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How companies like United Health are lobbying aggressively to shape the new helathcare legislation to their benefit. BW says the health insurers like United Health, Aetna and Wellpoint are already winning through clever and effective lobbying of Congress. Former Senator Tom Daschle works as aconsultant for United Health. Senator Conrad who has led aeffort to replace the public plan with nonprofit medical cooperatives, which would be a weaker competitive threat to insurers, is also influened by the insurers. United Health's CEO Helmsley and its person working with Congress on healthcare Simon Stevens met with Conrad on June 4. When lawmakers in Congress cite consulting group Lewin Group, that 88 million or 56% of those with employer provided coverage would desert private insurance for a government run program, they are quoting acompany owned by United Health. The Congressional Budget Ofice says these numbers are too high. United Health has used savy presentations on how to cut costs, and help Blue Dog and other Democrats articulate their positions, to gain influence in shaping the plan to their interests. United Health thus counts a lot with Matheson, and Mike Ross of Arkansas, who are prominent with the 52 Blue Dog Democrats. and with Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. And United Health put together an effective lobbbying group, even hiring the chief of staff of House Democratic leader Steny Hoyer. ...

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India's ruling Congres party suffered losses in the two major states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. In Uttar Pradesh, the socialist Samajwadi party gained an absolute majority of 224 seats in the 403 seat assembly. The Bahujan Samaj party of Kumari Mayawati lost its majority winning only 80 seats, the BJP won 47 seats and the Congress won only 28 seats. Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party campaigned heavily in the state and the results show that his campaign against Mayawati did not result in Congress gaining enough seats to form a coalition government with the Samajwadi party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav. Yadav has held the position of chief minister three times before, and campaigned for greater rights for lower castes and for a quota in education and jobs for Muslims. His other campaign promises included increasing electricity production, and improving the business climate. In the Punjab state, the Shiromani Akali Dal party won 56 of 117 seats, with the Congress getting 46 seats. National elections will be held in 2014, and the results reflect a repudiation of the Congress party after corruption scandals, slower economic growth, and lack of clear policy direction....

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A big hurdle for local brands in China is the Chinese consumer's interest and respect for foreign brands. Asked about local brands buyers say they can't think of any, or say Chinese brands are shoddy in quality and value. Brands such as Haier in consumer appliances and Lenovo in tech are an exception. During the big surge in consumer sales in the last two decades Chinese companies producing local brands thought it adequate to simply imitate foreign brand names rather than take the difficult route of establishing the credibility of their own brand- an effort which might take years. Often the foreign name was changed slightly to keep the resemblance but mean something positive to Chinese consumers in the local language. Common are names such as Adidos, Hike, Cnoverse and Fuma for sneakers. Clio Coste keeps the connection to Lacoste with its crocodile logo. Coca Cola in Chinese is Kekoulele, translated to mean Tasty Fun. Only now are local companies giving serious attention to creating long term brand entity and image. The serious attention to brand names and branding comes at a time when China increasingly depends on consumer sales to power the economy with the decline in real estate and slower manufacturing. For the 11 months of 2014 retail sales were up 12 percent over the prior year period to $3.8 trillion, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. ...

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About 15% of Americans are below the official poverty line of $23,492 for family of four. In 1975 3.7% of Americans were in deep poverty, defined as being 50% below the offical poverty line. In 2012 the Census Bureau Population Survey shows 6.6% of Americans in deep poverty, close to doubling the percentage of people in deep poverty. States in the southern U.S. and midwest have some of the largest increase in deep poverty- Georgia's going from 5.3% in 2000 to 8.8% in 2012. Mississippi and Indiana show similiar increases. And in D.C. with high income levels the deep poverty rate is at 10.4%, affluent communities have high deep poverty rates in their midst, higher than rates in 2009.

