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The man polls say has the best shot at becoming France’s next president wants to hire thousands more teachers, renegotiate Europe’s expensive, hard-won bailout package, and re-assess his country’s role in both Afghanistan and NATO.

But Socialist Francois Hollande appeals less for his platform than for his persona: the innocuous, intellectual everyman is many things that conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy is not.

Hollande, 57, is tapping into a French zeitgeist wary of international finance, weary of Sarkozy’s “bling-bling” personality and eager for change. While countries in struggling Europe shift to the right, France may hand the presidency to the left for the first time in a generation, with repercussions for the continent’s direction and France’s future.

Part of Hollande’s appeal is his Mr. Nice Guy image, but he still must convince voters that he’s got what it takes to run a complex, nuclear-armed nation and one of the world’s biggest economies.

Hollande isn’t the only leftist making headlines in this campaign: Firebrand far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon has amassed some of the biggest crowds so far at rallies blanketed in red communist flags. Melenchon, with the charisma that the mainstream Hollande lacks, is complicating the political calculus.

French voters kick off the balloting in two weeks, with 10 candidates from across the political spectrum facing off in a first-round vote on April 22 that will winnow the race down to two.

While Hollande has slipped a little in recent weeks, polls have suggested for months that he would win the expected two-man finale against Sarkozy on May 6 by a broad margin.

The economic crisis in Europe has felled many governments in recent years. A Hollande victory could break from a recent rightward trend in the continent, and put France out of step with other big European countries like Germany, Spain, Britain and Poland _ all run by center-right or conservative leaders. Italy, hobbled by a debt crisis, is led by technocrat Mario Monti.

Some of Hollande’s major proposals could raise eyebrows abroad: As governments enact austerity measures elsewhere in Europe, he wants to hire thousands more teachers. He wants to scrap a European bailout package led by Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He has pledged to pull all French combat troops out of Afghanistan by year-end, and says that pledge would be the first thing he tells allies at a NATO summit in Chicago in May.

For many in France, the time seems ripe for a return to a Socialist president: the only one in postwar France was Francois Mitterrand, from 1981 to 1995; throw-the-bums-out has been an election theme in Europe; Sarkozy, in part for reasons of personal style, has been unpopular for years; and the financial crisis and debt crises in Europe have emboldened the left.

Hollande is seen as more of a consensus manager and a listener than visionary. For much of his tenure as party first secretary from 1997 to 2008, he served mostly as a water carrier for party elders _ and only now is coming into his own.

His advisers insist to a foreign reporter that Hollande is no old-school Socialist, but a social democrat wary of the economic challenges coming from 21st-century powers like China and India.

Yet while major parties of the left in Europe reformed and tacked toward the political center in recent years _ like Gerhard Schroeder’s Socialists in Germany, or Britain’s Labour party under Tony Blair, the Socialists in France eschewed such a move.

And when he speaks to the French faithful, Hollande’s class-warfare style rhetoric _ inveighing against the financial world that he calls his “adversary”, and demanding justice for the underclass _ often draws cheers.

Hollande, who once quipped “I don’t like the rich” on TV, got a recent boost in the polls after he announced a proposal to slap a 75-percent tax on income beyond the first (EURO)1 million ($1.3 million) earned each year.

Hollande on Wednesday drew thousands who spilled out of two warehouses at a convention center near the city of Rennes, in the heart of the left-leaning region of Brittany.

The highlight was Hollande’s appearance alongside Segolene Royal, his longtime partner and mother of his four children. Royal, who is also Socialist, was the party’s nominee in 2007 _ and lost handily to Sarkozy payday advance. Hollande and Royal split not long after that election.

On stage, Hollande and Royal appeared just seconds together, and the body language was uncomfortable: they clasped hands from a distance, and smiled to the cheering throng. But the message _ party unity _ was clear. His new romantic partner, political journalist Valerie Trierweiler, looked on from a seat in the crowd.

Hollande’s near 90-minute speech covered his platform: A focus on education, job support for French youths facing high jobless rates, equal pay for women, respect for culture and ethnic diversity. Sarkozy has structured his campaign on a theme of a “strong France.”

