Taking what he called a major step for Americans' health, President Barack Obama signed into law this week landmark legislation giving the federal government the authority to regulate tobacco products.

The deepest slump for six decades is drawing to a close as emergency policy measures and recovering financial markets boost growth prospects, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said this week. In its quarterly health check, the Paris-based thinktank said better-than-expected performance by the United States and the bigger developing countries had allowed it to revise up its forecasts for the first time in two years. But the OECD had less good news for the UK, revising down its growth estimate this year to -4.3%, the biggest one-year fall in output since 1945.

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Here's a thought: Maybe Wall Street's base pay is too low. As "bonus" increasingly becomes a dirty word on Wall Street, masters of the financial universe are once again paying the old fashioned way: with salaries. Citigroup is the latest to indicate it will raise base pay for investment bankers and traders by as much as 50% and for other employees by a lesser percentage.

With the job picture on Wall Street looking grim, Investment Dealers' Digest highlights a different kind of employer looking for financial talent. It's the Central Intelligence Agency, which the publication says is increasingly reaching out to Wall Streeters with backgrounds in economics and finance to help assess overseas economies and track down money used to finance terrorist activities.

Fred Wright and Tyrone Gatson live about 55 miles apart and worked as technicians for poultry producer Pilgrim's Pride Corp. until they were laid off last month. But Mr. Wright, who lives and worked in Arkansas, is eligible for nearly twice as much in unemployment benefits as Mr. Gatson, who lives in Louisiana and worked at a different Pilgrim's Pride plant in that state, just over the border from Mr. Wright. Under Arkansas's more generous system, Mr. Wright can get $431 in weekly benefits, compared to Mr. Gatson's $284. He is also eligible to receive benefits for three more months than Mr. Gatson.

Hard work and technical ability might once have been enough to ensure promotion to the boardroom or the partnership table. Today interpersonal skills, a flair for selling ideas and a capacity for developing people are all just as important. But even combining all those talents as good management is no longer sufficient. The top positions in business are occupied by leaders now, not managers.

Though some iPhone fans may argue that no other cell phone on the planet can touch Apple's device, that's hardly the truth. Indeed, there are a few cell phones that offer glossy touch screens, flashy multimedia features, full HTML browsers, and access to third-party applications. They won't provide exactly the same experience, but that's really the whole point. In some areas they won't quite match the iPhone's capabilities, but in other areas they go the distance. So, if you can't, or won't, switch to AT&T, check out these iPhone alternatives from the other major carriers.

Two cable powerhouses announced an ambitious pilot program Wednesday that aims to convince their customers that, actually, TV on the web should not be free.

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Courtney Nicholas knows a thing or two about emergencies. FRSTeam, her $30 million fabric restoration franchise, helps homeowners and businesses clean up after fires, floods and other disasters. So when Nicholas saw an economic disaster in the making, it caused a few alarms to go off.

On June 15, banks began taking applications for the America's Recovery Capital loan program. The ARC loan is a $35,000, interest-free, deferred-payment loan, fully guaranteed by the Small Business Administration and available to established, viable, for-profit small businesses suffering "immediate financial hardship."

The IT job market in the U.S. took another hit in May, shedding 34,800 jobs (a 0.9% drop) and posting the sixth straight monthly decline, according to the latest data from TechServe Alliance.

A brokerage firm and a Hollywood investment adviser that were key middlemen for Wall Street thief Bernard Madoff were hit with civil fraud charges Monday, accused of steering new clients into the swindler's lair as he sought to keep his massive Ponzi scheme running.

These days, companies in every industry – especially manufacturing – are struggling with finances as the economic downturn puts a stranglehold on lending capital. According to Jim D'Addario, SAP's director of solution marketing, ERP Financials, there are three problems in particular. "First, credit markets are locked up," he says. "Banks are not lending to each other, so banks are not lending to end users, such as manufacturers." As a result, manufacturers have little financing available.

If this recession has taught us anything, it's that debt can kill. Consumers seem to have figured this out. They are starting to cut their debt loads and save more. But there's also a lesson here for investors and Corporate America. Firms that are heavily in hock should be avoided. In fact, shares of companies with higher-than-average debt levels have underperformed their less-levered peers by a wide margin.

The central idea behind the Obama administration's effort to protect the personal finances of Americans boils down to this: put laziness to work. Tell people to set aside part of their paychecks every month and they'll usually ignore the advice. But start the saving process for them – automatically siphoning off a raise from a paycheck into a bank account – and perhaps that will help them avoid the financial trauma that has affected millions of Americans in this recession.

Since the financial crisis began, Suze Orman – the queen of personal finance – has been criticized for everything from her conservative investment choices to not having predicted the recession. The author of nine personal finance books, including The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke, has changed some of her advice, most notably that consumers should pay only the minimum amount required on their credit cards until they set up an eight-month emergency fund.

From November 2008 to last January, Paige Arnof-Fenn did not close a single deal at her strategic marketing firm in Cambridge, Mass. Nevertheless, she did not lay off any of her 45 contractors or institute a furlough policy.

The NSN conference, August 19-22 in Atlanta, Ga., is designed to assist sales professionals across all industries in developing the skills required to ensure that they are competitive in the fast paced ever-changing sales environment. Advance registration is required, so register today!

E-mail logs can provide advance warning of an organization reaching crisis point. That's the tantalizing suggestion to emerge from the pattern of messages exchanged by Enron employees.

It's all very well to say, as do other participants in this debate, that companies must tie equity compensation to long-term shareholder value. The devil is in the details. A good plan should address effectively two problems: executives' tendency to quickly liquidate large amounts of their equity compensation, and their ability to "game" the timing of equity awards and the cashing out of such awards.

The Supreme Court recently side-stepped its first chance to apply a pay discrimination law that Congress approved in reaction to a previous ruling. The decision shows how unpredictable the panel can be on employment law and why it is difficult to project how Sonia Sotomayor may change the court's approach if she is confirmed.

A mere glance around Barack Obama's Cabinet table provides ample evidence of the president's philosophy that diversity is an important element of good government. Fewer than half of the 22 officials designated by Obama as having Cabinet rank are white men – only nine in fact.

It's hard to miss Microsoft's myriad ad campaigns on television and the Web right now. Between the "Laptop Hunters" dissing Macs and the Bing decision engine ads popping up on primetime TV, to smaller Web campaigns plugging Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft is spreading the word more aggressively than ever. And consumers can expect even more TV ads as Windows 7 inches closer to launch in October.

Lunch with Warren Buffett is up for sale on eBay again. The Oracle of Omaha will break bread in New York with the winning bidder and seven pals, with proceeds going to the Glide Foundation, a San Francisco charity. But you don't need an expensive New York lunch with Mr. Buffett to invest alongside him these days. Despite this spring's stock market rally, several of Mr. Buffett's favorite stocks are selling for less than he paid for them.

The number of Americans traveling 50 miles or more over the July 4 holiday weekend will drop 1.9% from a year ago to a three-year low of 37.1 million travelers because of the weak economy, the AAA auto club and leisure travel organization said Wednesday.

As the American population continues to brown, an increasing number of organizations are making calculated strides in an effort to ensure that the diversity of their membership mirrors the diversity of the nation. One such organization is AARP, the premier advocacy group for older Americans.

The image of Japan as being inhospitable to imports is old, enduring, and not entirely unjustified. The government is offering immigrants from South America – many themselves descendants of Japanese emigrants – $3,000 to return home (the better to free up jobs for native-born Japanese).