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For decades, the German people have been among the world’s most environmentally conscious. The strongest sign of this has been the commitment of successive governments to Energiewende – or “energy change” – designed to make the economy predominantly dependent on renewable sources such as wind and solar power. Renewables today account for 23 per cent of electricity production, a figure set to rise to 65 per cent by 2035.

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This emphasis places burdens on households and businesses. The cost of the subsidies offered by the German government to green energy producers is passed on to consumers. Domestic energy bills are 48 per cent higher in Germany than the European average. Germany’s Mittelstand companies are even worse off. Their costs are twice the level facing their US rivals, many of whom benefit from cheap shale gas.

Los Angeles became the latest to join the movement when the city council approved a law on Sept. 24 requiring large hotels to pay employees at least $15.37 per hour and provide generous paid sick-leave benefits. But the ordinance includes a provision, increasingly common in similar ordinances, that permits unions to waive the requirements in collective bargaining.

. . . In 2013 the Long Beach Business Journal cited the collective-bargaining waiver built into the city’s $13 minimum wage law as an important factor in the unionization of two large hotels, the Hyatt Regency Long Beach and the Hyatt Pike Long Beach.

A drive to raise Los Angeles’s minimum wage to nearly twice the federal level would turn the country’s second-largest city into a prime test for whether high pay requirements help lift workers out of poverty or increase joblessness and blunt economic growth.

The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce, announced today that total August exports of $198.5 billion and imports of $238.6 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $40.1 billion, down from $40.3 billion in July, revised. August exports were $0.4 billion more than July exports of $198.0 billion. August imports were $0.2 billion more than July imports of $238.3 billion.

U.S. job growth rebounded in September and the jobless rate slipped below 6%, suggesting the labor market is improving faster than previously thought and raising the prospect of an earlier-than-anticipated move by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

Nonfarm payrolls grew a seasonally adjusted 248,000 last month, the fastest pace since June, the Labor Department said Friday. Revisions showed stronger job growth in prior months than previously estimated. The economy added 180,000 jobs in August instead of the initially reported 142,000. It created 243,000 in July, up from an earlier estimate of 212,000.

. . . Despite the latest improvement, the report indicated slack remains in the labor market and pointed to persistent problems facing the world’s largest economy. The share of Americans in the labor force fell again last month, hitting the lowest level in more than three decades. The labor-force participation rate fell to 62.7% from August’s 62.8%. Before the recession, the rate stood at 66%.

But that’s a problem in California, which has the strictest guidelines in the country. If even one rivet in a larger product is foreign, state law says it amounts to false advertising to call it U.S. made.

The result: A host of consumer lawsuits against manufacturers, including two against Lifetime in which people complained they had been duped by the company’s labeling. Makers of everything from door locks to hand tools have been sued in recent years. A maker of helium tanks designed to be used at children’s parties was sued because it started packing imported balloons with the equipment. Another case involved Mag Instruments, a California company that produces Maglite flashlights. It was sued for using small rubber rings and light bulbs from abroad.

. . . The two suits were ultimately certified as a single class action and were settled last spring in a state court in San Diego. The court awarded plaintiff’s attorneys $485,000, and Lifetime agreed to donate an additional $325,000 to charity and to offer discounts to consumers who had bought basketball equipment in the past. One of the two named plaintiffs was awarded $4,500, the other $3,500. The company says the bill for its legal team added an additional $535,000.

Spending on transportation has not kept up with our growing population and aging infrastructure for many years. But now, state funding is being cut in half, and this transportation fiscal cliff will only make matters worse.

The California Tax Foundation on October 1 released the state’s first comprehensive study of California parcel taxes, identifying more than $1.9 billion in parcel taxes imposed annually on property owners.

Providing California families and businesses the infrastructure we must build to make possible the future they want, will require a 15-year investment estimated at $500 billion or more. The question is not whether we make that investment. It’s imperative we make it: After all, more than 38 million people live in California today, but we’ll have 50 million neighbors by the end of the next decade. The question is how we make the investment affordable.

The State has to be smarter about the way it plans and finances infrastructure development. Our current approach is too ad hoc. Voters and the Legislature authorize bonds for particular programs with little thought given to how those bonds fit into a larger infrastructure picture. We need to think longer-term and more strategically. Along those lines, my office has proposed the State develop a 25-year infrastructure master plan that would prioritize projects and provide a financing blueprint. We still think that’s a good idea.

Long-term state and local infrastructure financing also should be more fully incorporated into the year-by-year budget process. It should be stacked up against other public services, prioritized relative to those services and funded commensurate with that priority. State, local, Federal and private funding sources need to be considered and carefully coordinated to get the best infrastructure for Californians at the lowest possible cost.

The percentage of businesses who expect to trim full-time head counts is in the single digits, with business and professional services most likely to anticipate boosting hiring. More than a third said they’re planning to bring on additional part-time workers.

Small businesses in the Central Valley are increasingly finding themselves the targets of ADA claims by a handful of people who file lawsuit after lawsuit claiming discrimination. In fact, nearly 40 percent of the ADA lawsuits filed in the United States are in California. Tort reform advocates say that is largely because our state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act paves the way for bigger awards and California doesn’t require plaintiffs to demonstrate injury.

State personal income growth accelerated to 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2014 from 1.2 percent in the first quarter. Personal income growth ranged from 2.7 percent in North Dakota and Nebraska to 1.1 percent in New York and Alaska, with growth accelerating in 36 states. . . For the second consecutive quarter, the earnings increase in Texas was larger than the increase in every other state. Earnings in Texas, which accounted for 8.9 percent of the nation, grew $19.2 billion in the second quarter. Earnings in California, which accounted for 13.2 percent of the nation, grew $16.9 billion.

It’s no small matter. The top 1 percent of California income-tax payers now finance a third of the state’s general fund, so their ability and willingness to pay taxes is central to the state’s fiscal health.

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the second quarter of 2014,  according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In the first quarter, real GDP decreased 2.1 percent.

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the second quarter of 2014,  according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In the first quarter, real GDP decreased 2.1 percent.