Business and Finance news

Closed signs went up at California agencies Friday as a second slew of mandatory furloughs went into effect for government employees in an effort to resolve California’s $19 billion budget deficit.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to the governor’s office, ordered state workers to take three unpaid days off per month until a new budget is […]

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Hawaii’s hotel occupancy rates grew 10.9 percentage points last week compared to the same week a year ago, according to an industry report out Friday.
The Hawaii Hotel Industry Snapshot, conducted by Smith Travel Research and Honolulu-based Hospitality Advisors, showed that hotel occupancy for the week ending July 10 was 79.4 percent, up from 68.5 percent […]

Owners of a new Folsom combo bike shop-coffee shop that already stretches the norm is expanding some more.
Folsom Bike, which opened in October along with the adjoining Folsom Grind, is adding a studio for spin-cycle classes and a studio for athlete coaching sessions with coach Bruce Hendler of AthletiCamps.
Folsom Bike’s additional departments, set to open […]

Profits are down at Hillenbrand, America’s largest maker of caskets. Admittedly, this fact sounds like the setup for a punch line, but the cause of the shortage in stiffs contains lessons for politicians and business leaders alike.
Hillenbrand’s CEO, Kenneth Camp, explained his company’s main problem this way in a recent conference call with […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reined in Free Democratic Party leader Guido Westerwelle’s expectations of rapid tax cuts as they began negotiations to form Germany’s next government.
Merkel, in an interview last night on ARD television after inviting Westerwelle for talks at the Chancellery in Berlin, said Germany’s soaring budget deficit limits the scope for […]

India’s benchmark wholesale price index extended its longest decline in three decades as central bank Governor Duvvuri Subbarao says an inflation-targeting policy isn’t enough to maintain financial and economic stability.
Wholesale prices fell 1.53 percent in the week to Aug. 8 from a year earlier, the commerce ministry said in New Delhi today. That […]

Norway’s central bank may be the first among the world’s richest economies to raise interest rates as the global crisis shows signs of abating and inflation overshoots the bank’s target, Deutsche Bank AG said.
“Domestic inflation pressures will be the main reason why Norges Bank will have to be one of the first, if […]

The BRICs are buying dollars at the fastest pace since before credit markets froze in September, protecting exports even as leaders of the biggest emerging markets consider alternatives to the U.S. currency.
Brazil, Russia, India and China increased foreign reserves by more than $60 billion in May to limit currency gains as the first […]

When Gordon Brown took over as Britain’s Labour finance minister in 1997 after 18 years of Conservative rule, he pledged “sustainable public finances” to cut a debt load that was near the highest in more than a decade.
Brown, prime minister since 2007, is leaving the next government — either his own or one […]

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said prices may rise 2.5 percent in 2011, a rate well above central bankers’ preferred range, and cautioned against complacency on inflation.
“The economy may be at greater risk of inflation than the conventional wisdom indicates,” Plosser said in a speech yesterday in New York. “While […]