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Economic Indicators

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“The More You Make, The Less Taxes You Pay” Is A Fast-Burning Wick

The nation's largest corporation is also the best in the U.S. at skirting taxes. Despite profits of $14.2 billion in 2010, General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. taxes last year. According to The New York Times, “Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.” G.E.'s …

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Labor’s Taking It To The Streets

Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters is picketing Ross and Nordstrom Rack in downtown Portland. I received a leaflet in front of both stores today. The Council of Carpenters believes Ross and Nordstrom have "an obligation to the community to see that area labor standards are met for construction work performed on their projects." The union claims that the contractors employed by Ross and Nordstrom …

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Publicis Has The Numbers Investors Like To See

The agency business is in the dumps. That's what we hear from the press, right? Wrong! According to The Wall Street Journal, Publicis Groupe posted organic revenue growth for the last quarter of 2010--a key metric in the advertising industry that strips out acquisitions, disposals and currency effects--of 12.5%, almost twice what analysts had expected for the quarter, and a level Publicis hasn't seen since the …

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It Takes Money To Make A Show Of Money

According to BusinessWeek, Joseph Nunes, marketing professor at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, and two colleagues studied shifts in the styles of Louis Vuitton and Gucci handbags marketed in the U.S. before and during the recession. "Everybody was saying, 'the age of the conspicuous consumer is dead,'" says Nunes, so one might expect logos to shrink and brand identities to be more …

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Weak Dollar, Strong Dollar General

Discount-store operator Dollar General Corp. plans to open 625 new stores and hire more than 6,000 workers in 2011. The company said today the store openings will be in 35 states it currently operates in as well as in three new states: Connecticut, Nevada and New Hampshire. It also plans to remodel or relocate 550 stores. Dollar General, based in Goodlettsville, Tenn., currently operates 9,200 stores. Its stores …

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Are We Finding Our Way Back To A Norm, Or Is There A New (Less Liquid) Norm?

Even though I'm comfortable writing about advertising, not economics, the economy is one of the big forces weighing on our industry--it needs to be examined and some kind of meaning from the various indicators needs to be gained. Here's one glass half-full look from the Washington Post: A recovery that seemed tentative and halting a year ago now appears to be durable and more entrenched, having weathered a soft …

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What’s In Your Cart?

Tom Petruno, the markets columnist for The Los Angeles Times, makes some cogent points about our bifurcated economy. It's painfully difficult to reconcile the plight of the unemployed with the fact that 140 million or more Americans are expected to be out in force shopping this weekend, hoping to give a decent holiday to their kids or other loved ones. It's also difficult to reconcile the ongoing struggles of many …

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