Hollande claimed that Sarkozy, who took office promising economic growth, fiscal responsibility and competitiveness in France, had failed on all _ and promised more responsible Socialist leadership.

“People say to us, ‘Watch out, the left is back, it’s going to empty the (state) coffers.’ It’s already happened! ‘Watch out, if the left is back, it’ll raise the debt’. It’s already happened! ‘The Left will hurt competitiveness’ _ It’s already happened,” he thundered. “Well, we’ll do the opposite.”

The rich, he said, will be asked to pay more, and more money will be redistributed “to allow France to pick itself up.”

Unlike Sarkozy rallies, where a preppier crowd often hoists tricolor French flags in abundance, the Rennes gathering mostly brought out young students and retirees.

His campaign has been textbook: He launched a 60-point platform months ago, hewing to many Socialist tenets. At times, he comes across as stiff and cautious, but has made no big gaffes.

Hollande’s biggest challenge has been to try to project presidential caliber. While his pedigree is top-tier as a graduate of the Ecole National d’Administration _ the French breeding-ground school for both political and corporate elites like former President Jacques Chirac _ he has never run a government ministry.

Under his tenure as party boss, the Socialists suffered one of the biggest shockers in recent French political history: Lionel Jospin lost the first round to far-right nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 presidential race, later won by Chirac. Hollande calls it the biggest blow of his career and one he won’t soon forget.

Hollande was born in the Normandy city of Rouen, the son of a social-worker mother who he admired and a doctor father who backed the political right and whose ideas “forced me to construct my ideas,” Hollande writes in his campaign-season book entitled “Changer de Destin” (Change Destiny).

On Les Guignols de l’Info, a satirical fake news show with puppets, Hollande has long been depicted as innocent, wide-eyed and soft-in-the-middle _ with a dopey, hollow laugh.

But in the Sarkozy era, he’s tapped into frustration about unemployment and perceived economic inequality. While Sarkozy, a former hard-charging Interior Minister, has trotted out his longtime formula of playing up his security credentials, Hollande has focused on what polls show worry the French most: joblessness and the economy.

The body language at the lectern _ where both Sarkozy and Hollande can excel _ speaks volumes. Hollande often leans on his elbows, or flails his arms about in the air, and laughs. Sarkozy cuts the air in crisp movements, and is seemingly less about engaging his audience than displaying resoluteness.

People who have known Hollande for years say his human touch and his assiduousness _ often unseen _ at the ground game of politics set him apart.

“What you notice most about Francois is that he’s well-balanced, has integrity, and feels good about himself,” said Frederic Bourcier, the Socialist Party’s First Secretary in the region around Rennes, alluding to the image of Sarkozy as hasty, tempestuous and aggressive. “We need something new.”

He also said Hollande had reworked himself, with an image makeover ahead of the campaign that included trimming his midsection, and that could serve as an inspiration for the country.

“This guy is tailor-made for France nowadays,” Bourcier said.

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Singapore

Wait _ haven’t we seen this movie before?

Companies are generating waves of jobs, and unemployment is down.

The same thing happened last year around this time. Then everything faded to black starting with the earthquake in Japan, which struck a year ago Sunday.

Does a happier ending await the job market this time? Economists seem to think so.

For reasons ranging from progress on Europe’s debt crisis to a slowly improving housing market to slightly less gridlock in Congress, the economy and the job market appear better able to withstand setbacks than they were in 2011.

“The internal dynamics of the U.S. economy look pretty good right now,” says Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Asset Management.

U.S. employers added 227,000 jobs in February, the third straight month of 200,000-plus job growth. The unemployment rate remained 8.3 percent, but it was 9 percent as recently as September. By all measures, the job market is strengthening by the month.

Then again, the numbers can conjure an unsettling sense of deja vu. Last year, the job market had a similar three-month run. From February through April, the economy added an average 239,000 jobs each month.

Helping drive that growth was a new Social Security tax cut that put more money in paychecks for 160 million Americans. The tax cut gives $1,000 a year, or nearly $20 a week, to someone making $50,000. It gives up to $4,272 or roughly $82 a week, to a household with two high-paid workers.

