By JIM SPENCER, Minneapolis Star Tribune

The United States has lost an estimated $606 billion in economic activity over the past decade because its visa process is too cumbersome for millions of foreign travelers.

WASHINGTON - There's a long-running gag about people so self-absorbed that they frequently run Google searches on themselves. Jay and Jeff Backer admit that they regularly check their company's status on the world's most dominant Internet search engine.

WASHINGTON - Major trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama appear harder to enact than they were to negotiate, even though many corporate executives and economists insist they provide just what the U.S. economy needs: jobs.

An industrial spy tries to steal $20 million in trade secrets from Minnesota-based Valspar paints. The kingpin of a Houston-based drug counterfeiting ring makes millions plugging his fake pharmaceuticals into the pipeline of Britain's socialized medical system. In Washington, the Defense Department unwittingly buys and installs knockoff Cisco computer software to track troop movements.

Brandon Milles and his wife keep constant track of their stock portfolio, and the turmoil in the markets has them slightly spooked. The couple's investment holdings lost 10 percent of their value in recent weeks.

Milles said it's time to make some changes.

WASHINGTON - As they recently passed out awards to pro-business members of Congress, executives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also discussed an uncomfortable subject with each recipient: the need to increase the country's debt ceiling.

Kevin Gilligan, CEO of a large for-profit college, has been doing a lot of politicking recently.

In recent months, Gilligan met personally with five members of Minnesota's congressional delegation and twice with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

In May 2009, Stewart Parnell, the owner of a company that shipped contaminated peanut products across the country, got a Mother's Day card at his Lynchburg, Va., home.

"I didn't know where to send it this year since my mother is no longer alive," the handwritten inscription read. "So I'm sending it to you, the person responsible for where she is today."

Lorraine Anderson's hip hurt so badly that the 82-year-old couldn't get out of a chair in her Minneapolis house. But she didn't want to go to the doctor.

"She was afraid they'd make her move out of her home," said Jean Gotfredson, a volunteer from Nokomis Healthy Seniors.

The woman arrived at the Hanger Orthopedic Group clinic in Haiti missing a leg from the hip down. At first, Dale Barry wasn't sure what to do. The artificial-limb designer from Bloomington, Minn., stood among shelves filled with prosthetic knees, feet and ankles shipped from the U.S. to help earthquake victims.