Business Executives

After three awful years, business conditions are finally starting to pick up, Bay Area executives say. But companies are still not planning to increase their payrolls. The Bay Area Council's latest business confidence quarterly survey reports that about 70% of those responding said they didn't expect to increase their workforces in the next six months, even if the local economy improves. What's more, 23% plan to decrease technology spending, while 3% expect to boost such spending.

WASHINGTON - Seeking to leverage the momentum of his reelection victory for a partisan budget battle, President Obama called on Americans to use social media to pressure Congress in his efforts to keep tax breaks for most Americans while raising taxes on the wealthiest 2%. The president's attempt to rally public support Wednesday via Twitter, Facebook and email marks a new strategy for the Obama White House - a dramatic shift from the grinding legislative...

Sandra W. Meyer, 60, who inspired a Broadway play and helped blaze a trail for female business executives. She was the first female product-group manager at General Foods Corp. in 1969, running marketing campaigns for such major brands as Maxwell House coffee. In 1980, Meyer joined American Express, where she was head of worldwide marketing. She later became president of the communications division.

SACRAMENTO - Facing a ballot measure that could sharply rein in its political clout in California, organized labor is fighting back with a massive operation to get millions of union voters to the polls next week. In the process, the intense effort to defeat Proposition 32 could make the difference in a number of tight contests up and down the ballot, including that of Gov. Jerry Brown's tax-hike initiative, Proposition 30. Proposition 32 would eliminate unions' primary political fundraising tool: deductions from members' paychecks.

Mexican President Vicente Fox appointed top executives to the board of Petroleos Mexicanos, hoping to reshape the state-owned oil company's operations and improve profit. The move broke 62 years of tradition in turning to private business rather than the state for new Pemex board members. Fox also said he will revamp tax rules for Pemex, which finances a third of government spending and is required to turn over all its revenue once costs are covered, to help it operate more as a private company.

Cuba put on a lavish welcome for more than 50 U.S. business executives on Friday, urging them to work against an American trade embargo and trying to interest them in now-prohibited business opportunities. "The main argument against the U.S. policy is that it is not working . . . except in damaging U.S. interests," Cuban parliament President Ricardo Alarcon told the group. Since 1961, most U.S. business and travel to Cuba have been restricted by an embargo.

Talk about timing. On Halloween--Oct. 31--John A. Young, a lifelong Republican who last September got on board the Clinton bandwagon in a most public way, retired as chief executive of Silicon Valley computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co. Rumors are now thick that Young, 60, might just scare up a job for his "retirement" years as secretary of commerce for President-elect Bill Clinton.

The economy, about to enter its eighth year of expansion, is likely to continue growing until at least 1991, according to a poll of leading business executives released today. Of 53 chief executives who were asked last week when they estimated a recession would start, 61% thought one would start in 1991 or later, 29% estimated the second half of next year and 10% feared a downturn in the first half of 1990, the National Assn. of Manufacturers said.

President Corazon Aquino announced today that her closest adviser, Executive Secretary Joker Arroyo, is leaving the Cabinet but said the government would "hold fast" to ideals he represents. Arroyo's removal was long demanded by business executives and military groups, including one that led a bloody aborted coup on Aug. 28. The military said Arroyo was sympathetic to the communist rebels, a charge he denied. Aquino's announcement came after she met with Gaston Sigur, U.S.

President Bush headed home today with little to show for a four-day crusade in Japan in which his proclaimed quest for "jobs, jobs, jobs" won a cordial hearing but a less-than-eager reply from the Japanese. "You never get all you want," Bush conceded, while proclaiming his trip a success. But other Administration officials made it clear that the White House is less than satisfied by the details of a U.S.-Japan accord announced here Thursday.

SACRAMENTO - California voters appear poised to reject a November ballot measure that would ban political contributions by payroll deduction, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they opposed Proposition 32, which would eliminate the main fundraising tool of unions. Just 36% said they supported the measure, which would also bar corporations and unions from contributing directly to candidates. Proponents of the measure, having focused squarely on unions in two past attempts to end paycheck deductions for political purposes, adopted the language of the Occupy Wall Street movement this time around and rebranded their campaign as an effort to curb the power of special interests.

In a sign that Americans may be learning to relax on vacation, a new survey found that about half of top business executives did not check in with their offices while on vacation, nearly double the rate compared with two years ago. The survey of 1,400 chief financial officers found that 51% said they don't call their offices while on holiday, compared with 26% in 2010, according to a report by Robert Half Management Resources, a Menlo Park, Calif.,...

Wall Street has tried to ignore the threat posed by Washington failing to raise the debt ceiling. No more. Business executives stepped up appeals this week for political action, worried that the nation faced a crisis, and prepared contingency plans in case the stalemate persists. At Wall Street banks and investment firms, many traders are putting vacation plans on hold so they can be at their desks Aug. 2. "Trading floors Street-wide are unusually well populated for this time of year," said Peter Kenny, a trader at Knight Capital Group.

Los Angeles' mayoral election is still nearly two years away, but the field of candidates already is taking shape. And the race is certain to present voters with starkly different choices about who should run Los Angeles next. More contenders undoubtedly will find themselves drawn to the opportunity, but here are the early candidates to watch. Wendy Greuel L.A.'s controller was the first candidate officially in the race and the only one to have already been elected to citywide office.

For a government official, Nestor Moreno lived pretty large. Moreno, the director of operations for Mexico's nationalized electricity monopoly, drove a $297,000 Ferrari and owned a $1.8-million yacht named Dream Seeker. Moreno couldn't afford these luxuries on his salary at the Federal Electricity Commission in Mexico City. Instead, U.S. prosecutors alleged, they were gifts from an Azusa company that was peddling its electricity transmission equipment to foreign buyers. Now, two executives of privately held Lindsey Manufacturing Co. ?

So it has come to this: Two Republicans who said they would bring cool business acumen to the governorship are, in the last weeks of their primary race, locked in a screaming match over immigration and welfare and the hot insult "liberal." This was not what either Steve Poizner or Meg Whitman said their campaigns were to be about. Poizner's ads last week took two directions, hitting Whitman on character and ideology. In one, he accused her of never having voted in 28 years, a claim Whitman has disputed.

The Bush Administration said Thursday that it will press its deregulation campaign well beyond the 90-day moratorium on new federal regulations and invited business executives to offer suggestions on ways to attack rules that they consider cumbersome. "We are looking for a positive agenda far beyond the 90 days," declared Michael J.

Ventura County business leaders are being called upon to use their influence to promote construction of additional affordable apartments and townhomes, which a local advocate says are desperately needed to accommodate all income levels of the county's work force. Without such an effort, it is unlikely the type of housing needed to attract and retain businesses will be built, said Fred Ferro, chairman of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn.'

The decision by federal regulators to accuse investment powerhouse Goldman Sachs of fraud for actions in the run-up to the market meltdown sent shivers through Wall Street and a jolt of uncertainty into an unlikely venue: California's political races. In something of a rarity, both top-of-the-ticket races — the contests for governor and U.S. Senate — feature competitors from the world of business. Former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina is running for the Republican nomination to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday announced a new fellowship program that would bring young business executives and workers into city government to assist with efforts to create jobs and help companies. The salaries of the six fellows chosen for the program are being paid by private sponsors, and the program is being coordinated by the United Way. Those chosen include a former Navy SEAL, who is now a UCLA business student, and a business manager at a Chatsworth film studio.