand the value the American people place on public broadcasting and the outstanding return on investment the system delivers to our nation,” it read.

Re "Tech firms begin to see 'delight' in a new light," Column One, May 10 I spent many years consulting to the corporate world, teaching where commas go and how to use semicolons. However, the majority of my work consisted of getting participants to recognize jargon and find straightforward and clear alternatives to that obfuscating form of English. I actually laughed out loud about 15 years ago when, for the first time, I saw the phrase "customer delight" in a corporate document.

James V. Barone, the San Diego regional manager of Marcus and Millichap, has been appointed a vice president of the corporation.

Picture this. Davis is controller of a large corporation. Business is lousy. The corporation is operating in the red. Controller Davis goes to the president of the corporation and says, "Business is bad, hence I propose creating a new department to tell existing departments how to operate. This should save us a lot of money." Is he serious? In any of the major corporations that I have worked for, such a proposal would have brought forth gales of laughter. Please send this man a definition of the responsibilities of a controller.

The Neighborhood Resource and Development Corp. has been selected to handle the Pico Neighborhood Housing Rehabilitation Program. The nonprofit corporation helps maintain housing for low- to moderate-income people. Under the rehabilitation program, the corporation will provide grants to qualified residents interested in upgrading their property. The program is funded through Community Development Block Grant Funds from the city. Moe information is available at (213) 828-5504.

Howard Rosenberg, wake up to Econ 101! What corporation ignores the needs of its customers? By labeling Burger King "a groveler and a coward" is Rosenberg trying to deny it the freedom to respond to its customers? Am I not entitled to a concerned reaction when I vote with my dollars? Since when is a corporation "gutless" just because it doesn't happen to share Rosenberg's "principles"? The columnist has a double standard--maybe in his mind Christians aren't entitled to the same voice he urges for minorities, gays and women.

I can't understand why Keating's five senators keep insisting they are honest. Of course they are; our system allows them to be bribed by anyone with a special interest. Let us just focus on incompetence--what corporation would not fire any executive who cost it $2 billion? DONALD SPONZA Los Angeles

Two prominent defenders of Proposition 13 spoke out on Tuesday against "gimmicks" used by some companies to avoid paying additional property taxes when buying real estate in California. Responding to a Los Angeles Times story that ran Sunday, the presidents of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and the Small Business Action Committee said they would be open to narrow legislation to fix the law, which appears to allow such deals. The statements mark a shift for two organizations that have long led the fight against changes to Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot initiative that transformed property taxes in California and sparked a nationwide tax revolt.

In 2006, billionaire computer magnate Michael Dell, one of the world's richest men, agreed to pay $200 million for the Fairmont Miramar Hotel, a beachfront landmark in Santa Monica that long has been a retreat for Hollywood starlets and U.S. presidents. A few months later, Dell tore up the contract. He still wanted the hotel. But his attorneys had found a simple way to reshuffle the deal to avoid a legal change in ownership. The maneuver saved about $1 million a year in property taxes -- an option available only to businesses, not homeowners, under the arcane rules governing Proposition 13. The Miramar deal illustrates how businesses can easily -- and legally -- avoid property tax hikes under the California ballot initiative passed in 1978.

Federal agents searched the homes of Moreno Valley's mayor and City Council members and the offices of a major warehouse developer Tuesday as part of a broad public corruption investigation in a Riverside County town already singed by scandal. Agents with the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and local prosecutors served search warrants at the homes of Mayor Tom Owings and the four other council members and at the corporate offices of Highland Fairview, the company that has proposed a 41-million-square-foot warehouse center on the city's eastside.

WASHINGTON - President Obama's second inaugural committee raised a little more than $43 million to put on the official festivities surrounding his January swearing-in, backed by major donations from some of the country's biggest corporations, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission. The total brought in by the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee was $10 million less than the amount raised in 2009 for Obama's first inauguration, a reflection of the scaled-down nature of this year's event.

California Democrats on Sunday condemned efforts led by members of their own party to overhaul the nation's schools, arguing that groups such as StudentsFirst and Democrats for Education Reform are fronts for Republicans and corporate interests. Before delegates overwhelmingly passed a resolution excoriating the groups on the final day of the party's annual convention here, speakers urged them to focus on protecting students and teachers. "People can call themselves Democrats for Education Reform -- it's a free country -- but if your agenda is to shut teachers and school employees out of the political process and not lift a finger to prevent cuts in education, in my book you're not a reformer, you're not helping education, and you're sure not much of a Democrat," said state Supt.

They hail from New York, the Silicon Valley, Arkansas, Los Angeles and elsewhere. They are a rich and diverse lot, including Republicans, liberals, Hollywood notables and international corporate executives. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, L.A. philanthropist Eli Broad, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, pomegranate juice titan Lynda Resnick, anti-Obama mega-donor A. Jerrold Perenchio and the widow of Steve Jobs. Together, they smashed records for spending by outside groups in last month's L.A. Board of Education elections.

The next time you hear a politician say we're going to lose so and so country to the Commies, do what I do. Send them the front page of The Times Business section. Hell, everyday we lose an American corporation to some foreign country! DONALD EFFENSPERGER Redondo Beach

What a bunch of crocodile tears! In "Nike Can't Just Say It, Court Rules" (May 3), about Nike being prohibited by the California Supreme Court from making misleading statements, a Los Angeles corporate lawyer is quoted as saying, "This case has the potential to place a chill on the rights of an employer to defend itself in the court of public opinion." Except, of course, if the business is telling the truth. In this case, Nike was caught lying about its onerous overseas labor practices; but if a corporation is telling the truth, why should it worry about lawsuits?

In the beginning, it was about losing a few pounds. Hans Svanoe, 64, would leave his house in Encino at 5:30 a.m. and walk for an hour before driving over the hill to Century City, where he works as a butler. A what? "A corporate executive butler," said Svanoe, who caters to the domestic needs of media mogul Haim Saban and his business partner, Adam Chesnoff, when they're at the office. Before that, the Norwegian-born Svanoe was a domestic for Milton Berle, who once responded to a Svanoe quip by saying: "I'll tell the jokes around here.

WASHINGTON - President Obama, who has seen court nominees run into Republican roadblocks, may have found a winning strategy for putting a judge on the powerful U.S. appeals court here: He chose a highly regarded corporate lawyer whose resume suggests he could have been a Republican nominee. Sri Srinivasan, 46, was a law clerk for two Republican-appointed judges after graduating from Stanford University, and he worked in the George W. Bush Justice Department for five years before joining the Obama team as deputy U.S. solicitor general.