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"Say this for Bay Area business leaders: They're an optimistic lot," I wrote in July. Since then, they seem to have contracted a bad case of the economic blues.
According to the Bay Area Council's latest survey, local CEOs are "expressing strong disappointment with the pace of recovery over the past six months and offering an equally unsettled outlook for significant improvement in the coming six months."
The council's business confidence index - based on responses from 450 CEOs and top executives in the nine Bay Area counties - has plummeted 11 points, from 62 to 51, since the spring survey. That's the biggest quarterly drop since 2002. "Many of those whose attitudes have shifted now believe economic conditions will generally remain the same or worsen slightly over the coming months," the report says.
Compare that with the council's last quarterly report, when two-thirds of those surveyed thought the local economy was not only better but would continue to improve.
So, unless the CEOs regain their previously sunny disposition, don't expect a noticeable uptick in hiring anytime soon. Sixty percent of the executives surveyed said their workforce will stay the same over the next six months. Almost a fifth said they're looking at layoffs, with just 21 percent planning additions to their payroll. A major obstacle to hiring: rising health care costs, the business leaders say.
"Controlling health care cost is one of our top priorities as we work with state legislators and others to influence how national health care reform gets implemented here in California," said council CEO Jim Wunderman.
Business leaders in the leisure and hospitality industries, and those in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, are more positive about the future than those in the construction, manufacturing and retail trades, or who are running businesses in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Those in the public sector, unsurprisingly, are the gloomiest of all.
"The drop in business confidence is consistent with what we're seeing nationwide, although our region's comparative economic advantages" - access to capital, proximity to global markets, the entrepreneurial spirit - "offer a ray of sunshine," said Lenny Mendonca, a director at McKinsey & Co. and past chairman of the Bay Area Council.
The power of more positive thinking might help a bit, too. (The complete report will be posted on the council's website, www.bayareacouncil.org, this morning.)
New "Amazon tax" bill: With the war between Amazon.com and the state of California now over, attention is shifting to Washington, where, all sides agree, the issue of online retailers paying sales tax needs to be settled nationally.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, offered a bipartisan bill Wednesday that seeks to do just that.
The Marketplace Equity Act, co-written by Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., requires online companies, such as Amazon and Overstock.com, to collect and remit sales taxes on goods sold in states that require the tax payment, whether the companies have a physical presence there or not.
Such legislation would supersede a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows Amazon and other online retailers to avoid paying sales taxes in states where they say they have no physical presence, or "nexus."
Unlike a similar bill introduced last year by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Speier's bill would not require California and other states to sign on to the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, which seeks to simplify and make uniform sales-tax procedures and covers 44 states.
Amazon, however, supports Durbin's bill and the Streamlined Sales initiative, which California and other large states have consistently rejected on the grounds that it limits their taxing authority.
"Ours is a different model," Speier said. "It doesn't trample on states' rights. It allows states to choose whether to impose the tax, how to collect it - or not to impose it at all."
The bill also contains an exemption for smaller online retailers with sales of no more than $100,000 in an individual state per year, or no more than $1 million nationally.
Speier's bill has the backing of the influential Retail Industry Leaders Association and a California coalition including state Board of Equalization Member Betty Yee and the California Retailers Association, which was instrumental in pushing California's law.
According to the Bay Area Council's latest survey, local CEOs are "expressing strong disappointment with the pace of recovery over the past six months and offering an equally unsettled outlook for significant improvement in the coming six months."
The council's business confidence index - based on responses from 450 CEOs and top executives in the nine Bay Area counties - has plummeted 11 points, from 62 to 51, since the spring survey. That's the biggest quarterly drop since 2002. "Many of those whose attitudes have shifted now believe economic conditions will generally remain the same or worsen slightly over the coming months," the report says.
Compare that with the council's last quarterly report, when two-thirds of those surveyed thought the local economy was not only better but would continue to improve.
So, unless the CEOs regain their previously sunny disposition, don't expect a noticeable uptick in hiring anytime soon. Sixty percent of the executives surveyed said their workforce will stay the same over the next six months. Almost a fifth said they're looking at layoffs, with just 21 percent planning additions to their payroll. A major obstacle to hiring: rising health care costs, the business leaders say.
"Controlling health care cost is one of our top priorities as we work with state legislators and others to influence how national health care reform gets implemented here in California," said council CEO Jim Wunderman.
