News

The insurance industry has provided over 210,00 jobs in 2010 and provided a payroll that totaled $14.9 billion, just in California!

Manufacturers consume a lot of energy, particularly natural gas. Increased domestic production of natural gas has lowered its price, and a new study by IHS estimates industrial production will increase by 3.5 percent by the end of this decade as a result of the shale energy revolution.

The California Trade Report, released by research firm Beacon Economics, found that Golden State exports ticked up 6.8 percent over the same time last year. Shipments of manufactured goods, especially civilian aircraft and plane components, helped account for much of the increase. Non-manufactured goods such agricultural products were also up and shipments to China increased by 19.9 percent

Kinkisharyo International Inc., the No. 1 supplier of low-floor light rail vehicles in North America, is moving its U.S. headquarters from Massachusetts to El Segundo, bringing about 25 jobs to the South Bay city and another 250 positions to the Palmdale area, where it will manufacture rail cars for the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Company: Edison CoCA Net Job Gain/Loss: -730Reason: LayoffCity/Region Losing Jobs: San Clemente, CA

The world’s biggest and most dynamic economy derives its strength and resilience from its geographic diversity. Economically, at least, America is not a single country. It is a collection of seven nations and three quasi-independent city-states, each with its own tastes, proclivities, resources and problems. These nations compete with one another–the Great Lakes loses factories to the Southeast, and talent flees the brutal winters and high taxes of the city-state New York for gentler climes–but, more important, they develop synergies, albeit unintentionally. Wealth generated in the humid South or icy northern plains benefits the rest of the country; energy flows from the Dakotas and the Third Coast of Texas and Louisiana; and even as people leave the Northeast, the brightest American children continue to migrate to this great education mecca, as well as those of other nations.

The state’s merchandise export trade totaled $13.98 billion, up a nominal 6.8% over the $13.09 billion in exports recorded in July 2012. By comparison, overall U.S. merchandise exports rose by a nominal 5.1% during the same period.

California saw a 2.4 percent month-to-month decline in job vacancies advertised online in August while Sacramento listings held fairly steady, according to the latest statistics released by the Conference Board.

Amazon.com Inc. is pushing ahead with a San Francisco expansion that will grow its footprint in the city to nearly 150,000 square feet.

If Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg wants to do an end run around the California Environmental Quality Act to expedite the proposed new arena in downtown Sacramento, why shouldn’t those changes apply statewide to similar urban projects?

The firm found that most chief information officers in the Bay Area plan to hire IT staff in the fourth quarter. About 13 percent of CIOs expect to increase the size of their IT staff, up 1 percent from the third quarter. And 66 percent of the officers surveyed plan to hire to fill vacant IT jobs — that figure is up 5 percent from the third quarter.

Existing companies, not research universities or entrepreneurship programs, are the most fertile source of startup businesses in most metropolitan areas. That’s a key takeaway from a new study conducted by the Kauffman Foundation, which also found that most areas with higher-than-average startup activity have been strong entrepreneurial centers for at least 20 years.

Germany’s agressive and reckless expansion of wind and solar power has come with a hefty pricetag for consumers, and the costs often fall disproportionately on the poor. Government advisors are calling for a completely new start.

SB 54 (Senator Loni Hancock) is just such a bill.  It purports to be about safety but in fact could increase risks, displace highly skilled workers with excellent safety records, and remove the flexibility of employers to hire the best available workers.  SB 54 would establish arbitrary training requirements that would force refinery and chemical facilities to choose a large percentage of their workers from the membership of a single union, and to pay those workers government mandated wages.

As lawmakers consider policies to improve the competitiveness of American businesses, they should not forget that individual income tax rates are just as important to business activity as the corporate rate.  The various proposals to raise income taxes on high-income earners, either by increasing the top marginal rate, closing “loopholes,” limiting deductions, or implementing a minimum tax, would fall very heavily on America’s non-corporate businesses. Pass-through businesses are currently facing top marginal rates on average between 44.5 percent and 47.5 percent and as high as 51.8 percent in California. These pass-through businesses account for a large percentage of business income and employment in the United States. Raising taxes on them could curtail their hiring and other investment plans, putting more strain on an already struggling economy.