Archives

April 11, 2014 - How TV networks embrace phone use during viewing

U.S. Chamber of Commerce by Esther Shein How often have you watched a TV show and wanted to look something up about an actor or find out more about a scene while you watch? So has Zane Vella. As the former software developer sees it, timeline-based metadata is the “missing […]


April 9, 2014 - A business outlook on 2014 Primary candidates

Associated Oregon Industries Oregon’s largest business advocate Two things.  First, would State Senator Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) face a primary challenge from the left? On some very key business, management, and environmental issues, Senator Johnson has joined with Republicans to block measures harmful to Oregon’s business community. With a slim 16-14 […]


April 8, 2014 - Annual Sessions bad for business, Oregon

By Jan Meekcoms Oregon NFIB Just like Oregon, Wyoming voters were sold on the need for annual Legislative sessions. Unlike Oregon, Wyoming was wooed into annual sessions for the purpose of fine tuning the state budget and dealing with emergency matters – that’s all, just the budget and any emergency […]


April 7, 2014 - Top Court rules on severance pay & taxes

By Bullard Law, Portland law firm BENEFITS UPDATE SEVERANCE PAY, EMPLOYMENT TAXES AND THE SUPREME COURT Thomas Kramer, Employers sometimes provide severance pay to departing employees, whether as part of a severance pay plan or policy, an individual separation agreement or to settle a dispute between the employer and the […]


April 3, 2014 - How good are CEO’s at predicting the economy?

By Economist Dr. Eric Fruits, Econinternational Results from the Business Roundtable’s first quarter 2014 CEO Economic Outlook Survey show a moderate uptick in CEO expectations for hiring, sales and capital expenditures and some improvement in the Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook Index. The first graph in the press release shows the CEO […]


April 2, 2014 - Business rates Legislature on votes

Associated Oregon Industries Oregon’s largest business advocate 2013-2014 Biennium AOI records legislator’s votes (floor and committee) on a selection of bills on which AOI took clear positions and reports the resultant scores to its 1,400 members throughout the state. Votes are tabulated as Opposed or Supportive of AOI policy. As […]


April 1, 2014 - Oregon, Alcohol & Demand

By Josh Lehner Oregon Office of Economic Analysis Blog Mark recently gave a presentation to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission in which he detailed consumption trends by age, income, occupation, city size and the like, based on the consumer expenditure survey data our office has been diving into a lot […]


March 31, 2014 - New rules on employee criminal-credit background checks

Davis Dwight & Tremaine LLP Oregon business law firm New Guidance for Employers Conducting Background Checks By Angela Galloway Employers who investigate workers’ criminal or credit backgrounds may want to review federal guidelines released March 10. The joint publication of the Federal Trade Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission provides detailed […]


March 28, 2014 - Lessons from Colorado’s pot tax

By Jeffrey Miron Director of undergraduate studies at Harvard, Director of economic policy studies at Cato The Colorado Department of Revenue earlier this month released its first data on the tax, fee and license revenue from legalized marijuana sales in the state. For January, the figure is $3.5 million when […]


March 27, 2014 - Oregon’s war on vaping

By Jabob Grier, Portland Writer Liquidity Preference Blog The Oregon legislature recently failed to pass completely sensible restrictions on selling e-cigarettes to minor, an effort undermined by more extreme anti-smokers who were more intent on banning vaping in workplaces, bars, and restaurants. In today’s Oregonian, I write about lawmakers’ misguided […]