LyrArc Article Gist
A study published in the January issue of the British Medical Journal shows almost identical results for death rates for two randomly assigned groups, one with women given a breast exam by trained nurses only and the other with women given a breast exam by trained nurses and a mammogram. 90,000 Canadian women were covered over 25 years in this detailed study.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Canadian dollar depreciates to $C1.105 to the U.S. dollar in Jan. 2014. Canada's monthly trade balance is deteriorating and investors are making bearish bets on the currency.

LyrArc Article Gist
High inflation and depreciating currencies in India, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa in 2012-2014.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Pacific Alliance Trade Agreement signed in Jan 2014 will make 92% of products tariff free for trade between Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru. The Pacific Alliance region's combined GDP for 2012 was about $2 trillion and it exceeds the population of Brazil. Experts, including Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, say the alliance's aim to decrease trade barriers in goods and services, coordinate policy on currency issues, but it does little for the critical needs of infrastructure building and improving productivity. Colombia and Peru especially have very poor infrastructure that severely impacts transportation and trade for the region. China's focus on infrastructure development financing and execution gives it more credibility in this vital development field, and the U.S. has to create financing and project execution capabilities to fill this vital need to build credibility.

LyrArc Article Gist
Job cuts of upto 12,000 planned at Barclays in 2014 as part of restructuring effort. Barclays showed a net loss of 642 billion pounds for the 4th quarter of 2013. Underlying proft for 2013 declined to 5.17 billion pounds with 1.2 billion pounds in restructuring costs.

LyrArc Article Gist
About one in five people have diabetes in the Persian Gulf region countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, according to the International Diabetes Federation. High rates of obesity and unhealthy lifestyles are to blame for the epidemic.

LyrArc Article Gist
P&G increases prices of Tide with Febreze by 25% by cutting package size.

LyrArc Article Gist
New Feb. 2024 dated debt issued by Portugal offers investors a yield of 5.20%. In Jan. 2014 Portugal issued 5 year debt for 3.25 billion euros. Plans are to raise 11-13 billion euros through bond issuance in 2014 to build up cash reserves and prefund needs for 2015. Refinancing needs are about 10 billion euros annually according to Moody's. The debt level has reached 128% of GDP by Jan 2014 after GDP declines and aid to struggling companies.

LyrArc Article Gist
S. Korea's Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning setup in 2013 and the 15 year plan to promote internet startups. The purpose of the plan is to persuade new graduates that opportunities exist outside the big conglomerates like Samsung and provide new resources for startups. Five ministries in S. Korea are engaged in this effort and have budgeted a total of $3 billion to help tech developers.

LyrArc Article Gist
Ideas for a national "bad bank" to assign bad assets and help improve the rate of bank lending in the economy from Bank of Italy head, Ignazio Visco. There is a sense that the undercapitalization of business is holding back Italy's economy, and problems are not only the high government debt level of 2.1 trillion euros. Italy's business investment per worker has declined 9% since 2009, Germany's increased by 8%, France's 2% in the same period, Mr Visco said at a banking conference in Rome in Jan 2014. Visco said the idea of a bad bank similiar to that setup in Spain would at a moderate cost free up resources to be used to finance the economy. In the current situation of weak bank balance sheets and borrowers weakened by the long austerity period, banks are not able to pass on the eurozone's low interest rates for businesses to pursue growth opportunities.

LyrArc Article Gist
Trends in the toy industry with children getting toys based on what they see on the screen helps Hasbro with its own TV channel.