A basic rule of life for reporters is that you should spend your time talking with and learning about people who are not sending you press releases, rather than those who are.

Chinese emissions are a problem not just for its own people but also for the world. It has now overtaken the U.S. as the biggest carbon emitter; most of the coal that is burned anywhere on Earth is burned in China.

For a decade or more after the Vietnam war, the people who had guided the U.S. to disaster decently shrank from the public stage.

Everyone in the Chinese economic world knows that the country is not going to move out of cheap-workhouse status, toward the realm of 'real' rich-country corporate power and prosperity, unless (among other changes) it begins removing these price distortions.

If you ask me, over time, I am a believer in the Indian financial saving story getting stronger; a lot more savers are moving money away from gold and real estate into banks, mutual funds, insurance and equities.

The implication that women work for pin money and can manage on a worse pension, presumably by relying on husbands, riles. But even more galling for women is that few government ministers seem to even appreciate the value of the work they do.

If everyone in America can easily see who and what their lawmakers are requesting taxpayer money for, we can keep elected officials honest, end the days of political, special interest favors, and reduce wasteful spending.

Politicians need money at election time and money to get the vote. Well, more than half of money in election comes from corporate interests whose interests are in polluting the Chinese environment and making products.