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The May 2010 employment figures there were 431,000 people added to payrolls that month. But the numbers are disconcerting when one looks at the private sector jobs created of only 41,000. About 411,000 were temporary census jobs. Average factory work week lengthened by three tenths of an hour. Average hourly earnigs rose by 7 cents which combined with a slightly longer work week created an estimated 0.6 increase in incomes, acccording to Deutsche Bank.

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Younger next generation franchisees now account for 30% of total McDonald's franchisees, reaching 37% in five years, according to McDonald's. This brings new ideas from the younger franchisees. Some of the ideas compete with older notions of fathers, other ideas have to win the approval of McDonald's management. Management at McDonald's implements ideas that it sees as acceptable for all 14,000 restaurants. Local changes such as including book activities for children and sponsoring community events were tried at one franchise in Tolleson, Arizona, and then adopted by 220 restaurants in Arizona. A similiar situation happened at Subway where local franchisees in California tried new ideas in pricing. Ideas implemented throughout the franchises which originated from young next generation franchisees were the use of credit cards which has increased sales, ordering system which uses pictures which reduces wait times, free Wi-Fi, and Angus burgers.

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India's foreign exchange reserves of $295 billion cover about 7 months of imports. This is not enough in currency reserves for India's central bank to take actions to prevent a depreciation of the Indian currency, the rupee. The central bank, RBI, has taken other actions including giving local exporters 15 days to convert half their estimated $7 billion foreign exchange holdings into rupees. Analysts say the RBI is running out of policy options and is down to micromanaging the currency. India's trade deficit was at $13.4 billion in March 2012 with rising cost of importing oil and lower exports. The rupee is close to 54 rupees to the dollar.

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The growing middle class in Brazil, new aspirations and the demand for better public services in transportation, education and healthcare. Alexandre Peppe, a 29 year old from the outlying parts of Sao Paulo, is a new member of the middle class, being the first to go to college in his family and finding a job in the state government. He was one of the protesters on the streets of Sao Paulo. The growing middle class has new hopes and aspirations that see serious shortcomings in the corruption of political leaders, neglect of public services such as transportation and overspending on the soccer stadiums for the FIFA and World Cup championships. Economic growth is slowing to about 1% in Brazil for 2013, creating new constraints for public spending just as demand for infrastructure and services is growing for the now large middle class.

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The acquisition of Wachovia is now showing up in huge losses at Wells Fargo Bank. Fourth quarter losses for 2008 are $2.55 billion. With the Wachovia acquisition Wells Fargo took on $219 billion of commercial real estate and corporate loans and a large number of toxic pay-option mortgages. Wells Fargo has set aside $21.7 billion to cover losses as the slump in real estate markets continues.

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Hirofumi Gumi, a top official of Japan's Financial Services Agency, during the administration of prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, says he cannnot understand why America is making the same mistakes as Japan. It took some tough actions under the leadership of prime minister Koizumi (2001-2006)- after 6 years of failed policies till 2002 following Japan's banking crisis in 1996- that helped restore the country's banking system. Under Heizo Takenaka, as head of the agency supervising banks, a large part of the bad loans in the Japanese banking system were taken off the bank's books. Some banks with insufficient capital, such as Resona Bank, were nationalized. Takenaka told the banks not to cover up or pretend the problem was not big enough, and declared he was not open to negotiating. Gumi says Takenaka's tough actions helped to restore credibility in the country's banking system. One of the key lessons from Japan is that no stimulus is likely to succeed until the banking sector is fixed. This is the lesson the Obama administration has failed to grasp....

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Chrysler's plans to quickly build a presence in the Chinese market. It will have 116 Chrysler-jeep dealerships by yaearend from the current 81, and have 81 Dodge dealerships compared to zero today.

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Remarkable story of south african security guards here to protect cricketers who were dining with 150 people in arestaurant at the Taj hotel and howthey saved the lives of these people.

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India replaced a patchwork of 15 state and federal taxes with a unified single Goods and Services Tax to ease the hurdles for businesses to operate nationwide across state boundaries. This is a major a accomplishment for the Modi government as it is expected to increase economic growth by between 0.5% to 2%, according to experts. This removes the obstacles to growth and doing business when companies had to comply with a maze of different tax policies by individual states. Ironically the GST was introduced by the Congress party government in 2011, but opposed by opposition parties then and the Congress party in opposition now in the upper house, Rajya Sabha. By winning the support of smaller parties the Modi government was able to reduce the influence of the Congress party and get the constitutional amendment passed for the single GST tax system replacing the old patchwork taxes. The amendment has to be approved by the majority of state legislatures in India and by the president. Parliament must pass legislation to setup the new tax system, and state legislature pass their legislation. Issues at what rate to set up the GST remain to be solved, with the need to avoid sparking inflation and thereby hurting slow job growth with millions of young people entering the job market each year. ...

