Mario Cavolo

Per a weekend WSJ report, Google continues dreaming in it's attempts to get the Chinese to budget on their censorship hard line. Hasn't anyone besides me noticed that the more global governments and media push the Chinese to soften their censorship policies and revalue the yuan, the less likely these things become?

When my father was the boss of his very successful insurance agency many years ago, he told his team "Its my way or the highway". Frank Sinatra spoke it a bit more romantically in his rendition of "My Way".

The Chinese leaders, on the other hand have not and will continue to not pull their punches or engage in vague, conciliatory language games. The most recent week has shown them to send their messages abundantly clear as I've been stating these many months:

1. If you want to do business in our country, its my way or the highway.

2. If you want us to to revalue the yuan AND also continue as a buyer at your debt auctions, it will snow in hell first.

Thanks Dad.

A foreigner such as myself arriving in China for the first time back in the late 1990's was in for an indescribable culture shock, especially with regard to traditional family and marriage values. Traditional, conservative, even arranged marriages were the norm and 10 years later in most of the country, they still are.

More to the point, when a young couple married, they bought a home. The young boy and his family were expected to provide that home. In fact, if he couldn't, the family of the bride would not allow the marriage. Not to mention the bride wouldn't be too keen on marrying a man who couldn't at least provide her with their own home to start their life in together.

All that has changed now.

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Postulating that we can recognize a broad and well-crafted PR campaign for higher oil prices amongst those interest parties including the oil industry, oil companies, oil traders and compliant media, evidence to the contrary clearly indicating waning demand is all around us. Read on to understand how their self-interested manipulation could be everyone's downfall.

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Monday Morning - While those who are at all intelligently familiar with the western media are more than aware of the bias with which the news is served up, according to the news report below, China obviously thinks that media bias to favor and support the government is somehow a uniquely "Marxist" ideal.

I appreciate the Chinese government's honesty: that the media has a role and responsibility to serve the stability of the government system which runs the country, not create trouble which could lead to instability and disharmony.

Whoa. You see folks, in places like the United States, the land of the free, for example, everyone related to the media industry likes to wave their "we're not biased" flag but in practice, it simply isn't true. Best-selling books have been written on the well-documented and researched issue of bias in the media.

I'm not going to judge good or bad either way. I am simply pointing out my appreciation of the Chinese saying it like it is rather than pretending. Better to call it what it is. "A duck is a duck."...especially when its a Chinese news media duck.

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As usual, beware of statistics. It might sound like American consumers are becoming much more frugal and diligent with their spending as we find the Federal Reserve data reports a 90 billion drop in outstanding credit card balances.

Encouraging news indeed but not so fast as 90% of that drop was due to consumers defaulting on their credit card balances. Scary stuff...Cheers, Mario

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Credit-card debt has been falling for 16 straight months but consumers aren't paying off their financial obligations as much you might think. Instead, they're walking away from the debt, forcing credit-card issuers to write off as much as 90% of that reported drop, according to a new report by CardHub.com.

Full MarketWatch Article Here

Here's a clue to consider....Chang An Auto recorded a 432% profit rise year on year, has 10% of the market and expects to sell 1.8 million autos in 2010 totaling consolidated revenue of 39 billion yuan. So what about the other 30+ auto manufacturers in China?...Unbelievable!!...Cheers, Mario

Chongqing Changan Automobile (000625) recorded a 432.3 percent year-on-year surge in 2009 net profit to 1.078 billion yuan, reports China Securities Journal, citing a company filing.

Earnings per share was 0.46 yuan. The company declared that it will distribute cash dividends of 0.65 yuan for every ten shares held.

Consolidated operating revenues for 2009 hit 25.2 billion yuan. The company produced and sold 1.387 million vehicles and 1.369 million vehicles respectively in 2009, representing increases of 66.87 percent and 64.07 percent from the previous year. Sales of minivans rose 86.69 percent year-on-year to 675,200 units.

The company has a 10.03 percent share of the domestic auto market, representing an increase of 1.13 percentage points year-on-year. By sales volume, it is ranked amongst the top four in the Chinese auto market.

Chongqing Changan Automobile recorded a gross margin of 20 percent in 2009, an increase of 4.69 percentage points from 2008.

The company is targeting to produce and sell more than 1.85 million units in 2010 with consolidated revenue of about 39 billion yuan.

Article at CapitalVue