Business leaders in the leisure and hospitality industries, and those in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, are more positive about the future than those in the construction, manufacturing and retail trades, or who are running businesses in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Those in the public sector, unsurprisingly, are the gloomiest of all.
"The drop in business confidence is consistent with what we're seeing nationwide, although our region's comparative economic advantages" - access to capital, proximity to global markets, the entrepreneurial spirit - "offer a ray of sunshine," said Lenny Mendonca, a director at McKinsey & Co. and past chairman of the Bay Area Council.
The power of more positive thinking might help a bit, too. (The complete report will be posted on the council's website, www.bayareacouncil.org, this morning.)
New "Amazon tax" bill: With the war between Amazon.com and the state of California now over, attention is shifting to Washington, where, all sides agree, the issue of online retailers paying sales tax needs to be settled nationally.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, offered a bipartisan bill Wednesday that seeks to do just that.
The Marketplace Equity Act, co-written by Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., requires online companies, such as Amazon and Overstock.com, to collect and remit sales taxes on goods sold in states that require the tax payment, whether the companies have a physical presence there or not.
Such legislation would supersede a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows Amazon and other online retailers to avoid paying sales taxes in states where they say they have no physical presence, or "nexus."
Unlike a similar bill introduced last year by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Speier's bill would not require California and other states to sign on to the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, which seeks to simplify and make uniform sales-tax procedures and covers 44 states.
Amazon, however, supports Durbin's bill and the Streamlined Sales initiative, which California and other large states have consistently rejected on the grounds that it limits their taxing authority.
"Ours is a different model," Speier said. "It doesn't trample on states' rights. It allows states to choose whether to impose the tax, how to collect it - or not to impose it at all."
The bill also contains an exemption for smaller online retailers with sales of no more than $100,000 in an individual state per year, or no more than $1 million nationally.
Speier's bill has the backing of the influential Retail Industry Leaders Association and a California coalition including state Board of Equalization Member Betty Yee and the California Retailers Association, which was instrumental in pushing California's law.
"It's a more realistic approach to the problem that potentially can get broad support from retailers and the states," said Bill Dombrowski, president of the California Retailers Association. "That should lead to bipartisan legislative support."
That's what Speier is hoping for. The next step, she said, is to get more signatures on the bill, from both sides of the aisle, before handing it over to the congressional sausage machine.
Whatever happens, California will begin collecting online sales tax from Amazon and others by September - unless, come January 2013, by some miracle, federal legislation actually gets passed.
Perfect timing: On Tuesday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to seek trade sanctions against China unless it stops what the bill's supporters (and many others) say is China's deliberate undervaluing of its currency. Much controversy and angry finger-pointing ensues.
On Saturday, the University of San Francisco is hosting a conference on "the globalization of the Chinese yuan and its effect on financial markets worldwide." Executives from Merrill Lynch, HSBC, Silicon Valley Bank, IBM, Cisco Systems and Chinese companies Huawei and Neusoft are slated to attend.
The program is "designed to help achieve a deeper understanding of the key issues and challenges involved with doing business in China," said Stanley Kwong, director of China programs at USF.
No wonder the conference (at USF's Lone Mountain Conference Center, 1:30 to 6 p.m.) is fully booked. But I'm told more seats may be added, and if you're interested in the free conference, e-mail stanley.kwong@yahoo.com.
That's what Speier is hoping for. The next step, she said, is to get more signatures on the bill, from both sides of the aisle, before handing it over to the congressional sausage machine.
Whatever happens, California will begin collecting online sales tax from Amazon and others by September - unless, come January 2013, by some miracle, federal legislation actually gets passed.
Perfect timing: On Tuesday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to seek trade sanctions against China unless it stops what the bill's supporters (and many others) say is China's deliberate undervaluing of its currency. Much controversy and angry finger-pointing ensues.
On Saturday, the University of San Francisco is hosting a conference on "the globalization of the Chinese yuan and its effect on financial markets worldwide." Executives from Merrill Lynch, HSBC, Silicon Valley Bank, IBM, Cisco Systems and Chinese companies Huawei and Neusoft are slated to attend.
The program is "designed to help achieve a deeper understanding of the key issues and challenges involved with doing business in China," said Stanley Kwong, director of China programs at USF.
No wonder the conference (at USF's Lone Mountain Conference Center, 1:30 to 6 p.m.) is fully booked. But I'm told more seats may be added, and if you're interested in the free conference, e-mail stanley.kwong@yahoo.com.
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