The Social Security tax cut was supposed to expire at the end of 2011. But under election-year pressure, Congress has extended it through 2012.

On top of that, a bond-buying program by the Federal Reserve drove interest rates on mortgages and other consumer loans to historic lows.

Yet just as things were perking up, a freeze descended on the economy and job market.

The March 11 earthquake and tsunami cut off supplies from Japanese factories to U.S. and other manufacturers. The Arab Spring protests escalated oil prices. And gasoline prices followed them up, to a painful $3.98 a gallon by mid-May.

A clash in Washington over the federal debt limit brought the nation to the verge of default and sapped consumer and business confidence. Europe’s debt crisis panicked investors and further shook confidence.

From May through August last year, job growth averaged less than 80,000 a month before regaining strength in the fall.

Economists expect the 2012 sequel to improve on the 2011 original. Here are seven reasons the job market appears on surer footing this time:

_ COMPANIES CAN’T SQUEEZE MORE OUTPUT FROM WORKERS

During and right after the Great Recession, companies shrank their work forces because demand plunged and fewer workers were needed.

Once demand started growing again, companies were reluctant to hire immediately. They managed to produce more with the employees they had. But now many companies are finding they can’t continue to do more with less. As demand grows, they’re finding they have to hire.

_ CONSUMERS ARE STURDIER

Since the recession, households have cut their debts and rebuilt savings. One key measure of household debt burdens _ debt payments as a percentage of after-tax income _ is at its lowest point since 1994, according to the Federal Reserve.

“Consumer finances are fundamentally healthier than they were,” says Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.

As the labor market has healed, Americans have worried less about losing their jobs. As a result, they’re less likely to curtail spending _ even in the face of shocks such as a 29-cent jump in gasoline prices in the past month to an average $3.78 a gallon.

_ TENSIONS EASE IN WASHINGTON

The debt-limit showdown waged last summer between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans rattled confidence in America’s leadership. It looked as if the United States might default on its debts for the first time in history because leaders couldn’t reach a deal.

Since then, thanks in part to election-year pressures, tensions have eased. Republicans dropped threats to let the payroll tax expire. And in an unusual show of cooperation, House lawmakers from both parties backed a bill last week to make it easier for small businesses to obtain financing they need to hire and expand.

_ HOUSING IS INCHING BACK

The collapse of real estate lies at the heart of America’s economic problems. House prices have plunged 30 percent since 2006. The drop has wiped out $7 trillion in homeowners’ equity. Millions of construction workers have lost jobs.

Now, there are tentative signs of recovery. Apartment construction is growing. Construction jobs are slowly returning. Home builders are seeing more foot traffic and gaining confidence that sales will pick up in the spring buying season.

No one expects another boom. But real estate is no longer subtracting from U.S. employment. And there’s hope among economists that higher sales could stop prices from falling further by spring.

Once home prices stabilize, more people will likely decide it’s time to buy. And consumers who worry less about a loss of home equity _ the main source of wealth for most people _ are more likely to keep spending.

_ STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT CUTS SLOWING

The Great Recession and the housing collapse dried up tax revenue for state and local governments. Many were forced to lay off teachers and other public workers. Since December 2008, state and local governments have slashed 613,000 jobs, offsetting some of the hiring by private companies.

But the cuts appear to be easing. State governments have added 10,000 jobs so far this year. Local governments last month added 2,000 _ a modest total but only the third increase in two years.

“There’s only so many teachers you can cut, so many police officers, so many firemen,” says Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Economics.

_ EUROPE’S THREAT HAS SUBSIDED

Investors panicked last year over the prospect that Greece and some other European countries would default on their debts, stick banks with huge losses and trigger a global credit crunch. Such fears sent stocks tumbling and helped diminish U.S. consumer confidence in the second half of 2012.

But confidence is rebounding. Greece has received a $172 billion bailout, pushing back the threat of a destructive default. And the European Central Bank has made more than $1.3 trillion in low-rate three-year loans to banks since December, making clear it won’t let the European banking system fail.

