US
(February 2013) For the 10 years ended September 2012, US venture funds produced a 6.1% return, compared with the Nasdaq Composite Index's 10.3% increase and the Dow Jones Industrial Average's 8.6% rise over the same period.
(February 2013) While small companies are seen in the United States as having a big role in job creation, research shows that with the large number of job additions and losses among startups, it is the segment of fact-growing young firms up to 5 years old that play a crucial role in net job creation.
(January 2013) In October 2010, in The Wall Street Journal, John Chambers, Cisco chairman and CEO, and Safra Catz, Oracle president, wrote an op-ed on the topic of repatriation of foreign earnings. Entitled, 'The Overseas Profits Elephant in the Room: There’s a trillion dollars waiting to be repatriated if tax policy is right,' (subscription required) Chambers and Catz stated: “One trillion dollars is roughly the amount of earnings that American companies have in their foreign operations—and that they could repatriate to the United States. That money, in turn, could be invested in US jobs, capital assets, research and development, and more. But for US companies such repatriation of earnings carries a significant penalty: a federal tax of up to 35%. This means that US companies can, without significant consequence, use their foreign earnings to invest in any country in the world—except here.” Chambers/ Catz said a foreign earnings at a low tax rate—say, 5%— would create a privately funded stimulus of up to a trillion dollars. However, of the $312bn repatriated back to the United States in 2004/05 at a special rate of 5%, 92% of that money was returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks, according to a study by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research. However, this is a misleading debate as American companies' 'overseas/ trapped' cash is mainly held in the US.
(January 2013) US venture capital investment fell 15% in 2012, having risen in 2011 to the highest level since the tech bust in 2001. Investment in consumer information services, a sector that covers many web companies, was down 39% from 2011.
(January 2013) The US Treasury Department has rejected a proposal to issue a platinum coin to get around the current federal debt limit of $16.4tn. On Monday, Timothy Geithner, US Treasury secretary, said in a letter to John Boehner, House speaker, that the government was on track to hit its borrowing limit as early as the middle of February: “Treasury would be left to operate solely with the cash we have on hand on any given day” and would likely have to delay payments on everything from bond obligations to income tax refunds, Social Security benefits and military salaries. Also on Monday, at a press conference at the White House, President Obama said: “If congressional Republicans refuse to pay America’s bills on time, Social Security checks and veterans benefits will be delayed.” He called the opposition Republicans' stance “absurd,” and advised Republicans that they “have two choices here: They can act responsibly and pay America’s bills, or they can act irresponsibly and put America through another economic crisis. But they will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy. . . . And they better choose quickly, because time is running short.”
(January 2013) US economists say that manufacturing employment would have been higher by over 4m employees in 2007 without the effect of offering China 'permanent normal trade relations' (PNTR) status in 2000. While US manufacturing employment fell from 19.6m in 1979 to 13.7m in 2007, more than half the decline followed the relatively mild recession in 2001. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric (GE) CEO said last year: "we are outsourcing less and producing more in the US. We created more than 7,000 American manufacturing jobs in 2010 and 2011. Our success on the factory floor rests on human innovation and technical innovation—the keys to leading an American manufacturing renewal. When we are deciding where to manufacture, we ask, 'Will our people and technology in the US provide us with a competitive advantage?' Increasingly, the answer is yes."
(January 2013) Young business firms up to 5 years old are responsible for most net job creation in the United States. However, not only has new firm formation been falling in the last 3 decades, for small business in general, 2 recent reports show small business hiring weakened at the end of 2012.
(January 2013) Reinvigourating small business starts with identifying the high-growth firms that disproportionately drive economic activity and jobs. Steve Case, AOL (America Online) cofounder and a member of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness says "all the net jobs - - about 40m jobs - - have been created by young, high-growth companies in the last 30 years. So if you’re concerned about our rate of unemployment, the place to focus is entrepreneurship. If you’re concerned that we’re not seeing enough economic growth, the place to focus is entrepreneurship. If you’re focused on what’s happening globally as other nations more vigorously put in place their own entrepreneurship policies, the place to focus here is on entrepreneurship. In an accompanying video and report, Steve Case explains how big businesses can benefit too.
(January 2013) In 1913 when the US Federal Reserve was founded, prices were only about 20% higher than in 1775 and around 40% lower than in 1813, during the War of 1812, according to a paper to be presented this week at an annual meeting of American economists, by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff, the authors of the celebrated 2009 book, 'This Time It’s Different: Eight centuries of financial folly; conceit and money.'
(December 2012) The Wall Street Journal reports that President Barack Obama backed away from his long-standing call for raising tax rates on households making more than $250,000 a year, a development that inches the White House and congressional Republicans closer to a budget deal.
