Commercial Paper and Long-Term Debt (Policy)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2010

Commercial Paper and Long-Term Debt

Interest rate swap contracts

Interest Rate Swap Contracts

During 2010, the Company entered into interest rate swap contracts to convert a portion of its interest rate exposure from fixed rates to floating rates to more closely align interest expense with interest income received on its cash equivalent and investment balances. The floating rates are benchmarked to LIBOR. The swaps are designated as fair value hedges on fixed-rate debt issues maturing between March 2011 through March 2016 and June 2017 through October 2020. Since the specific terms and notional amounts of the swaps match those of the debt being hedged, they were assumed to be highly effective hedges and all changes in fair value of the swaps were recorded on the Consolidated Balance Sheets with no net impact recorded in the Consolidated Statements of Operations.