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Michael Getler describes the missed opportunity under President Obama for using one of America's most talented diplomats to engineer a peace agreement between the warring factions in Afghanistan- the U.S., the Pakistan army, the ISI and its support in the army, the Taliban, and the other parties such as the Haqqani faction and the Afghan government of Karzai. Holbrooke had used his experience for another President, with the same force of his larger than life personality, when he helped bring about the Dayton Accords in a similiar area of stubborn ethnic strife. Could Obama have tapped Holbrooke's skills and set aside the distractions of his personality as coming from an American with unique gifts, talent and achievement, is the question Getler asks. And is this a comment on the nature of the Obama Presidency and America's poorly invested hopes.

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Seib draws parallels between the situation in 1889 with the large immigration, growing inequality, impact of science and technology, and progressive parts of the two main political parties. Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson pulled together progressives in the Republican and Democratic parties in the next two decades, and FDR-Truman continued progressive policies in the nineteen thirties and forties to tackle the Depression and promote economic recovery. Financial crises are not mentioned by Seib. The recurring financial crises since that period led to the creation of the central bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve and financial regulations for banks. The financial crises with asset bubbles in 2000 for tech and bubble in real estate in 2009, resulted from the lifting of financial regulation and lack of close supervision of financial markets.

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A behind the scenes account of what happened at JP Morgan Chase after CEO Jamie Dimon discovered the trading losses of the London Whale through the pages of the Wall Street Journal, on April 6, 2012.

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Washington Post editorial on the Obama Georgetown speech of April 13, 2009. It questions whether President Obama has the candour and courage to tackle the tough issues of deficit reduction and entitlement reform. New healthcare spending for coverage itself will add to entitlement, and it says some of the savings mentioned by the President are phony or already needed for new spending for the economic recovery and health care. At the same time the paper gives Obama good marks for his clarity and grasp of the crisis and steps for recovery, and the policy agenda in the areas of health care, energy and education. The questions about courage and candor also raise all the questions about facing upto the facts about insolvent banks that Krugman, Rosenfeld, the Economist and others have raised. Is Obama dodging the hard choices, is he dithering? On the toughest issues like foreclosures, insolvent banks, global regulation pushed by the Europeans, will he end up making inadequate or faulty choices, and when he comes around to making the tough choices, will he have lost so much valuable time as to prolong the crisis and stretch it out to many years....

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With a low voter turnout estimated at 25% the United Russia Party which supports President Putin wins regional elections in Russia.

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Krauthammer cites Congressional Budget Office numbers that show the Obama U.S. health care law continues the spiralling costs of health care with new government mandates at a time of severe budget cuts in education and other areas- for 2013-2022 the costs come to $1.76 trillion. The initial Obama administration figures of 10 year costs of $938 billion announced in 2010 reflected the fact that the new U.S. health care law would take 4 years to fully go into effect. Costs after 2021 are shown to be $250 billion each year in the CBO figures. The law is now before the Supreme Court in 2012, which has to decide on the basis of the limits of the Commerce Clause.

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Jon Huntsman, Republican candidate for President in 2012, calls for a fee on banks with a size that is above a certain percentage of the GDP. This would cover the cost banks impose on taxpayers when they are bailed out. It would eliminate the advantage banks gain from "too-big-to-fail," a subsidy Huntsman estimates to be one half percentage point in today's market. He points to efforts by the UK and Switzerland for more stringent financial standards than the U.S.

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David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says he is quite worried about the steadily declining participation of men 16-64 in the labor force from 85% in the decade after World War II to less than 65% today. This is a blow to the men, their families , government revenues and the economy.

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Former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh's views on the need for greater transparency and disclosure from the large U.S. banks and the risks to the financial system from "too-big-to-fail" banks in 2012-2013. He says the U.S. should not be dependent on the Basel standards for capital requirements and use its own system of stricter requirements similiar to the UK and Switzerland. His views are that the Dodd-Frank law puts too much dependence on regulators doing the right thing, information transparency is lacking for markets to impose discipline, and delegates too much to Basel standards which are not rigorous enough for protecting the U.S. economy.