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When Hewlett-Packard’s Chief Executive Mark Hurd resigned last month he received something few regular workers see when they quit their jobs under a cloud: A massive payout.

Turns out Hurd is far from the only top executive to be rewarded with a rich package despite a management performance that could be considered less than optimal — especially by rank-and-file workers.

Full Story at msnbc.com

NEW YORK — The stock market ended its worst August since 2001 with meager gains Tuesday after minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting showed officials’ increasing concern about the economy.

Stock indexes gave up most of their gains in mid-afternoon after the release of minutes from the Fed’s Aug. 10 meeting. Fed officials said during their discussions that they recognized that the economy might need further stimulus beyond the purchases of government debt the central bank announced that day. Some of the officials acknowledged that economy had softened more than they had anticipated.

Full Story at Yahoo.com

MINNEAPOLIS – The Justice Department said Friday that it has no more antitrust concerns about the deal that would combine United and Continental into the world’s largest airline.

To win that approval, the airlines had to open the door to Southwest Airlines at Continental’s hub in Newark, N.J., where it is the dominant carrier. The Justice Department said leasing takeoff and landing permission to Southwest in Newark cleared up its main competitive concern.

Shareholders at Continental Airlines Inc. and United parent UAL Corp. are set to vote on the deal on Sept. 17, and the Transportation Department has to approve it. The airlines now expect the deal to close by Oct. 1.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — If you needed any more proof that the economy is slowing down, look no further than how well McDonald’s stock is doing.

Shares of Mickey D’s are up 18% this year, putting the company neck and neck with DuPont (DD, Fortune 500) as the best-performing company in the Dow Jones industrial average. The stock is near a 52-week high, having gained nearly 6% just this month.

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McDonald’s (MCD, Fortune 500) is your classic consumer staples company that typically holds up better than sexier growth stocks during times of economic weakness.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — You could be contributing to a retirement plan without even knowing it.

That’s because an increasing number of companies are offering “opt-out” 401(k) plans that encourage more workers to save

The percentage of employers that offer automatic 401(k) enrollment has increased dramatically to 38%, according to financial services company Charles Schwab (SCHW, Fortune 500). That’s more than seven times the rate in 2005, when automatic enrollment was at 5%.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

FORTUNE — It was a humiliating moment. Congressman Edolphus Towns was upbraiding a top Johnson & Johnson executive. Certainly Towns (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has browbeaten his share of CEOs and Wall Street titans. But it’s not the sort of thing that usually happens to J&J. At this hearing in May, though, Towns laid into the health care giant. “The information I’ve seen during the course of our investigation raises questions about the integrity of the company,” he boomed. “It paints a picture of a company that is deceptive, dishonest, and has risked the health of many of our children.”

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The credit market may finally be starting to thaw out, according to a report from the Federal Reserve.

The Fed said Monday that banks relaxed their lending standards over the last quarter, with the most improvement at big banks.
While most banks said demand for business and consumer loans was unchanged, large banks — those with assets greater than $20 billion — eased their lending conditions.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — In an effort to help struggling gas stations and appease furious consumers following the Gulf disaster, BP is lowering its gasoline prices.

BP is offering a series of incentives to its distributors that could shave two cents off the price of gasoline at the pump.

Contrary to popular belief, BP does not set prices at the gas station.

Most BP stations are independent businesses, they’re not owned by the company. Much like a convenience store selling Coke, the gas stations buy their gas from distributors, which are also independent businesses.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner made a case Wednesday for letting tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans lapse as a step toward getting the nation’s fiscal house in order.

“Borrowing to finance tax cuts for the top 2% would be a $700 billion fiscal mistake,” Geithner said before the Center for American Progress in Washington, alongside deficit hawk Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum. “It’s not the prescription the economy needs right now, and the country can’t afford it.”

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Exxon Mobil Corp. reported quarterly earnings Thursday that easily beat analysts’ expectations on higher crude prices.

The world’s largest public energy company reported net income of $7.56 billion, or $1.60 a share, in the second quarter, up 91% from $3.95 billion, or 81 cents a share, in the same period in 2009.

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Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.46 a share, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.

Earnings for the first half of 2010, excluding special items, were $13.9 billion, up 60% over the first half of 2009.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Thursday’s $100 million settlement between Dell and the Securities and Exchange Commission was a reminder that the government is going after tech’s bad boys — and Intel is likely next on the feds’ list.

According to the SEC’s complaint against Dell, Intel paid the computer maker rebates as part of a deal in which Dell agreed not use microchips manufactured by Intel’s rival AMD. We’re not talking small change: The payments totaled $4.3 billion between 2003 and 2006.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

FORTUNE — The Ohio Attorney General’s office announced today that a class of three pension funds it represented in fraud complaints against AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) have settled with the federally-owned insurance giant for $725 million.

The statement reads in part, “The settlement resolves allegations of AIG’s wide-ranging fraud from October 1999 to April 2005 involving anti-competitive market division, accounting violations and stock price manipulation, and brings total expected recovery for AIG shareholders to over $1 billion. The settlement is subject to court approval.”