Thenardier , the smarmy and scheming innkeeper and his baleful wife do plenty to influence the plot line of Les Miserables.

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The supply-chain track, in particular, has generated enormous interest in the business community, where logistics has a growing influence on the bottom line.

ECONOMIST: News from the schools, April 2006

The bars, which show the sum of the influences on inflation, would as a rule track the bold line, showing the influence of unemployment, quite closely.

ECONOMIST: Economics focus

India will focus on aiding the democratic transition in Nepal, for example, but it will tread a fine line between preserving its influence there and pushing the new Maoist-dominated government into China's arms.

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Somewhere along the line we need to get under that influence system to understand what people really do enjoy.

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He is only the latest in a long line of Italian central bankers to go on to wield influence elsewhere.

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An increase in short interest in line with climbing prices (when other factors are not an influence) is a pattern we see when short sellers are sceptical of the price move, and believe the securities to be overbought.

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If the moves in those other states are any indication, collective-bargaining is next in line followed by the expansion of school choice and the injection of more corporate money and influence into the public education system.

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Thanks in part to the influence of a secretive Catholic society called ElYunque (The Anvil), the party has taken a hard line on abortion, which even rape victims find hard to obtain in some PAN-run states.

ECONOMIST: Mexico's ruling party