Pertinent Links

• Joseph Stiglitz at Davos talking about what needs to be done to improve America's economy and the biggest waste currently in America (human resources/human capital). 8 minute video after short commercial. This is taken from Bloomberg TV with a hat tip to Zerohedge for the link.

• China punishing foreign companies (French and American) doing business inside China for out-dueling the Chinese.  From ZeroHedge blog
• Chinese stealing Facebook ideas, the same way they ripped off ICQ software and 95% of any Chinese accomplishments since chopsticks. From fastcomany.com
• Wanna get a train ticket in China???  Try yanking off your trousers and doing a dance for the ticket clerk. Works every time (or maybe not). From an LA Times blog
• Chinese piano player gives the finger to America after an invitation to the White House. From Los Angeles Times 
• Let's take a casual drive to downtown Beijing!!  Don't know how to drive??? Nevermind, if you don't hit a government Bureaucrat's nephew, you'll only see Chinese policemen impounding bicycles and shaking down old widows for money.  Yeah....  Good times.......
• California businessman, Brian Horowitz, kept prisoner in Shanghai by Chinese officials.
• Bob Janjuah speaks on the stock markets (text summary and 11 minute video).  He was interviewed by Bloomberg and I found the link at ZeroHedge blog.
• A terrific human interest story on former NFL football player Jim Plunkett.  He won the Super Bowl twice and cannot get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  I guess Roger Goodell has his standards. From Los Angeles Times
• Bank of America starting "fee-based accounts".  Apparently f*cking over the U.S. taxpayer for bank losses on derivatives and credit default swaps wasn't enough for the oligopolist banks.  Now the large banks just want to steal the money directly from your bank account.
• Our female visions for today: Here in a gallery, use the arrows.  Warning: there are a few men in these slides.  I apologize for that.  But it's worth a few extra clicks to see the females presented in the gallery.  Definitely some choice meat amongst these.  From LA Times,  Enjoy!!!