_ U.S. BANKS LENDING MORE TO BUSINESSES

After the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers shook the financial system, U.S. banks cut loans to businesses in 2009 and 2010. The credit crunch fed the economy’s misery by starving many companies of financing needed to grow and hire.

But banks are healthier now. So are the prospects for their business customers. Bank lending to businesses rose nearly 14 percent last year to $1.35 trillion, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Loans to small businesses grew at the end of last year for the first time since the FDIC started tracking them nearly two years ago.

William Dunkelberg, chief economist of the National Federal of Independent Business, says the outlook for hiring by small businesses offers “a better picture than we have seen for years.”

Economists are still cautious. A shock like the Japanese quake or further Middle East turmoil could always reverse the gains. Ever-higher oil prices would hurt. And even with the improvements, the recovery from the 2007-2009 remains weaker than past recoveries.

But economists say the job market has likely gained enough momentum to avoid a repeat of mid-2011’s gut-churning drop.

“This year will not be the same,” PNC’s Hoffman says. “We won’t be sitting here in six months saying, `Uh-oh, it was another false dawn.’”

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The tax bills of Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett raise a long-running question: Why do Americans get taxed less on their investment gains than on their paychecks?

In fact, for much of the past century, long-term capital gains have been taxed at lower rates than ordinary income, although often at levels higher than today’s 15% rate.

And for much of the past century it’s been a contentious issue.

One side says preferential treatment for capital gains is just plain unfair. The tax code, they say, is being used to help the rich get richer, since they make more of their income from capital gains than anyone else.

Their solution: Tax capital gains as regular income.

Then there’s the counter argument — that capital gains, if anything, should be taxed more lightly, or better yet, not at all.

Capital gains are double taxed: One of the principal arguments for taxing capital gains at a lower rate is double taxation.

The corporate tax ’shell’ game

It goes like this: Stock prices are bolstered by corporate profits, which are subject to corporate tax. Therefore, gains made on stocks have already been taxed.

Tax experts like Len Burman and Martin Sullivan say that double taxation is dumb — actually, they’re more likely to use the term "inefficient."

But they also note the limitations of the double-taxation argument: Some capital gains really are only taxed once.

For instance, some assets that produce capital gains are not subject to a corporate tax. Think real estate, art or a pass-through business.

And some capital gains escape taxation altogether. A beneficiary of an estate does not owe tax on the capital gains accrued on an asset during the lifetime of the person who died.

Many gains are just inflation: One reason to keep capital gains rates lower is inflation. That is, some portion of one’s gains can be attributed to inflation between the purchase and sale of an asset. And sometimes it’s the whole kahuna.

Tax expert Bruce Bartlett, in a 2001 paper, cited research showing that after accounting for inflation investors booked a real investment loss of $231 billion on nominal gains of $3 trillion between 1946 and 1977.

Where the candidates stand on capital gains

To help mitigate the inflation hit, lawmakers have typically taxed capital gains at a lower rate than ordinary income or let investors exclude some portion of their gains from taxation.

A lower rate spurs the economy: The most common argument for a lower gains rate is that it spurs investment and risk-taking, which can lead to economic growth and higher federal revenue.

Burman doesn’t doubt a lower rate might spur investment and risk-taking. But there’s no proven correlation with economic growth, he said. "It doesn’t prove there’s not a relationship. It’s just not the silver bullet it’s made out to be."

In part that may be because it’s hard to quantify risk-taking, Bartlett noted in his new book about tax reform, "The Benefit and the Burden." But he also asserts that that impact of a lower gains rate on growth is "ambiguous."

Policy experts worry that a high capital gains rate can cause investors to hold onto assets longer than they otherwise might, preventing them from using their gains to reinvest in other assets.

Then again, some say a higher rate won’t deter investors.

"I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9% in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain," billionaire investor Warren Buffett wrote in a New York Times op-ed.

Possible solutions

A lot of arguments made to justify a low capital gains rate are really about "general flaws with the tax system, not a reason to lower the capital gains rate per se," Burman said.

