Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
from Tales from the Trail:
Pelosi boils down winning back the House to A-B-C
Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, says her party can take a strategy to regaining a House majority that is as simple as A-B-C.
At the Reuters Washington Summit on Wednesday, Pelosi, the Minority Leader in the House, repeated her optimistic contention that her party has a 50/50 chance of winning back control, two years after a crushing defeat in the 2010 mid-term elections.
According to Pelosi’s 2012 campaign aphorism, “A” stands for American made and promoting policies to help reignite manufacturing in the United States. “B” is to build American infrastructure, including a focus on broadband, water systems and high-speed rail. “C” is for a sense of community, including a focus on police officers, firefighters and public safety.
“Right now the momentum is with us,” Pelosi said of the November elections, where her party needs a net gain of 25 seats to win back the majority. “It’s easier to win 25 seats than to hold 63,” she declared. “We have out-recruited the Republicans and we have fabulous candidates. This time we will be ready.”
from Tales from the Trail:
This time, some Democrats are embracing “Obamacare”
Fierce opposition to President Barack Obama's healthcare bill helped propel Republicans to big victories in the 2010 mid-term elections, when they won a majority of seats in the House of Representatives and cut into the Democratic majority in the Senate.
But this year, at least some Democrats are embracing the healthcare plan - touting their support for its popular provisions and attacking Republicans for opposing measures that polls show big majorities of Americans supporting.
from Tales from the Trail:
Obama letter brings Democratic donors out of the woodwork
A fundraising appeal from President Barack Obama on Monday netted Democratic Congressional candidates their biggest online fundraising day ever, New York Congressman Steve Israel said at the Reuters Washington Summit.
Obama made an email appeal asking supporters to donate $3 or more to help the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The appeal raised $580,000, said Israel, chairman of the DCCC, which helps recruit and raise money for candidates for the House of Representatives.
from Tales from the Trail:
For Portman, it all comes down to beer
Rob Portman is upset about the tax laws that make a real American beer hard to find.
The senator from Ohio, who is seen as a leading candidate to be Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick, spoke out at the Reuters Washington Summit against tax policy that puts American companies at a disadvantage.
from Tales from the Trail:
Outside campaign groups can coordinate – with each other
Super PACs and other outside campaign organizations are barred from coordinating with the candidates they support or political parties, but there is nothing keeping a Super PAC from coordinating with another Super PAC, or several Super PACs. And indeed, some of them do.
Jonathan Collegio, director of public relations for American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, Karl Rove's conservative Super PAC and non-profit, said outside groups on the right work together all the time.
from Tales from the Trail:
Blunt says to keep an eye on Virginia
Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican who is Mitt Romney's point person in Congress, doesn't think Ohio or Florida will be the main states to watch on election night. He will have his eyes on Virginia.
In an interview at the annual Reuters Washington Summit, Blunt was asked which state was the one to monitor in the run-up to the Nov. 6 election between President Barack Obama and Romney.
from Global Investing:
BRIC: Brilliant/Ridiculous Investment Concept
BRIC is Brazil, Russia, India, China -- the acronym coined by Goldman Sachs banker Jim O'Neill 10 years back to describe the world's biggest, fastest-growing and most important emerging markets. But according to Albert Edwards, Societe Generale's uber-bearish strategist, it also stands for Bloody Ridiculous Investment Concept. Some investors, licking their wounds due to BRIC markets' underperformance in 2011 and 2010, might be inclined to agree -- stocks in all four countries have performed worse this year than the broader emerging markets equity index, to say nothing of developed world equities.
For years, money has chased BRIC investments, tempted by the countries' fast growth, huge populations and explosive consumer hunger for goods and services. But Edwards cites research showing little correlation between growth and investment returns. He points out that Chinese nominal GDP growth may have averaged 15.6 percent since 1993 but the compounded return on equity investments was minus 3.3 percent.
from Abhiram Nandakumar:
Stories of intuition and hope
Infosys’ head honcho S.D. Shibulal revealed he is an INTJ type. It is hardly surprising then that Shibu, as he likes to be called, was one of the pioneers of the Global Delivery Model – corporate speak for outsourced IT services.
INTJ (short for Introvert, Intuition, Thinking and Judgment) is a rare personality type based on psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s works. INTJ personalities are self-starters, preferring to work alone without an authority looking over their shoulders and meticulously plan their activities to achieve success.
from Abhiram Nandakumar:
A garage, a beaker and a Bunsen burner
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, one of India’s most influential businesswomen and among the world’s most powerful women, says she’s an accidental entrepreneur.
Mazumdar-Shaw has shown that modest garage start-ups can extend beyond software and hardware companies. She set up what is now India's largest listed biotechnology company in 1978 and she encourages others to follow suit.
from Global News Journal:
Waiting for Europe’s “appropriate response”
Will the euro zone finally act decisively?
Investors are hoping for something big from European leaders at the EU summit on Oct. 23 and of the Group of 20 on Nov. 3. But they also know the 17 nations of the euro have a habit of offering delayed, half-hearted rescues that have cost them credibility.
So there's been a lot of "urging" and "warning" in Brussels lately -- politicians and central bankers have all been demanding Europe act as international alarm grows that its sovereign debt problems may drag the world into recession. "Further delays are only aggravating the situation," said European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet on Tuesday in his last appearance at the European Parliament, before he hands over the post to Mario Draghi on Nov. 1.
