News

For the month of April, the state’s merchandise export trade totaled $14.09 billion, up 7.8% from the $13.07 billion in exports recorded in April 2013.

In a new step to expose hidden debt, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board last week proposed that retiree health care debt or “unfunded liability” be reported on the face of government financial statements, not buried inside.

The Culver City firm behind many YouTube stars will lay off about 10% of its 380 employees, a person close to the digital media company said on Monday.

A notable exception to the “right place” trend is California. Criticized by some as a hostile, high-cost environment for business, California has shown a remarkable knack for coming out ahead in the race for large companies. The Golden State’s strength, it would seem, is reinvention: lowering its profile in manufacturing and financial services and strengthening its footprint in technology. No fewer than 31 of the 51 California companies on the Fortune 500 in 1995 are absent from the 2014 list. Three large defense contractors moved to other states: Lockheed Martin to Maryland, Rockwell Automation to Wisconsin, and Northrop Grumman to Virginia. California also lost a host of prominent corporate residents to mergers — among them, Pacific Telesis to AT&T (Texas), PacifiCare to UnitedHealth Group (Minnesota), and BankAmerica to the renamed Bank of America (North Carolina).

In addition to the standard base rate of 1 percent of assessed value of a property, owners pay more than 20 other items listed on their tax bills. One, misleadingly labeled “City of Richmond,” is actually a levy solely to help fund the retirement plans for workers and retirees.

The California Public Utilities Commission has paid bonuses to what it calls “California suppliers” totaling $52 million. Of that sum, nearly $39 million has gone to one company, Bloom Energy Corp., based in Sunnyvale.

A Fed following the Taylor Rule would have raised rates by now, and it would not have exposed the nation to inflation risks by buying so many trillions of dollars of bonds and mortgage-backed securities over the past few years, several of the economists at the podium said. One paper presented at the conference, by University of Houston economist David Papell, found that the economy does better when the Fed sticks close to the Taylor Rule or something like it.

It’s fine to talk about government programs to help the poor, but wouldn’t it be better to alleviate the high living costs they face every day, and to create an economic climate that would give them more opportunities to climb the ladder through better jobs?

Consumer spending was down $8.1 billion, or 0.1%, last month, the Commerce Department said Friday.

While the Bay Area will continue to lead the state, and the drought will hurt the recovery in the Central Valley, the UOP quarterly forecast says job gains will ripple throughout the state. Soon, California will have recovered all of the jobs lost to the recession, “a year earlier than previously forecast,” the forecast says.

That’s according to the results of a new poll released today showing that 79 percent of residents believe the region is facing dire straits regarding home prices. And more than 7 of 10 people surveyed said the region’s traffic congestion is a catastrophe.

Workers can recover unpaid wages by placing liens on property owned by their employers, including businesses and homes where they performed work, under a bill that passed the Assembly on Wednesday.

The California Senate on Wednesday could not muster the votes to pass a measure that would have penalized high chief executive salaries with higher corporate taxes.

The state Senate on Wednesday failed to muster the votes needed to set a moratorium on the oil drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, until a study determines that it does not pose a health risk for the public.

The Assembly voted in favor of AB 1839, which would renew and increase a state tax credit — amounting to as much as $400 million a year — to better compete with generous tax subsidies available in such states as New York, Louisiana and Georgia, as well as in Canada and Britain.