One argument for not singling out capital gains for special relief: They are not the only kind of capital income that can be double taxed or hurt by inflation. So are dividends.

And creating special tax breaks for capital gains gives people a reason to seek out tax shelters.

One proposed solution is to tax capital gains and dividends as ordinary income but significantly lower ordinary income tax rates.

That was the recommendation of President Obama’s bipartisan debt commission and the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force. And it’s what President Reagan and Congress did when they reformed the tax code in 1986.

"If you tax capital gains as ordinary income it raises a lot of revenue to cut other rates," said Burman, who worked on the 1986 reform and was a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center task force.

"It maintains high progressivity while lowering rates and it closes down the biggest opportunity for tax shelters." 

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Amy Hake and Jon Hambach are in love.  They just don’t have a marriage license.

They do live together. They have a joint bank account, a jointly-owned car and they’re buying a house together in Warrenton.

“We love each other deeply. Marriage will come eventually,” says Jon, 24.

Why not tie the knot now? “We wouldn’t have any money left,” laughs Amy, 23. “Weddings are terribly expensive.”

Lots of people live together before marriage. So, let’s take a look at some of the money and legal issues that entails.

Come January, Amy will go back to college to finish her degree, which means money will be tighter and Jon will have to carry more of the financial load on his salary as a systems installer for CenturyLink. He’s cool with that.

Money is a major cause of arguments among couples. For husbands, financial disagreements are the strongest predictor of divorce, according to research by Jeffrey Dew of Utah State University. For wives, both financial and sexual disputes predict divorce, but financial arguments were a much better predictor.

Because of such complications, live-ins should keep their finances separate, Bridget Brennan, a “marriage educator” at St. Louis Healthy Families.  They should agree in advance how they’ll cover joint bills.

Often, the conflict stems from different ways that people view money; some see it as a means to security, and sock it away. To others, it’s a means to fun.

“If she shops at Plaza Frontenac and you go to J.C. Penney’s, you’d better be aware of that,” says Brennan. “The spender will resent the saver. It turns into a control issue and nagging.”

Counselors suggest couples talk frankly about money before moving in together. Watch your potential mate’s behavior, says Brennan. Can you live with their money habits?

Jon and Amy have known each other since grammar school. They had the money talk and decided they were on the same beam.

“We both grew up, not poor, but without a lot of excess money,” says Amy. “We believe in saving, and having a rainy day fund, but we want to enjoy things too.”

That’s why they’re buying a house. They have a dog and want a second one. That would be a no-no in their current rental.

They got a good deal, says their real estate agent, Steve Magnum of Coldwell Banker Gundaker. They’re paying $95,000 for a ranch-style house that sold for $141,000 new about five years ago.

Jon and Amy seem headed for bliss. But it’s worth looking at what happens when unmarried people break up after living together.

Divorce law doesn’t apply, of course. There’s no community property. (Illinois’ does provide divorce for people legally joined in civil unions. Missouri doesn’t allow civil unions no fax pay day loans.)

There’s no such thing as “palimony” under Missouri and Illinois law. One partner will have no claim on the other’s income, says Joe Cordell, senior parter at the Cordell and Cordell law firm, which specializes in divorce.

Neither state recognizes a “common law marriage” among long-term live-ins.

Instead, the law treats ex-lovers like partners breaking up a business. What counts is what’s on paper. If a house is in one partner’s name, it doesn’t matter if the other helped pay the mortgage for all those years. Oral agreements aren’t enforceable in real estate.

If property is jointly owned, and the partners can’t agree, the court will probably order the property sold and the proceeds split between them, says Cordell.

Partners can regulate those things through separate contracts, sometimes called cohabitation agreements. But things can get complicated here. For instance, the courts won’t uphold a personal services contract for “love and affection,” says Cordell.

If you want such a contract, better see a lawyer.

If the couple has a child, a separate set of laws applies to custody and support, as in divorce.

Of course, these aren’t just issues for the young, as Jim Wilson and Kelly Lutz can testify. He’s 76, the retired president of a big moving company. She’s 48, a medical assistant.

