News

Bad Assets Overshadow Banks' Huge Profits

When asked by reporters on March 15 about how he perceived the huge profits of China's banking industry last year while the private sector was foundering on a shortage of bank loans, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of People's Bank of China, said he thought banks' staggering profits were a natural result of readjustment of economic cycles.

Low-income Housing Surge Will Ease Market Slump

The outlook for China's real estate market remains sluggish this year, after Premier Wen Jiabaopresented the government's resolution on the issue at the National People's Congress in March. Current restrictions on house-buying will not be eased in the short term, the resolution said.

Midwest Towns Cannot Give Land Away to Modern Homesteaders

In Marquette, Kansas an ice cream cone is $1.09, haircuts start at $10 and land is free.The land draws a lot less interest than ice cream or haircuts.In a modern day version of President Abraham Lincoln's 1862 Homestead Act that gave free land to settle the vast American interior, Marquette is among a dozen struggling central Kansas towns offering free lots to anyone who agrees to build a house.
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