links for 2010-01-29

Chinese policies that promote domestic firms and create barriers against foreign ones could cause American companies to lose interest in China, U.S.Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said on Thursday.

It's becoming increasingly clear that one of the results of the economic meltdown has been a parallel meltdown in the public's confidence that their bickering, partisan leaders in Washington can come together to deal with it, or with much of anything…The answer lies in the very culture of the capital, where every problem is seen less as an issue to be resolved than a tool to improve political position; in which every position taken by a political leader of either party is automatically and mindlessly assailed by the other side's 24-7 political-attack machines; and in which lawmakers willing to negotiate a compromise are assailed by their own party's activists as spineless or lacking in conviction.

The U.S. Senate narrowly voted to defeat a proposal to immediately end the Treasury's financial market rescue plan as several moderate Democrats sided with the Republican minority in favor of the measure.

The United Kingdom is no longer classified as being among the most stable and low-risk banking systems in the world, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's said on Thursday.