Wilson, a widower, asked Lutz to marry him and she said yes. They moved in together in Sunset Hills. But they’re not sure they’ll ever tie the knot.

“I have two daughters older than her. She’s got three children,” says Wilson. “My daughters love her and we have not had an argument in three and a half years.”

Lutz sold her house in Chesterfield, and put the money toward her retirement. He sold his condo and bought a bigger one with room for Lutz’ high school age daughter and college-age son.

Mixing families brings legal complications. Wilson says he has “quite a bit of money.” If he should marry, and then die, who inherits what?

“That’s my biggest fear,” says Lutz. “We’ve all blended together so well, I don’t want anybody to feel threatened.”

Wills and a prenuptial agreement might settle those issues, of course. Marriage educator Brennan thinks prenups are a very good idea.

“A prenup doesn’t mean you don’t love each other. It means your caring for people from your first relationship,” she says.

But for now, the couple likes things the way they are. “We are very, very happy,” says Lutz.

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United Parcel Service, the world’s largest package delivery company, said Friday it is still in talks to acquire TNT Express even after the Dutch package delivery company rejected a $6.43 billion bid.

UPS said there is no guarantee that they will reach middle ground and make a deal. If UPS were to successfully buy TNT, it would significantly expand its business in Europe. The deal would be UPS’ biggest ever.

The bid works out to euro9, or about $11.84, per share. That’s based on TNT’s 534.2 million outstanding shares. TNT’s American depositary shares soared 56 percent to $12.57. UPS shares closed unchanged at $76.76.

TNT, Europe’s second-largest express delivery company, said Friday that its supervisory and executive boards carefully considered the proposal from UPS Inc., which is based in Atlanta. Both companies confirmed they are still talking about other possible outcomes.

UPS has made a couple of smaller acquisitions to bolster its operations in Europe over the last several months. In December, it said it will buy Pieffe Group, an Italian company that specializes in shipping and storing pharmaceutical products. Last week it announced the purchase of a small Belgian e-commerce company, Kiala.

TNT, which is based in Amsterdam, has been seen as a takeover target of either UPS or smaller rival FedEx Corp. for some time. Deutsche Bank analyst Justin Yagerman said in a note to clients Friday that he doesn’t expect FedEx will go after TNT, preferring instead to continue its plan of acquiring smaller companies in Europe. A FedEx spokesman said the company doesn’t comment on corporate development matters.

Last month, TNT detailed plans to split its express and mail businesses and said its CEO will step down after that separation is complete. That’s expected sometime next year.

The company’s express operations are growing, but its mail business is struggling with lower volume and disputes over layoffs. In November, it reported third-quarter net profit fell by more than half to 5 million euros, reflecting weak margins in its European businesses and losses at its operations in high-growth emerging markets.

Shareholders are set to vote on the separation in May.

TNT was split from Dutch mail company PostNL NV in May of last year.

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Rising demand for automotive-related products helped Viasystems Group Inc., a provider of printed circuit boards, to a fourth-quarter profit of $15.5 million, or 74 cents per share, compared with $9.5 million, or 44 cents a share, a year ago. Sales grew 10.3 percent, to $269 million, from the corresponding period the previous year. Demand for the Clayton-based company’s products by automotive users continued an upward trend from last year.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Story as updated to correct partner’s name in headline.

Phone company Verizon Communications Inc. will challenge Netflix and start a video streaming service this year with Redbox and its DVD kiosks.

Verizon and Coinstar Inc., Redbox’s parent company, said Monday that the service will be national and available to non-Verizon customers as well. It adds another dimension to Verizon’s quest to become a force in home entertainment.

Unlike competing services from Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the new service will combine Internet delivery of movies with DVDs, the way Netflix does. Dish Network Corp. also offers a similar bundle through its Blockbuster subsidiary.

Details and pricing of the new plan weren’t announced.

Late last year, the companies were shopping around a $6-per-month offering that would give subscribers one DVD rental from Redbox per month as well as unlimited streaming of a certain selection of movies, according to a person briefed on the plan then. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity business card.

