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Beyond slashing health-care costs by cutting employees loose, companies have steadily boosted the share of premiums borne by workers. Twenty years ago, 60% to 70% of companies paid health-insurance costs in full, says Jim Edholm, president of Business Benefits Insurance Inc., a benefits-consulting firm based in Andover, Mass. Today costs are fully covered by less than 10% of companies. Having already passed those bills along to staff, employers are looking for other benefits to slash...
...Coke also looked ahead with greater acuity. Analyst Erin Ashley Smith of Argus Research, an independent New York City research firm, says Coke impressed investors with its presciently conservative outlook on the economic climate, while Pepsi started the year with overly optimistic assessments. Smith says Pepsi has had some operational problems as well, noting that the company has periodically had a tough time meeting demand for Gatorade and keeping store shelves stocked - an uncharacteristically subpar performance from a company that prides itself on operational excellence...
Many of the hundreds of banks left to get funding are small and will qualify for far less than the $25 billion investment that was received by Citigroup, JPMorgan and others. Still, every day new companies are announcing that they will receive TARP funds. Last week, brokerage firm E*Trade said it expects to receive $800 million. And there are still a number of large banks that have yet to receive TARP funds, including Synovus Financial (of Columbus, Ga.) and Colonial Bancgroup (of Montgomery, Ala.), which could collectively swallow an additional $1.5 billion in TARP funds...
...getting a number of calls from financial firms who want to know if they should convert to bank-holding companies," says Randall Guynn, a partner at law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell. "But if you start to add all of these companies to the list, then I am not sure there is enough money to go around." See TIME's Pictures of the Week...
...labor force of young workers, and it measures up well, too, in terms of taxes: its corporate tax rate of 12.5% is one of the E.U.'s lowest, while levies on labor and capital stack up well against rivals. That's one reason the world's second biggest advertising firm, WPP, announced in September that it plans to shift its headquarters from the U.K. to Ireland; and why pharmaceutical company Shire and publishers United Business Media both announced similar plans earlier this year. The arrival of new companies, and a greater emphasis on trade, should help Ireland to average growth...