President Obama visited to China

President Obama went to China on Nov. 16, 2009 (Chinese time). The first stop for President Obama is Shanghai. He had a conversation with Chinese young people in Shanghai. After that he wil go to Beijing the capital of China, to talk to the Chairman of China -Mr. Hu. When he is in Beijing, President Obama will visit some places of interest such as the Imperical Palace which is is home and office for the kings in Qing Dynasty, the Great Wall which has over 2,000 years history. President Obama will talk about economic and political opinions and exchange them with Chairman Hu. China attach importance to this visit of President Obama, since it is the first time that Obama visit China after he bacame the President of the United States.

Disney Coming to China

On Tuesday, Novemeber 3, 2009. Disney finally allowed to enter China. Disney had planned about 20 years for this project, it could be the best deal for them. They plan to spend $3.5 billion to build the playground in Pudong District Shanghai and expect to open in 5-6 years.. They expect to attract 45 million visitors per year, and meet 1.3 billion needs of Disney products. In my opinion, it benefits both China and the Disney compay. Since China has a large population, but there is only one Disneyland in Hong Kong, so it is very crowded there, and some people who live far from Hong Kong even have no chance to go there. After the Shanghai Disneyland open more Chinese people can go there. Since Shanghai is located in the middle of China which is also the finance and economics center of China. More and more young people want to study there, work there and even live there. These will increase the number of visitors. According to The New York Times (B5, Wednesday, Nov4,2009) there are about 300 million people who live with in two hours of the site, and the Disney will own about 40% of the playground which will result in a large amount of income. On the other hand, it will increase the employment rate of China, which will increase the improvement of the Chinese econimics.

Cutting Costs the Most Common Way in the Recession

Nowadays, in the recession situation, companies want to keep their profit the same as before the recession, so they try all kinds of ways. The most common way they used is to cutting costs. By cutting costs they can get to a bigger profit. Take BP for example, BP is a British oil company they rosed their shares by 4.2% to $57.82 on Tuesday,Oct 27,2009. According to BP's manager, they expected to reduce their costs by about $4 billion which is bigger than the forecast. Although the profit of BP is still decline, it exceeds the forecasts. So we can say that cutting cost is one of the useful ways to improve profit. But the way to cut cost is not easy. It relate to the employees benefits, the products quality, and so on. Companies should be very careful when they decide to cut cost.

Cutting Price helps Pfizer

Pfizer the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company. As far as I know, it invested more than $500,000,000 in China, which is the largest investment for foreign companies. Their products are very closed to our daily life.
But form last year, Pfizer's sales became lower, which result in the decline of their net income. To increase sales, Pfizer decide to reduce their products' price, by doing that, their profit increased 26% in the third quarter, net income increase form $2.28 billion up to $2.88billion, or $0.34 per share up to $0.43 per share.
How can Pfizer reduce their price? the answer is to cut costs. They have eliminated 6,500 jobs so far this year, and planned to eliminate 20,000 jobs. Pfizer decided to keep cutting their cost to get more profit.
In my opinion, it is a way to increase profit by cutting costs, but, the results of doing that could be serious. Since, under the today's situation, more and more people lose their jobs, the unemployment rate is becoming a serious problem to the world wide. If more companies increase their profit by cutting jobs, the unemployment problem could be more and more serious. And the related problems will become more and more.

You Tube earns more

Nowadays, You Tube is one of the most popular websit. It is convenience and easy to find sources. According to comSore, 40% of the online videos seen in the Uited States in Augest are from Yu Tube(Miguel Helft, New York Times,Oct 7 2009). We can imagine how big the number it is. For example a video showed as a wedding has been seen more than 26.6 million times. It is really a large number. So companies find there is a way to earn more revenue by cooperating with Yu Tube. You Tube provide a Content ID system to 1,000 companies to against the pircy problem. The sources on You Tube are accompanied by advertisements and links to Amazon and iTunes where users can download the videos "Forver"(Miguel Helft, New York Times, Oct7 2009 ).

About my hometown

Now, I'd like to introduce my hometown Dalian. It is a small seaside city in northeast of China, and very close to Korea. Dalian is a romantic and fashion city. Because of the World War 2, there many architectural styles. There is a square called Zhongshan square, every building around the square has its own style. Dalian is a square city, you can find squares everywhere, the biggest one is Xinghai square which is also the biggest in Asia, the view in Xinghai square is really good. The most famous food in my city is sea food, it is really fresh and delicious, many people go to Dalian to enjoy the sea food every year. In my opinion the best time to visit Dalian is fall, because at that time, the temperature there is the most comfortable; the views there are the most beautiful; the events there are most interesting; and the sea food there is the most delicious.

I have posted some pictures that I got on line above. Hope you will like them.

Difference between China and United States

I have stayed here for one year and a half, but it still difficult for me to adapt. So I am going to tell something different from China.
There is a artical on the "The New York Times" on September 9, 2009, called "Overspending on Debit Cards Is Painful, but It's a Boon for the Bank." The artical says that the banks will let you overspend ,but if you overspend the bank will charge quite much fees for overdrafts. I have a experience on it. About a year ago, I didn't know the overdraft fees at all at that time, because in China, we have the quite different bank system. If your card is not credit card, then the banks will not allow you to overspend.They will make your card unavailable if you exceed your balance. So I overspent about $10, after that the bank charged me about $130 for overdraft fees. I was really shocked at that time. After that I became very careful about my balance, I never let it overspend anymore.
This is one difference between United States and China, I will tell some other difference in future.