By Richard CowanWASHINGTON, Oct 18 (Reuters) - A sweeping, bipartisan plan
developed earlier this year to cut $3.7 trillion from U.S.
deficits will be discussed on Wednesday by the special
congressional deficit-reduction panel, aides said on Tuesday.The wide-ranging deficit-reduction plan was crafted in the
U.S. Senate by the so-called “Gang of Six” several months ago.It called for tackling U.S. government budget deficits on
three main fronts: reducing security and non-security
discretionary spending; imposing some reforms on the costly
Medicare healthcare program for the elderly; and reforming the
U.S. tax code to capture at least $1 trillion in additional
revenues.Gang of Six members “are coming in to have a discussion”
with the “super committee” on deficit-reduction that is trying
to find at least $1.2 trillion in savings over the next 10
years, a committee aide told Reuters.The Gang of Six — three Democratic and three Republican
members of the Senate — got a lot of attention earlier this
year when it unveiled the outline of a plan to cut U.S.
deficits by around $3.7 trillion over 10 years.At the time, it was the only bipartisan deficit-reduction
plan composed in a bitterly divided Congress. A significant
part of its work was based on the findings in December of a
presidential deficit-reduction commission that called for about
$4 trillion in government savings over a decade with a mix of
spending cuts and revenue increases.But a contentious fight in the summer between Democratic
President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans over
increasing U.S. borrowing authority stopped the Gang of Six
dead in its tracks.SECOND LOOKNow, as the super committee races against a Nov. 23
deadline for a majority of the 12-member panel to find at least
$1.2 trillion in savings — on top of the $917 billion enacted
in early August — the Gang of Six ideas are getting a second
look.It was not clear whether the super committee was interested
in particular elements of the Gang of Six plan or whether it
wanted to “go big,” as some members of Congress have been
urging, by crafting a deficit-reduction plan that exceeds its
$1.2 trillion minimum.A larger budget-cutting plan would hearten Wall Street and
credit rating agencies. In August, Standard and Poor’s cut the
U.S. AAA credit rating one notch amid chaos in Washington over
budgets and the government debt limit.The super committee has been meeting in secret and some
budget watchers in the private sector have speculated that it
was having a difficult time coming up with even the $1.2
trillion.Since the summer, the Gang of Six has grown to around 40
senators from both political parties who have endorsed its
goals, according to one Senate aide.That represents a significant portion of the 100-member
Senate, where a simple majority will be needed by the end of
this year to pass any super committee plan.Among the major elements of the Gang of Six program are:
Spending caps on discretionary government programs through
2015, changing the measure of inflation to slow the growth of
Social Security benefits and cutting Medicare costs while
maintaining “the essential healthcare services that the poor
and elderly rely upon,” according to a summary.On taxes, the Gang of Six called for simplifying the tax
code by reducing the number of special tax breaks and by
setting three brackets with income tax rates of 8-12 percent,
14-22 percent and 23-29 percent.The Gang of Six also called for repealing the Alternative
Minimum Tax that initially was aimed at the wealthiest but
increasingly threatens to hit middle-class taxpayers.Corporate tax rates would be 23-29 percent, down from the
current 35 percent.
By Sarah MarshBERLIN, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Germany’s 30 top companies set
voluntary targets on Monday to raise the number of women in
leadership positions, in the hope of averting legally imposed
quotas as a campaign to smash the glass ceiling gains momentum.While the political leader of Europe’s largest economy is a
woman, corporate management is still heavily dominated by men.
There was not a single woman on the management board of a
blue-chip firm until 2008, and today only 3.7 percent of top
German managers are female.Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet is at odds over whether
legislation is the right tool to help women penetrate the
commanding heights of business. Both Family Affairs Minister
Kristina Schroeder and Merkel have so far rejected the idea of
setting a legal quota.Schroeder welcomed Monday’s voluntary targets as serious
progress, but Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen called them
“insufficient” and suggested a legal quota may be necessary.Some other European countries, such as Norway, France and
Spain, require top listed companies by law to ensure at least a
third of top management is female.Germany’s blue-chip companies, listed on the DAX
index, published striking data on the representation of women at
leadership levels as well as the new targets.”We will let ourselves be publicly assessed year by year on
what we have actually achieved,” said BMW’s personnel manager
Harald Krueger, on behalf of firms in the DAX index.In March, Germany’s blue-chip companies agreed to set
voluntary targets to boost the number of women at management
levels and on Monday, they published their concrete aims,
varying from company to company.Sporting goods maker Adidas (ADSGn.DE) set itself the most
ambitious target of 32-35 percent leadership positions going to
women by 2015. Some 48 percent of its staff are women.Healthcare conglomerate Fresenius was the only
company to refuse to set a numerical target, saying it would
“continue to make qualification and not gender or other personal
attributes the criterion for selecting staff”.Some 71 percent of the company’s German staff are women,
while 19.1 percent of its German leadership positions are held
by women. The firm said it would continue to raise this level.Von der Leyen noted that the blue-chip firms did not propose
targets for raising the proportion of women at the very top
executive levels — currently just 3.7 percent.”This is a seriously below-grade number for the 21st
century, it just cannot continue like this,” she said.Monday’s data threw up some striking numbers. While 61.2
percent of retailer Metro’s German staff are women,
just 14.9 percent of leaders are women.
The app, called Trippy, links the users with friends in their social networks who have information on a particular city, either through living, studying, or traveling there, who can offer recommendations.”We’re in a less is more time now. If you want information on Tokyo, there are a thousand different sites, each with a thousand different ideas, reviews and comments that you’re forced to sift through,” said J.R. Johnson, founder and CEO of Trippy.”You need your friends who know you best to narrow the field and tell you where you should be spending your time.”The app is based on the idea that friends have an understanding of the likes and dislikes and the personal circumstances of the person planning the trip.It also allows users to access their itinerary while traveling, along with their friends’ tips for each venue. Each venue is plotted on a map, complete with its address and phone number.Users can also create a trip album and share photos directly from the venues that their friends recommended.”That’s something that falls through the cracks sometimes. Getting that thank you or acknowledgement back that they took you up on something you said,” said Johnson.Hotels can be booked directly through the Trippy website, which is how the company plans to generate revenue.Although there are many companies building applications on the social graph to deliver personalized recommendations, Johnson said the travel industry has been slow to adopt the technology.”In 1999, user-generated content was new and hot, and crowd-sourcing was what everyone was talking about at the time,” said Johnson, who founded travel review website VirtualTourist, which was bought by Expedia in 2008.But Johnson said fake reviews have hindered the crowd-sourcing model. He cited a recent study by Cornell University researchers who developed a computer algorithm for detecting bogus reviews on hotel websites.”If people are building algorithms to detect this then you know it’s a big problem,” he said.Competitors include Gogobot, a similar travel site that is also aiming to tailor travel recommendations based on a user’s social network, although there is less emphasis on the collaborative aspect.The Trippy app is available on the iTunes store.
