CARTAGENA -- Juan Manuel Santos, the leading candidate in presidential elections in Colombia next month, wants to reduce corporate taxes in the country. "We believe in a reduction," he told a group of attendees at the World Economic Forum Latin America in Cartagena today when asked by Latin Business Chronicle whether he would increase or reduce corporate taxes. He said he is evaluating the cost of a reduction to ensure that the net result is positive. Among the benefits of a reduction is to lure more informal business into the formal economy, he said.
More than half -- 58 percent -- of Colombian jobs are in the informal sector,  according to Hernan Jose Gomez, president of the Private Council on Competitiveness and a former Colombian official.  Santos also pledged that his goal was to achieve 5 to 6 percent annual GDP growth for Colombia. To achieve that, he would implement policies aimed at strengthening five key drivers of the economy: low-income housing, agriculture, infrastructure, innovation and mining/hydrocarbons.

I read Counterpunch.com on a regular basis for two reasons. First, I visit the site for its extremely good articles discussing the foreign-policy follies of Western governments. Few sites feature harder-hitting and more consistently anti-interventionist critiques of the policies pursued by Western governments. The second reason I like to visit Counterpunch is to give myself a good laugh. Nothing in the world amuses me more than when self-styled "progressives" attempt to discuss economics. During my most recent perusal of the Counterpunch archives, I stumbled upon an article by Dave Lindorff entitled "Social Security Scare Tactics." The article made me laugh so hard that whiskey came out of my nose (which is, by the way, excruciatingly painful).

WITH each new figure it becomes clearer that Brazil’s brief recession of 2009 was a fall onto a trampoline. The economy is still bouncing upwards: it grew by 2% in the fourth quarter of last year compared with the previous three months, and forecasts are for growth of up to 6% this year. With an election due in October, this is cause for much official self-congratulation. The economy’s new-found resilience has also revived the belief of Brazil’s leaders in the economic role of the state. To mark this year’s 30th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party (PT) its presidential candidate, Dilma Rousseff, gave a long interview for a celebratory book in which she argued that “during the crisis, after the failure of Lehman Brothers, it was [state-controlled] institutions like the Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal and the National Development Bank (BNDES) that prevented the economy from being shipwrecked.” Furthermore, the government pursued “a clear policy to strengthen Petrobras”, the state-controlled energy giant, “rather than to weaken it.” In other words, Brazil’s state capitalism succeeded where the private sector failed.

Stock in Apple /quotes/comstock/15*!aapl/quotes/nls/aapl (AAPL 238.75, +0.26, +0.11%) rose 11 cents to $238.60.The shares finished the regular session up 1.1% following the start of sales of Apple's iPad at Apple Stores and on its Web site, as well as at Best Buy Co. stores. Late-traded Best Buy /quotes/comstock/13*!bby/quotes/nls/bby (BBY 43.38, +0.01, +0.02%) slipped 0.3% to $43.24 in light volume after closing the day session up 1.9%. Apple said it sold more than 300,000 of the devices on the first day of sales in the U.S. The model that went on sale starts at $499 and uses Wi-Fi technology to access the Internet. Another version will go on sale in about a month.