So Congress finally approved a bailout plan. Over the coming days, pundits and economists will debate the virtues and pitfalls of the $700 billion package.
 
George Soros (Reuters)

For comparison, I thought I’d serve up some of the alternative plans offered by a few concerned billionaires. The nation’s billionaires could have solved this far more quickly on [...]

It is not all that long ago that the big credit crunch banks were being lambasted in some quarters for their plans to invest heavily in Chinese banks, and that at least one pundit was predicting “The Coming Collapse of China”. How things change! Now it is the titans of Wall Street and the City [...]

For the past year, I have been predicting (wrongly) that the art market will correct. It defied the financial odds in part because the crisis hadn’t reached the super-rich and because a fresh wave of oligarchs and Middle Eastern sheiks hoisted their bidding paddles to save the day.

Gerhard Richter’s “Claudius” displayed at Christie’s auction house [...]

One of them is the history it provides of the company that we see today as Dun & Bradstreet. It’s motto is Decide with Confidence and they one of the first companies to be in the information game.In 1841, Lewis Tappan and his Mercantile Agency was the first modern credit bureau. In effect, Tappan established [...]

Il Duce means leader in Italian.
It is a term that is often applied by those that choose to influence others in a dictatorial manner.
A national franchise association assists the setting up and marketing of business format franchises in that country.
They lobby and represent the franchisors’ view and oppose franchisees when their interests are in conflict [...]

From Reuters:
Shanghai police will post photos and videos of jaywalkers in newspapers and on TV in a bid to shame them out of breaking traffic rules, local media reported on Thursday.
Offending pedestrians, moped riders and cyclists would be snapped at selected intersections and their images put in regular columns and on special television programmes set [...]

While the big news this week was the postponement of the Kayne West concert, Shanghaiist was busy contemplating what gigs to check out on Friday. Tonight there is a new(ish) bar getting in on the live music action. Bee Dees bar on Dagu road is playing host to Hard Queen with a free [...]

U.S. senator Sam Brownback has charged China with installing Internet-spying equipment in all major hotel chains serving the Beijing Olympics, the Guardian reported on Tuesday. The conservative Republican cited hotel documents he received, stating that all guests at hotels where Olympic visitors are staying “will be subjected to invasive intelligence-gathering by the Chinese Public [...]

Frustration at mysterious delays and abrupt diversions and cancellations have at times boiled over into violence at Chinese airports, with passengers trying to storm grounded aircraft and police having to be brought in to keep the peace. Deputy head of the civil aviation regulator, Yang Guoqing said authorities will punish airlines whose passengers refuse to [...]