It’s not known whether the plan has changed since then, though the price is likely to be less than the $16-a-month minimum that Netflix subscribers have to pay for a combined DVD-by-mail and streaming plan.

Although consumers would pay less, Redbox’s inventory is limited to what’s in its kiosks, compared with Netflix’s library of more than 100,000 titles, including more obscure fare. Redbox customers will also have to go in person to pick up a disc, which saves the company mailing costs.

Getting an extensive library of streaming content to rival Netflix’s 20,000-plus titles will be expensive. The rising cost for streaming rights is the main reason that Netflix raised its U.S. prices by as much as 60 percent last year in a move that triggered a customer backlash.

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So many times when the big credit-rating companies have embarrassed themselves, the world has sighed and chalked it up to a business model that by design invites corruption and incompetence. Perhaps never before have the public’s expectations for the industry been lower.

The fundamental flaw is that the major rating companies, led by Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s, typically are paid by the issuers of the securities they rate, or by other deeply interested parties, such as Wall Street underwriters. Too often the raters seem to be the last to know that a company they dubbed investment grade was going broke, or that a mortgage bond once deemed AAA was about to default. The public sees these things and naturally draws a link between what the raters say and how they are compensated.

Although the government can’t make the credit raters more capable, it can make them more transparent. Here’s a good place to begin: Start requiring disclosures of how much the raters’ clients pay them for their services.

Consider some of the boilerplate in Moody’s reports on MF Global Holdings Ltd., whose credit ratings were the subject of a congressional hearing last week. Moody’s Oct. 27 report — in which it downgraded MF Global to junk, only four days before the futures broker filed for bankruptcy — said most issuers of debt securities pay “fees ranging from $1,500 to approximately $2,500,000″ for “appraisal and rating services.”

It’s anyone’s guess whether the fees MF Global paid to Moody’s fell within or outside this range. The companies know how much money changed hands. They’re just not telling us.

The disclosures in Standard & Poor’s reports are just as useless. The company’s Oct. 26 report on MF Global said “S&P may receive compensation for its ratings and certain credit-related analyses, normally from issuers or underwriters of securities or from obligors.” Coincidence or not, S&P maintained an investment-grade mark on MF Global until the day it failed.

There’s no such secrecy about the fees other types of opinion vendors charge their clients. For more than a decade, U.S. public companies have been required to disclose the annual fees they pay their outside auditors. Similarly, when companies hire stock promoters or other firms to publish research reports profiling their shares, federal securities laws require disclosures in the reports showing who paid for them, as well as the amount and form of compensation.

The auditor-fee disclosures have been useful. Fannie Mae’s proxy statement for 2003, for instance, showed the housing financier paid KPMG $2.7 million to audit its books that year.

The fee was so tiny, for a company with $1 trillion of assets, that it served as a red flag for investors, signaling that KPMG’s audit quality couldn’t have been all that robust. The next year Fannie Mae had a huge accounting scandal.

At the other extreme, in its first annual report as a public company, Blackstone Group LP said it paid its auditor, Deloitte & Touche, total fees of $159.1 million for 2007, mostly for nonaudit work. The fees were so huge — Blackstone’s total assets were $13.2 billion at the time — it would be reasonable for investors to wonder what influence they might have had on Deloitte’s judgment.

The parallels for credit-rating companies are obvious. Like auditors and stock promoters, they’re paid to express opinions to investors. Whatever their fees are, the public should be told. The credit raters would have us believe there’s nothing wrong with collecting cash from the same customers whose securities they grade, and that this doesn’t cloud their independence or objectivity. If that’s true, they should have no problem with us knowing the actual dollar amounts.

Unfortunately this isn’t the path the government has chosen. The Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010, included 19 pages of new provisions governing how credit-rating companies operate.

Numerous federal banking and securities laws were amended to remove statutory references to credit ratings, for instance, so that regulators would reduce their reliance on them. Dodd-Frank didn’t mandate disclosure of the raters’ fees, however.

