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On deck for homer champ: real retirement

By TIMES WIRES
Published January 23, 2007

Hank Aaron, 72, businessman, is rounding third and heading home. The former Braves slugger and career home run leader, took a long stride last week toward retirement from post-baseball business by unloading all but one of his metro Atlanta auto dealerships. His fast-food restaurant syndicate, with 17 stores, soon will expand, but its strings are pulled by relatives, chiefly Aaron's son-in-law. For seven years, Aaron has sold cars at as many as seven locations. It's a pursuit he has embraced as he once did a fastball across the middle of the plate. "When I started, I gave myself three years, then go do something else," he said. "It's such an intriguing business, it gets into your blood. I never thought anything would replace baseball."

Big apple's finance throne in jeopardy

New York City is losing its competitive edge and could give up its place as the financial capital of the world in as little as 10 years, a study commissioned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer has found. According to the study, New York and other U.S. cities are falling behind in financial services while cities including London, Dubai, Hong Kong and Tokyo are surging ahead. It concludes that the U.S. is losing its advantage because of three main factors:

- The American regulatory framework, particularly Sarbanes-Oxley.

- While New York offers a promising talent pool for its financial services work force, "we are at risk of falling behind in attracting qualified American and foreign workers."

- The legal environments in other nations "far more effectively discourage frivolous litigation."

Bank tuned in to economy of iPod

An Australian investment bank has developed a new indicator for tracking international currency values: Apple's iPod. Commonwealth Securities Ltd. last week announced the creation of its iPod Index to assess the value of global currencies by comparing the cost of a 2-gigabyte iPod Nano music player in U.S. dollars across different countries. The theory goes like this: If the price in U.S. dollar terms of an iPod Nano is more expensive in Australia than it is in the United States - and it is - then the Australian currency may be overvalued. In the United States, an iPod Nano retails for $149.00. But in Brazil, which topped the index, a 2-gigabyte Nano costs the equivalent of $327.71. Canada is the cheapest place to pick up an iPod at $144.20. In Australia, an iPod is valued at $172.36, which has led the bank to suggest that the currency is overvalued.

[Last modified January 23, 2007, 00:10:42]