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Budget cuts leading to cutting of gym classes in American schools.

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Campbell paid $1.55 billion for Bolthouse Farms. The large premium stems from the problems Campbell is having with canned soup sales eroding from competition with store brands.

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The ongoing investigation into the manipulation of LIBOR interest rates could affect the likelihood of Paul Tucker becoming the next head of the Bank of England, and raise questions about the responsibility of other bank chiefs involved in the manipulation. Guerrera says regulators should shoulder some of the responsibility.

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Campbell Soup Co. acquires Bolthouse Farms of Bakersfield, California, a maker of high-end juices, for $1.55 billion. By doing this Campbell is shifting into beverages and into fresh foods from its traditional business in canned condensed soups which have a long shelf life. The packaged fresh food category is growing at 7% a year much faster than the canned soup business. This also complements Campbell's V8 vegetable juice products.The soup business is declining because of a change in consumer preferences for simplicity in meals, lack of new products and ineffective discounting. Campbell is planning to introduce 30 new soup items, and packaging in pouches with newer flavors, to get younger people to try its products.

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Eurozone finance ministers meeting in Brussels give Spain one more year to meet deficit targets because of a slumping economy and lower tax receipts after raising taxes. Spain now has till 2014 instead of 2013 to meet the EU's 3% deficit target. Spain can now run a deficit of 6.3% in 2012, down from 8.9% in 2011, without risking EU penalties. The 2013 deficit target is 4.5% of GDP and the 2014 target is 2.8%. Spain can also have $30 billion by the end of July in the event that a Spanish bank needs to be recapitalized quickly.

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A big problem Spain is facing is that the room for spending cuts is shrinking and new taxes are not generating higher tax revenues for the government. Tax receipts declined by 1.5% in the Jan-May 2012 period even with the higher taxes on income, electricity and tobacco. The revenues from VAT, value added tax, declined by 10%. Spending to aid regional governments increased by 12% and interest payments increased by 32%. Under the government of prime minister Zapatero tax income declined by 19% in 2007-2011, even after adding higher taxes on the wealthy, increasing the VAT tax and scrapping of a tax rebate. The government predicts domestic demand will decline by 3.1% in 2012. Ms Cospedal who is cutting spending in the Castilla region near Madrid, a deputy leader of the ruling Partido Popular, says in some regions the margin for additional savings is "becoming small."

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Greek tax evasion is estimated by three economists who studied data from Greek banks at about $11 billion based on a 40% tax rate, a third of the country's annual deficit for 2009. Unreported income is estimated at $28 billion. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, engineers are the biggest groups underreporting income. Greece's parliament took up a bill in 2010 but the bill failed because of oposition from these groups. It remains to be seen if the Samaras government with support of the IMF-EC can take action similiar to that taken by the Monti government in Italy to go after tax evaders. By cutting the minimum wage and incomes of lower income groups disproportionately compared to cracking down on tax evasion and protecting incomes of higher income groups the economic plan for Greece proposed by the IMF-EC and the Greek government becomes unworkable and threatens the social fabric. By not raising this issue Germany's media and government have appeared callous in their pursuit of austerity measures as working class Greeks protested in Athens in 2011-2012, even though some of the issues raised by the Germans are legitimate. France and Italy are imposing a wealth tax to cut the deficit but this is not taking place in Greece. Global financial media has also not reported adequately on these aspects of the problem in Greece and Italy....

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Yields on France's government bonds turned negative on July 9, 2012. As the pool of bonds from haven countries such as Holland and Germany is shrinking, France with its deep and sizable debt market is benefitting. France was able to sell 3.9 billion euros of 13 week Treasury bills at a yield of -0.005 and 2 billion euros of 24 week bills at an average yield of -0.006.

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Economists using data from Greek banks estimate the tax evasion in 2009 through unreported income at 28 billion euros. Using a tax rate of 40% 11.2 billion euros of taxes were evaded by Greek taxpayers. This is one third of the Greek deficit in 2009. The economists say doctors and engineers were prominent in the tax evasion list and find that these groups have large representation in Greece's parliament. Italy has taken steps under the Monti government to crackdown on tax evasion, but Greece is still to take action in this area, which is particularly glaring considering that the previous Greek government agreed to cut the minimum wage in Greece.

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The in-house manufacturing approach has benefitted Lenovo. This was especially evident during the flooding in Thailand when PC manufacturers were faced with a shortage of hard drives. Because Lenovo assembles its own computers unlike competitors Dell and H-P, it was able to move quickly to focus on products for which hard drives were available and emphasize high profit margin products. The additional flexibility and speed helped Lenovo increase market share from 13.7% to above 14% in the 4th quarter of 2011, and ship 13 million computers. H-P experienced a market share decline to 16% in the 4th quarter 2012 from 18% the prior quarter. Profit for Lenovo after several years of losses was $473 million for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. Lenovo co-founder Liu Chuanzhi and Mr Yang took control in 2009 and refocussed the company on China and emerging markets leading to increasing sales. Mr. Yang has been with the company since 1988, when it was not called Lenovo. He became CEO in 2001 and recently he has taken the post of CEO and chairman. Yang's four year plan in 2009 was focussed on increasing its network of resellers in China to the point that even in rural areas customers could reach a Lenovo store with customer service. At meetings in 2009 the decision was taken to increase in-house manufacturing to 50% from 30%. Lenovo hoped to gain an advantage with its own manufacturing capabilities in working closely with suppliers to come up with differentiation in key components such as display screens, battery and storage, and improve existing products for a market edge. Lenovo is also promoting its brand with increased advertising to promote customer acceptance of the brand....