A rule proposed last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission would require companies such as Moody’s and S&P to disclose in a form accompanying each credit rating whether the grade was paid for by the issuer, underwriter or sponsor of the security being rated — or if it was purchased by someone else, such as an investor. The rating company would also have to disclose if the purchaser had paid it for any other services, such as consulting or advisory work.

Most important, though, no dollar amounts would have to be divulged.

This is a mistake. A big reason that the public doesn’t trust credit ratings is because of the money that changes hands.

What matters most, obviously, is how much. It makes little difference whether the amounts are disclosed by the rating company or by the issuer of the securities as part of its own disclosures, as long as it’s made public somewhere.

The most dubious penny-stock promoters have to disclose what they get paid for their opinions. Credit raters can at least be held to the same standards.

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Facebook’s long-awaited IPO filing is imminent, according to several news reports.

The Wall Street Journal kicked off the hoopla on Friday, citing anonymous sources who said that Facebook may file for an initial public offering as early as this Wednesday.

The New York Times and CNBC echoed that with their own unnamed sources in articles posted late Tuesday, saying that the filing will land Wednesday. Facebook is seeking to raise up to $5 billion in its offering, they added.

If that number is correct, Facebook would represent by far the largest global IPO ever by an Internet-focused company, according to data from Dealogic. Google’s (, Fortune 500) $1.9 billion debut is currently the largest U.S. Internet IPO.

But Facebook would still lag behind blockbuster U.S. IPOs like those from Visa (, Fortune 500), which raised more than $19 billion in 2008, and General Motors (, Fortune 500), which raised $18 billion last year.

Facebook’s IPO filing won’t answer one burning question: What’s the company worth? For that, Wall Street will have to wait until Facebook starts trading, which typically happens several months after companies file their first round of regulatory paperwork.

Some experts have suggested that the social network could valued between $75 billion and $100 billion once it starts trading. No matter what the market cap, Facebook’s IPO is undeniably hot, says Max Wolff, chief economist at GreenCrest Capital.

But there’s a lot more riding on Facebook’s paperwork than wealth creation. The social network has become an entire ecosystem, supporting independent app makers and gaming platforms like Zynga ().

Facebook’s filing will have implications for companies that depend on it, as well as the social media landscape at large. Until then, analysts are left to speculate about Facebook’s revenue streams and profitability — and whether it really deserves a $100 billion market value.

Michael Pachter, a research analyst at Wedbush Securities, says the rumored valuation range is reasonable — though he won’t cite a specific estimate of his own.

How Facebook makes money — and could make more: The vast majority of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising: a combination of search and display ads. And the sales growth is incredibly robust.

Research firm eMarketer estimated last September that Facebook’s ad revenue would more than double in 2011 to $3.8 billion and increase another 52% to $5.78 billion in 2012.

Facebook has grown by grabbing market share from Google and Yahoo. Last year Facebook comprised 16.3% of the so-called display (i.e. banners and other graphical ads) market, eMarketer estimates — compared with Yahoo’s (, Fortune 500) 13.1% and Google’s (, Fortune 500) 9.3%.

Martin Pyykkonen, analyst at Wedge Partners, says Facebook is highly appealing to advertisers because about two-thirds of its users fall into the coveted age demographic of 18-49. He thinks Facebook’s ad targeting will become even more effective over time.

"The ‘Like’ button option is a basic example of targeting," Pyykkonen wrote in a note to clients Monday. "[It’s] likely that advertisers will be able to even better target their audiences as Facebook goes deeper with integrating apps, games, movies, music."

Facebook’s other revenue stream is its payment system for purchases within apps and games: Facebook Credits. Facebook keeps 30% of the revenue from those payments, and passes the remaining 70% on to the app developer.

Facebook Credits now comprises 10% of the company’s total revenue, up from 5% in early 2010, Pyykkonen estimates.

Those estimates will soon be backed up — or refuted — by hard numbers from Facebook. Once its IPO filing does finally land, it will help answer questions about the overall social media market.

"People are extrapolating outcomes into an environment that’s hungry for missing details," said Wolff. "It’s like all the guys in the class spreading rumors about the prettiest girl in the school."

– CNNMoney’s Maureen Farrell contributed reporting. 

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