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Buffett's view that higher capital gains taxes will not result in less business investment. He favors a $500,000 figure instead of the $250,000 proposed by president Obama for Bush tax cuts for incomes below that level.

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Senators approved the U.S. Republican tax bill 51 to 49 votes on December 1, 2017. The 500 page bill was approved with arewritten version containing more changes made at the last minute to get it passed in the early morning hours. It was passed along party lines with all Democrats opposing. The last minute changes were made to get Collins of Maine and Johnson of Wisconsin on board. A concession was made on DACA young undocumented immigrants for Flake of Arizona. In this way its passage was ensured after failure to repeal Obama health legislation. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation report says the bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion over a decade. Corker of Tennessee opposed the bill for this reason, but failed to convince other senators who believe the bill will generate robust growth and the deficit report is too pessimistic. The tax cut bill helps 70% of middle class families and may not help others because of removal of deductions such as the one for state and local income taxes. Business gets a permanent tax rate of 20 percent instead of 35 percent which is made permanent. Owners of small business not set up as corporations also get a tax break for small business. To offset the cost of the changes the Alternative Minimum Tax for corporations is retained and a tax on corporations with assets held overseas was increased. ...

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Most Americans pay less in taxes, including state, local and federal taxes, today than in 1980 in inflation adjusted dollars. The taxes have gone down by 2-3% for incomes in the range of $50,000 to $150,000, and gone down by 3-4% for incomes between $150,000 and $350,000. Taxes have gone down over 7% for incomes above $350,000. The main reason is the decline in federal income taxes.Tax rates increased in the period to 1990 and declined from 1990 to 2010. The Democratic party and president Obama are pushing for increase in taxes for incomes above $250,000. Republicans are resisting the changes citing disincentives to investment and growth for small business which generates a large proportion of new jobs created in the U.S. economy. The New York Times study shows the percent of the U.S. population that makes between $200,000 and $350,000 almost doubling in the period 1980-2010 and at the same time its share of the U.S. income remaining the same - many small business owners who hire employees would fall into this income category. Republican's response is for tax reforms that reduce loopholes, deductions and other tax expeditures that disproportionately help the wealthy. Democrats say this cannot create enough revenues to address the deficit, when mortgage deductions, charitable deductions are excluded. The back and forth is leading to stalemate but also opening up discussion for the first time on whether the mortgage and charitable deductions make sense in today's environment. A significant portion of revenues lost in the mortgage deduction goes to affluent households, subsidizing larger borrowings to build larger homes than otherwise, according to the Brookings Institution. Politicians have resisted changes that would go against powerful lobyying groups in the past, yet the impasse has opened up new thinking outside the box because of the pressing need to come up with a solution....

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In the third and final debate of the 2016 U.S. presidential election Hillary Clinton shows she has mastered the techniques used by Trump to use short jabs and comments to unsettle her opponent, yet doing it in a meaningful way to make a point about how she is better qualified and her program helps the middle and working class.

On taxes she added to her plan about not increasing taxes for people making more than $250,000, with the comment that it would increase her and Trump's taxes provided she said Trump hasn't "figured out how to get out of it." It also was meant to draw Trump's response about not revealing his tax returns and plans to give hugely disproportionate tax cuts to higher income people. Trump called her "a nasty women," in response, which was a point cited by media reports as a negative for women voters.

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Stephen Moore of the WSJ interviews Grover Norquist, head of the advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform. Republicans in Congress and other Republican leaders have signed on to the "no new taxes pledge" promoted by Norquist. There is increasing pressure on Norquist as the media, White House, and executives on Wall Street call for flexible positions from both sides on taxes and spending cuts. Norquist insists that not much has changed. He says that the increase in taxes on the rich is only symbolic and has to be followed up with increasing taxes on the middle class. He cites a Rasmussen poll that shows 75% of Americans believe this. Norquist is convinced that the Democrats with their spending plans are out to take the U.S. in the direction of European economies, the tax increase on the rich would be followed up with a energy tax or a value added tax to pay for unrestrained spending. His solution is for Republicans to pass a bill that extends the current tax rates past January after roughing it through the tax cliff date. Even the sequester option is better than increasing taxes says Norquist, letting the Defense Department make the cuts where appropriate. Norquist does not favor the option of reducing tax loopholes and deductions as a way to increase taxes as proposed by Simpson Bowles commission and Ryan-Romney in the election campaign. ...

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Higher property taxes and other costs are making Americans feel poorer with less cash flow even though housing wealth has increased by 80% since 2025 to $35 trillion.