Business Highlights

While other parts of the economy struggled the past two years, large companies managed to rack up higher profits quarter after quarter. Now reality is catching up with big business.

As companies close their books on the final three months of last year, the big ones in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index appear likely to earn about $230 billion. That would be $12.6 billion more than a year earlier.

But the increase, 5.8 percent, is less than half the speed at which quarterly profits grew the first nine months of 2011, and one-fifth the speed they have grown since the beginning of 2010.

What's more, almost all the profit growth comes from two companies, one of them among America's most favorite, the other among its most hated — Apple and the bailed-out insurance company AIG.

Take away those two companies and profits for the remaining 498 are expected to grow a measly 1.1 percent, according to FactSet, a provider of financial data.

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Verizon to set up streaming service with Redbox

NEW YORK (AP) — Phone company Verizon Communications Inc. will challenge Netflix and start a video streaming service this year with Redbox and its DVD rental kiosks.

Verizon and Coinstar Inc., Redbox's parent company, said Monday that the service will be national and available to non-Verizon customers as well. It adds another dimension to Verizon's quest to become a force in home entertainment, and it looks set to compete to some extent with the cable-TV services it already sells.

Unlike competing services from Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the new service will combine Internet delivery of movies with DVDs, the way Netflix does. Dish Network Corp. also offers a similar bundle through its Blockbuster subsidiary.

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Tax reform in this election year: It's not likely

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tax reform sounds like a good idea to lots of people, but where to start? Eliminate the popular deduction for home mortgage interest? End the write-off for charitable contributions? How about expanding the Social Security payroll tax?

Not likely.

Politicians of all stripes in this presidential election year are clamoring for simplifying the tax code and closing loopholes. But that would mean Americans would lose some of their prized deductions.

Not that Congress actually is likely to end tax breaks for home loans or religious and charitable contributions anytime soon. President Barack Obama and his chief Republican challengers — Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich — certainly aren't advocating that.

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Greece caves in on civil service firings

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's coalition government on Monday caved in to demands to cut civil service jobs, announcing 15,000 positions would go this year, amid mounting international pressure to agree on austerity measures needed to secure major new debt agreements.

The announcement signals a shift in Greece's policy, as state jobs have so far been protected during the country's acute financial crisis, which started about two years ago. Public Sector Reform Minister Dimitris Reppas said the job cuts would be carried out under a new law that allows such firings.

Unions have called a 24-hour general strike for Tuesday, in response to the new austerity measures, while about 4,000 protesters braved torrential rain late Monday to join protest rallies organized in central Athens by left-wing opposition parties.

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California and NY considering foreclosure-abuse deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — California and New York were considering Monday whether to join most other states in backing a long-awaited settlement with banks over foreclosure abuses. The deal would require the five largest mortgage lenders to reduce loans for about 1 million households.

State attorneys general have set a deadline of the end of Monday for states to join the settlement. Homeowners in states that opt out of the deal wouldn't share in the settlement money.

The reduced loans would benefit homeowners who are behind on their payments and owe more than their homes are worth. The lenders would also send checks for about $2,000 to hundreds of thousands of people who lost homes to foreclosure.