3 interesting bits today from the SCMP:

1. China's Olympic medallist touring party went to Macau yesterday and came out winners without even entering a casino. Stanley Ho and the Greater Good of Macau gave the 50 visiting Chinese atheletes HK$5 million to share amongst themselves. What wasn't reported was it was all in gambling chips.

2. A mainland economist says China's restrictive credit policies are leading (inevitably) to corruption. Firms with good connections are btter able to obtain loans in the more difficult lending conditions. The irony is the better connected firms are the state-owned ones and they are crowding out more efficient private companies as a result. So the result of the tightening of credit is the worst firms survive while their private competitors struggle. Another unsurprising perversion of incentives in China's semi-market economy.

3. Migrant labour, long a source of cheap workers, is finally starting to benefit from China's economic boom by being able to become more choosy over jobs. ALN has been covering this story extensively.

4. In the lead-up to the 4th plenum of the CCP's Central Committee (ie a real decision making meeting) authorities have arrested over 30,000 potential petitioners. Dont' want the powers-that-be getting to hear from the people they're meant to serve. Imagine how many will get rounded-up when something really important happens...like the Beijing Olympics. I'm going for 100,000 as a starter.