Your 12 hourly digest for Business News, Financial News, Business Headlines & Analysis - The Washington Post

Business News, Financial News, Business Headlines & Analysis - The Washington Post The source for business news and analysis. Covering economic policy, business policy, financial news, economic issues, stock market data, local business, technology and more.

Companies squeezing in dividends to avoid 'fiscal cliff' Nov 28th 2012, 01:02 For shareholders of companies trying to get ahead of tax hikes at the end of the year, this December will include an especially big Christmas gift. An array of companies, from Las Vegas Sands to Wal-Mart, will issue special dividends next month or move dividend payouts earlier in order to get ahead of Jan. 1, when the top tax rate on dividends is set to more than double, from a top rate of 15 percent to 43.4 percent. Read full article >> Despite staggering costs of delay, new Greek plan offers no guarantees Nov 28th 2012, 00:01 In familiar after-midnight fashion, European leaders early Tuesday announced a plan to stabilize Greece's spiraling debt and trumpeted a "new paradigm" in the country's struggle to stay in the euro zone. Read full article >> Reconciliation Nov 28th 2012, 00:00 We liked this story better when Suzy wrote it. Matt Yglesias argues that we shouldn't subsidize churches "unless,that is, itdoesanger God and he visits his wrath upon us." Questions that supporters of D.C.'s Height of Buildings Act should ask themselves. Read full article >> How Republicans could shut the Senate down, if they wanted to Nov 27th 2012, 21:30 Could Republicans shut the Senate down if they wanted to? All of the sudden, that's not such an idle question. As we'vebeen noting, Democrats in the Senate are proposing to tweak the chamber's filibuster rules when the 113th Congress convenes in January. Doing so would make it somewhat more cumbersome for the GOP minority to block legislation. And Democrats argue that they can make these changes with a simple 51-vote majority the so-called "constitutional option." Read full article >> Should the top tax rate be 73 percent? Nov 27th 2012, 20:58 Most arguments about tax brackets in the United States are over a percentage point or two. Obama wants the top rate to rise 4.6 points to 39.6 percent; Republicans want it to stay at 35 percent. Despite the revenue costs of low rates, some self-styled deficit hawks want the top rate to go even lower. Simpson-Bowles and Domenici-Rivlin, for instance, both put it at 28 percent. Read full article >> What's holding back the economy, in 10 charts Nov 27th 2012, 20:09 Lately, there has been quite a bit of excitement that the big overhang of debt left over from the financial crisis may be starting to ease. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has noted that there's been a "significant reduction" of debt, and a number of indicators point to American households getting their finances in better shape. Read full article >> The dangerous fiscal deadline isn't Dec. 31 it's February 2013 Nov 27th 2012, 19:43 The debt ceiling has largely taken a backseat to the looming fiscal changes that are scheduled to take effect on Dec. 31. But unless it's dealt with in the lame duck Congress, we're going to hit another debt limit come February 2013, according a new analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center. Read full article >> What Mitch McConnell fears Nov 27th 2012, 18:15 Steve Benen asks a sensible question: Harry Reid's proposed filibuster reforms are quite modest. If they pass wholesale, the 60-vote supermajority requirement will remain unchanged. So why's he so steamed? Read full article >> Home prices rise again in September Nov 27th 2012, 17:25 Home prices continued to rise throughout much of the country in September — fresh evidence of a housing market recovery, according to a closely watched report released Tuesday. Home prices in 20 cities tracked by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index rose 0.3 percent on a non-seasonally adjusted basis in September, compared with August. It was the sixth consecutive monthly increase. Read full article >> Does advertising help or harm the economy? Nov 27th 2012, 16:21 It's impossible to escape advertising. Truck ads on billboards, beer ads on television, pop-up ads for credit cards on the Internet. It's everywhere. Last year, U.S. companies spent about $144 billion on commercials and other forms of marketingabout 1 percent of the GDP. So what effect do all these ads have on the economy? Read full article >> Let's hope the austerity crisis is holding back business spending Nov 27th 2012, 15:18 There are new signs that businesses are pulling back on their investment spending in advance of the looming austerity crisis. And that's the good news. Shipments of core capital goods, a measure that excludes defense spending and aircraft -- a common measure of business investment -- fell 0.4 percent in October, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. There is an obvious and likely explanation: Firms were becoming all the more wary of what might happen with the "fiscal cliff," the wave of tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1 absent a new agreement. If you are a corporate executive weighing the purchase of a piece of industrial equipment or a truck for your delivery fleet, you may well decide "I'll just wait to see how all this shakes out." Read full article >> Want to tax capital and income equally? Try the Buffett rule. Nov 27th 2012, 15:09 Enthusiasm is building for a "minimum tax" for the wealthy, in which millionaires would have to pay, say, 30 percent of their income in taxes, no ifs or buts. Republicans in Congress have floated taxing the entire income of high-earners at 35 percent, while Warren Buffett has renewed his call for a minimum tax of 30 percent for millionaires. Read full article >> Obama calls for new stimulus in the form of small-business tax breaks Nov 27th 2012, 15:01 President Obama made a fresh call Tuesday for another round of economic stimulus, proposing to spend more than $25 billion to offer tax breaks to companies to hire workers or pay them higher salaries. The measure is Obama's first proposal aimed at addressing the still-weak economy since his reelection and an acknowledgment that though it is no longer a political threat, the nation's unemployment rate of 7.9 percent remains a significant problem. Read full article >> Absolutely everything you need to know about the fiscal cliff, in one FAQ Nov 27th 2012, 14:00 Washington is engaged in an all-consuming debate about how to resolve the "fiscal cliff" -- which we like to call, for reasons that will soon be explained, "the austerity crisis." But what is that and why does it matter? We at Wonkblog put together a FAQ to sort it out. And we'll keep updating this FAQ as the debate rages on. Read full article >> Small business loans teetering on the fiscal cliff Nov 27th 2012, 12:15 So much of the discourse on the fiscal cliff has focused on the likely effects of rasing taxes on the middle class and the wealthy, which has overshadowed the bigger issue at hand: how to avoid raising taxes on the one vehicle that can get the economy moving — small businesses. Read full article >>

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