China realty prices cool in more areas

More cities in China experienced cooling property prices in June, compared to May, as policies targeting speculation kicked in.

Property prices fell in 12 of the 70 major cities monitored, and remained unchanged in 14, when measured against May’s figures, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

In May, there were 20 cities where property prices either fell or remained unchanged when measured against the previous month.

But prices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou — the bellwethers of the property market — all showed solid year-on-year gains in June, according to the NBS.

The scale of the June increase was slightly higher than in May.

Only three cities experienced a year-on-year price drop in June.

Larger year-on-year gains were seen mostly in smaller and less-developed cities.

Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, posted the biggest gain at 9.2 percent in June. Pri

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Gonzalez: Goliath loses round to David in union battle

A leadership split in the country’s most powerful labor union led to a bitter battle in California last fall over who would represent 43,000 workers in the state’s vast Kaiser Permanente hospital system.

The Kaiser contest was the biggest union representation election in the U.S. in more than half a century,

From the start, it was a David and Goliath affair.

On one side was the 2.2 million-member Service Employees International Union, with its almost limitless war chest.

So influential is SEIU in Washington that it landed spots on the White House staff for some of its former leaders; its former president Andy Stern was a key player in the President’s health care plan; and one of its top lawyers was recently named to the National Labor Relations Board by President Obama.

Up against SEIU was the National Union of Healthcare Workers, a tiny 9,000-member militant breakaway group led by the former head of SEIU’s California health care division, Sal Rosselli.

“SEIU’s leadership just wants to treat members as property whose rights can be bargained away to politicians and employers,” Rosselli says.

Nonsense, says the SEIU.

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European banks higher; Barclays leads 100 in London

Equities markets were higher in Europe on Wednesday as banks advanced ahead of a meeting of the European Union on the regions debt problems, and on hopes that debt concerns in the US will be avoided by an agreement on what to do with the debt ceiling there.

The FTSE 100 was up 1.1 percent to 5,853.82 in London, while the FTSE 250 added 0.94 percent to 11,701.5, with banks leading the way on the 100 as they did on the Dax in Frankfurt and on the CAC-40 in Paris.

Barclays Bank (LSE: BARC) led gains in the London banking sector and on the 100 as it added 5.2 percent, while Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY) was up 4.1 percent and Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS) gained 3.08 percent, while Societe Generale (Euronext: GLE) was at the top of the CAC-40 as it added 5.14 percent and Commerzbank (FWB: CBK) was up 6.31 percent as the top gainer on the Dax.

Imagination Technologies Group (LSE: IMG) was up 10.15 percent as the chipmaker led gains on the 250, while ARM Holdings (LSE: ARM), which makes chips for Apples (NAS: AAPL) iPhone, was up 4.89 percent.

The telecommunications sector dominated the list of top decliners on the 250 as Cable Wireless Communications (LSE: CWC) was down 3.15 percent to lead declines in the index, followed by a 3.09 percent decline for COLT Group SA (LSE: COLT) while Cable Wireless Worldwide (LSE: CW) dropped 2.27 percent.

Commodities trader Glencore International (LSE: GLEN) was the worst performer on the 100 after it declined by 1.29 percent.

Most sectors were higher, with home builders and utilities joining the banking sector with all shares higher, while the chemicals sector saw only one declines, while insurers, the travel and leisure sector and the media sector only had two declines each and there were only three decliners in the real estate sector.

Among the seven decliners in the mostly higher mining sector, BHP Billiton (LSE: BLT) added 1.66 percent after it said its iron ore output was up 14 percent in its fourth quarter, while in bids news, financial software provider Misys plc (LSE: MSY) added 7.76 percent on rumors that it is close to being acquired by Fidelity National Information Services (NYSE: FIS).

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was up 1.24 percent to 1,090.19 while the Dax added 0.4 percent to 7,221.36, the CAC-40 was 1.61 percent higher to 3,754.6 with only two decliners and the IBEX gained 3.06 percent to 9,732.8 and saw just three decliners.

Most markets in the Asia-Pacific region were higher on hopes that the crisis over the US debt ceiling will be solved before a deadline for default.

The Nikkei 225 was up 1.17 percent to 10,005.9 in Tokyo, while the Topix index added 0.81 percent to 860.66 but the Mothers market was down 0.43 percent to 481.81.

Exporters were up on the optimism over debt problems in the United States, including gains for carmakers, with Toyota Motor (TYO: 7203) up 0.6 percent and Honda Motor (TYO: 7267) was 1.3 percent higher, while oil producers saw gains as crude prices advances, with Japan Petroleum Exploration (TYO: 662) up 1.2 percent and Inpex (TYO: 1605) added 1.9 percent.

Toshiba Corp (TYO: 6502), which makes some music and photo storage chips for Apples iPhone, was up 2.7 percent after Apple (NAS: AAPL) said profits were up in its fiscal third quarter on sales that were 82 percent higher.

Hong Kongs Hang Seng was up 0.46 percent to 22,003.7, the Straits Times Index added 0.98 percent to 3,126.53 in Singapore, South Koreas Kospi was 1.16 percent higher to 2,154.95, Australias markets were up with the Sydney Ordinaries gaining 1.74 percent to 4,618.4 while the SP/ASX200 added 1.83 percent to 4,549.7, and the Taiex was 2.13 percent higher to 8,706.17.

The Shanghai Composite was 0.1 percent lower to 2,794.21 while Indias Sensex dropped 0.81 percent to 18,502.4.

Equities markets were lower in midday trade in New York, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.07 percent to 12,578.5 while the SP 500 had dropped just 0.05 of a point to 1,326.68 and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.42 percent lower to 2,814.62.

Crude oil prices were mixed as West Texas Intermediate crude was down 52 cents at midday but recent reports had Brent crude up 6 cents in London trade, while metals prices were lower in New York including a decline of $5.40 for gold, to $1,595.70 per troy ounce.

Netflix unveils 60% price hike this fall

It’s going to cost a whole lot more to see a movie – at home.

Netflix is hiking its monthly rates a whopping 60% for subscribers who opt to rent DVDs through the mail as well as stream video over the Internet.

The California-based company Tuesday told its members it was raising prices effective Sept. 1, when it will no longer offer its cheapest package of $9.99 per month for unlimited streaming and one DVD at a time by mail.

Netflix’s more than 23 million U.S. subscribers will instead pay $15.98 a month for both options together, according to a statement on Netflix’s company blog.

Otherwise, subscribers will have to pay $7.99 for either an unlimited streaming plan or $7.99 for a DVD-only plan of one disc at a time.

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Reader Story (and Question): Financial Health vs. Mental Health?

Hi. My name is Not Pollyanna. (Okay, that’s not my real name, but that’s what I call myself at Get Rich Slowly.) I’m 26 years old, three years out of college, and have $79,000 of student loan debt left to pay off. I’m working on it, but I have to tell you: It feels insurmountable.

I chose a college two states away. I applied, enrolled, and paid with a private student loan. In the three years I attended that school, I was sent home three times because of hospitalizations for my mental illness, but I remained a full-time student by taking correspondence courses. I attended a community college for a year, and I finished with two years at a third college.

I originally borrowed $86,000 to pay for my education. When I graduated in 2008 with a B.S. in Humanities, my debt total was $106,000. I know now that borrowing so much was very ill-advised, but that wasn’t something I was able to contemplate at the time.

I don’t do much of a budget beyond “spend as little as possible”. With the except

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