Google stares down China; I guess this means the Internet transcends borders - proof positive



The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues. Rest of the story here

Chinese Government vested interest in the $US dollar



Nine politicians in China control the fate of the United States of America.

I’m not kidding. The implications are scary. Let me explain…

These nine men are the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China. They control the value of China’s currency.

Fortunately, it’s easy to forecast what a politician will do… He will do whatever it takes to keep his job.  

The story is remarkably simple…

In China, the goal of these nine politicians is to keep the Communist Party in power. The way to accomplish that goal is for the masses to stay employed. Right now, China keeps the people working by exporting cheap goods. In order to make sure those Chinese goods stay cheap, the Standing Committee sets the currency exchange rate artificially low. And that is the crucial part of the story…

Interesting facts about US charity giving as we wind out 2009



Americans lead the world in charitable contributions, giving $300 billion a year to charities. Sounds like a lot right? But this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the over One Trillion Dollars needed to keep US charities in operation, more than the US government collects in taxes.

The rest comes from their own assets, government support, and foreign investment. Our visual guide to giving shows who’s paying and offers some tips on how to pick a charity of your own.

Guess how many Italians it takes to equal one American in the giving department - chart and answer here.

Hot stock list for 2010 - Wait Wait - please don’t tell me !!!



Hands up if you had Southwestern Energy.

No? How about XTO Energy? Range Resources? Precision Castparts?

You should have. These were top stocks of the decade in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Ten years ago, the smartest thing you could have done with your money was to invest in these. Each $1,000 invested then would be worth tens of thousands today.

Now look at the stocks the experts told you to buy instead.

The most widely recommended — according to a quick survey at the time in the Washington Post — were America Online, Cisco Systems, Qualcomm, MCI WorldCom, Lucent Technology and Texas Instruments.

Ahem.

Any people who invested in that portfolio have lost about two-thirds of their money. The average stock picked at random was up 3%, including dividends.

Read the rest of the story here

Think “buy and hold” is still a good strategy….



Next time your financial guy trys to give you the “buy and hold” strategy nonsense - reread this article from CNNMoney:

Popular auto makes, magazine publishers and retailers were among the businesses laid to rest in 2009. Here’s a list of familiar names you won’t see in the future.

Photo: John R. Coughlin / CNNMoney.com

1. Circuit City Retail Stores

Circuit City became one of the largest retailers to go out of business this year, after the 60-year old electronics chain declared bankruptcy at the end of 2008.

Read rest of article here

Makes me wonder what the financial industry ’s next buzzwords will be to do as little as possible while they hold your cash.

The times - they are a changin….

http://www.vimeo.com/2030361

Pimco’s CEO says individual investors must change their investing style, such as being less U.S.-centric.



The recent issue of Fortune Magazine has an interview with Mohamed El-Erian

If you are wondering who he is, here is a little bio:

Mohamed El-Erian has earned his status as one of the investment world’s rock stars with surprising speed. After a 15-year career with the International Monetary Fund, he joined Pimco just 10 years ago and began managing the firm’s emerging-markets bond fund.

That fund’s knockout performance, combined with his deeply intellectual approach to investing and understanding the larger financial world, caught the attention of Harvard University, among others.

The interview is great and worth reading (click here for full interview) but if you don’t have time I am copying the single most surprising and frightening paragraph of the interview - it deals with how he dealt with and was afraid of the collapse the US almost fell into last year.

After the September 2008 crisis, you mentioned in Fortune that you’d asked your wife to withdraw cash from the bank. What was your life like?

I would kiss my wife good morning at 2 o’clock in the morning. I would tell her, “You’ve got to watch TV. This is really important.” I normally get up at three, but I moved it forward to two.

And we worried about things we never thought we’d have to worry about. We worried about, Where’s our cash? There was a day when I called my wife and said, “Please go to the bank and get cash.” And she said, “Why?” I said, “Because I don’t think the banks are going to open tomorrow.” That’s how close it got.

Lithium - the new oil will create new South American power - Bolivia



High in the Andes, in a remote corner of Bolivia, lies more than half the world’s reserves of a mineral that could radically reduce our reliance on dwindling fossil fuels.

Lithium carries a great promise. It could help power the fuel efficient electric or petrol-electric hybrid vehicles of the future.

But, as is the case with fossil fuels, it is a limited resource.

Lithium carbonate is already in the batteries of laptop computers and mobile phones.  more

The Worst is yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses



Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%.

While losing 200,000 jobs per month is better than the 700,000 jobs lost in January, current job losses still average more than the per month rate of 150,000 during the last recession.

Also, remember: The last recession ended in November 2001, but job losses continued for more than a year and half until June of 2003; ditto for the 1990-91 recession.

So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back. more

Where do you want to wake up tomorrow?

http://www.vimeo.com/2540216