Credit Cards Tips for You

DISCLOSE Act Is Partisan Effort to Silence Critics and Gain Political Advantage
By U.S. Chamber of Commerce,

WASHINGTON, D.C.—U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue issued the following statement today in response to the House Administration Committee’s markup of the so-called “DISCLOSE Act:”

“The DISCLOSE Act is an unconstitutional attempt to silence free speech and a desperate attempt by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen and the immediate past chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senator Chuck Schumer, to gain political advantage in the 2010 elections.

“Congress should not be wasting its time on an ‘Incumbent Protection Act,’ but instead should be focused on job creation. Nothing makes Americans angrier than members of Congress who are more concerned about protecting their own jobs, rather than creating new ones for unemployed constituents.

“Unions, businesses, and individuals all have a constitutionally protected right to free speech that has been upheld by the Supreme Court. The DISCLOSE Act

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Retail sales edged up last month, despite challenging conditions for consumer spending.

Sales increased by 0.3 per cent in April from March, according to the Office for National Statistics. Clothing and footwear retailers enjoyed the biggest boost, with a rise of 2 per cent over the month.

Jörg Radeke, an economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, says: ‘Today’s data supports the picture of an established recovery in the retail sector following the disruptions at the beginning of the year. This is even more remarkable as low earnings growth and above target inflation have a negative impact on spending power.

‘Going forward the retail industry is facing considerable challenges in the form of potential tax increases, rising cost of living and sluggish earnings growth. Against this backdrop, retailers are likely to struggle to keep the modest growth momentum seen over the last couple of months.’

David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, adds: ‘Although these figures were marginally better than expected, they confirm the broad picture of a fragile recovery that is still facing many obstacles.’

In Part 1 of our Summertime Promotional Tips and Strategies, we explained how important it is to get started early on your summer advertising. When Spring is in full bloom, you have very little time left to start promoting summer sales. We offered a few summer advertising tips in Part 1 and are glad to bring you more summer marketing ideas here in Part 2.

• Creative Summer Merchandising and Promotion

  Does your local city have a zoo or other popular tourist attraction? Offer coupons to amusement parks, zoos, national parks, and any other place that people love to go to in the summer. This is a great summer marketing idea to encourage sales of a certain dollar amount and offer free ticket for each purchase at that limit.

  You can also combine products for creative merchandising. Do you sell books? Bring out your book titles related to summer or travel. Promote children’s books with summer stories. You might combine a bottle of sunscreen with a beach towel for a reduced price. Find creative ways you can sell more products or services through merchandising combinations.

• Take Advantage of Holidays and Special Occasions

  Summer holidays are a great time to increase your sales. Y

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By Patrick Emerson
Oregon Economics Blog

As the OPB latest fund-drive comes to a tortured end – ‘just a little more time because we need just a little more money!’ – it seems like a good moment to learn about what economists have learned about charitable giving…You can travel the country and pretty much every public radio station you’ll hear sticks to the same pledge drive script – which makes sense, with so much experience, public radio must have figured out exactly what works and has fine-tuned it to a precise science.

Turns out that there are some things fundraisers have learned that are a bit contrary to what standard economic theory would predict.  Take matching gifts for example: people respond to them but it doesn’t matter if they are one-for-one or more than that – they give the same extra amount either way.  Economic theory would predict that when you increase the marginal benefit of an action we should do more and that this effect should be monotonic – ever increasing.

Another interesting fact is that givers seem to be goal-orientated: Universities always start campaigns in ‘quiet phases’ and don’t go public with them until they have made substantial progress toward that goal. Rightly so it turns out: pe

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High inflation could be the answer to the UK’s debt crisis.

James Hughes, chief economist of Black Swan Capital wealth managers, says: ‘High, potentially double-digit inflation is essential to the recovery of the UK’s economy. The inflation that is heading our way is the most effective medicine for indebtedness, albeit one that is hard to swallow.’

The comments come as the latest consumer price index (CPI) revealed an inflation jump of 3.7 per cent in April, up from 3.4 per cent in March. The Office for National Statistics also reported that the retail price index (RPI), a wider measure of inflation which includes mortgage payments, soared to an 18-year high, reaching 5.3 per cent last month.

Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, blamed higher fuel prices, tax rises on alcohol and VAT changes for the increases.

However, Hughes says inflation will continue to rise: ‘The perfect recipe for high inflation is to spend more than you earn for a few years, ramp up public sector debt and increase money supply faster than the economy is growing — and that’s exactly what the UK has done.??‘But there is often a lag, which is what’s currently lulling some people into thinking there is no real and substantial inflation risk, that inflation will somehow fall back rather than keep rising. This isn’t go

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