California Laws will now prohibit businesses with language discrimination

Last year a proposal has been made by the Ladies Professional Golf Association to ban the golfers who aren’t proficient with English. The state senate has finally reacted to this alarming proposal by prohibiting businesses in California from discriminating against customers, including refusal of service, based on the language they use.

This proposed law has sparked debates throughout the state and of course many are definitely inviting this. Yee – the senator has his own experiences with language discrimination.

Yee proposed the law after the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. last year proposed, and then backed down from, a policy that would have suspended golfers who do not speak adequate English. The policy was based on the premise that language fluency in speeches and media interviews was critical to the sport's promotion.

Yee explained that this would have been grown as a major issue if left unnoticed. He also explained that these kinds of proposals discriminating a certain group will not be appreciated at any cause. He also added that the golfing controversy raised a broader issue of how businesses operate in California and required changes to state civil rights laws that already protect customers from discrimination based on race, gender and disability.

This law will definitely be a welcome note for all the immigrants and students who are residing in California.

Small Businesses in Texas request for tax exemptions

Texas lawmakers are now looking to give some tax reliefs to businesses running in their state. Small businesses in Texas have complained about state’s new business tax has been unfairly burdensome on them. And hence now the legislatures are working hard to lessen the strain on these small businesses.

The request for tax exemptions has been asked for businesses whose revenue are $1 million and less. The Legislature adopted the business tax under court order in 2006 to help cover the $14 billion cost of buying down school property tax rates. But the revenue from the business tax, known as the margins tax, has fallen more than $1.5 billion short of projections.

By implementing these tax exemptions more than 130,000 small businesses would be benefitted. However the state has to shed a loss of $85 million. Small businesses have complained that the tax is hitting them especially hard especially during this recession.

Under this current tax structure, all the companies are taxed at 1 percent to 0.5 percent for retailers. Companies can deduct for cost of goods or employee benefits like salary and health care. Businesses also are hoping for a measure that would ease their tax burden in years when they're not profitable.

Foreign Students are Leaving UK without Paying

A student loan company from UK has come up with a shocking fact. IT reveals that almost 70% of European students who have taken loans from British banks while studying in the UK have not only failed to repay but are also leaving the country without informing. The statistics revealed that out of the 2240 students who should have started repayments, 1580 students are missing. It’s really a disturbing fact for loan companies and agencies that act as liaisons between students and loan agency. The Student Loans Company (SLC) is trying its level best to find those who are still missing without making their payments.

And of course most of these students who have not yet paid the necessary amount, are still continuing their studies in universities and would start paying only on completing one year of their graduation or if they pull out from the university.

These issues really add to the grief of students Loan Company. They also call for a help from government in not allowing students to travel overseas who didn’t finish off the payment. And if this is going to grow on then the SLC will restrict their offers to limited number of students or may introduce some stricter methods to collect back loans. And that will eventually bounces back on innocent foreign students who aspires higher studies in UK.

What is Debt Consolidation

Debt Consolidation has taken a giant form in managing financial crisis. Right from a top class business person till a middle income person everyone requires debt consolidation or credit consolidation. Many would have heard about this and would be anxious to know about this. I will try explaining this technique as known to me.

Debt consolidation is a strategy sometimes used by consumers to better manage their debt problems. Rather than paying off several separate bills each month a consumer can approach a vendor who does this job for them. The consumer needs to pay the vendor a down payment which includes some acceptable commission to the vendor.

It’s simply the combination of multiple loans with a new, single loan offering a lower monthly interest rate and payment or a longer repayment period. This is definitely a meritorious boon to the consumers. They can save some interest amount and at the same time they can feel less burdened by the loans.

Having multiple loans implies having multiple due dates throughout the month and people tend to forget the due dates or may be busy during the due dates. So it’s a hectic job to pay various payments on various dates at different counters. Instead of this combining them into a single loan benefits the customer.

However currently lots of vendor are offering debt consolidation offers. Consumers must be wise in choosing the right vendor and need to be careful in maintaining the multiple debts.

Pass on the rate cuts to Businesses - RBA

The Reserve bank of Australia is pushing the major banks to pass through future interest rates for all businesses to revive activities after a hard recession. The decision has surprised the public and business activists. The decision to reduce interest rates by 25 basis points to 3per cent, the lowest rate in 49 years, met the expectations of the financial markets even though economists were divided on the likely outcome of the April meeting.

The Reserve bank of Australia is now expected to cut rates further by 50 points by the end of this year which will be recorded the lowest in the past 53 years. The Commonwealth Bank was the only major bank to announce a move on home loan rates yesterday, reducing its standard variable rate by 10 basis points. Its rival, the National Australia Bank, blamed high funding costs, even though there has been a marked reduction from the peak, for its decision to keep rates on hold. Ahead of this decision, official interest rates had been cut by 400 basis points since September. But according to RBA figures, only two-thirds of the reductions had been applied to business lending.

These kinds of rate cuts definitely boost the traders and business people in flowing to Australia. Hopefully other countries follow these rate cuts.

Some tips for Investors in Stock Markets

5 simple tips for stock market investors:

1. Investment is very easy if you approach stock markets with an open mind. Don't clutter your mind with numbers like support, resistance and volumes etc. Those are meant for traders. We are investors then why should we waste time in thinking about them.

2. Invest in good companies with sound business prospects at reasonable valuations and give management sufficient time. Treat every short term fall as an investment opportunity. Sincerely believe in fundamentals.

3. Read every good article on businesses and companies. Listen to every expert. Analyse them in your own way then invest in good stocks. Don't follow any one blindly. I daily spend 6-8 hours in reading and 1-2 hours in listening about stocks and companies. I am passionate about stocks and companies. So I enjoy every moment of reading.

4. Never follow herds and broker tips. Buy good companies when no one is talking about them and sell the scrip when all are buying it. Quarterly results and balance sheets will help you in picking good companies. I bought metal stocks, Bartronics and Tanla Solutions in the last week in spite of steep fall as I believe in their fundamentals and growth prospects.

5. Allocate 25% of money to buy emerging stocks and contra stocks. Those who bought sugar stocks? (Select companies) in 2007 got more than 100% returns in just 10 months. Emerging stocks will take 3-5 years but sometimes give more than 500% returns.

CEO Economic Outlook Survey - First Quarter 2009

Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of almost all leading corporations throughout the world. They represent a combined workforce around 10 million employees and more than $5 trillion in annual revenues. In fact the association meet will be like a great economic summit. This association has released an outlook survey upon the global economic scenario in the next six months.

According to this survey report released this week, the Chief executive officers of America’s leading corporation have anticipated a decrease in expected sales, capital expenditures and employment figures for the next six months. This is due to the significant pressures that the global economy continues to put on U.S. businesses.

The survey includes the following questions to the CEOs of leading corporations and the opinion poll has three choices: Increase(I), No change(NC), Decrease(D).

•How do you expect your company's sales to change in the next six months
I - 24% NC- 9% D -67%

•How do you expect your company's U.S. capital spending to change in the next six months
I - 9% NC - 25% D- 66%

•How do you expect your company's U.S. employment to change in the next six months
I - 7% NC - 21% D - 71%

In terms of the overall U.S. economy, member CEOs estimate real GDP will decline by 1.9 percent in 2009, down from the CEOs' zero percent estimate in the fourth quarter of 2008.