Money - money - money.

Abba wrote a song called 'Money money money'. There are lots of sayings and songs to impress on us that it is money that makes the world go round. Well there are some places in the world that go round faster than others.

In the China Daily, I found this little snippet of information.

"China has had more billionaires created by its stock markets this year than in the United States - 212 compared with 211 - a new survey revealed on Thursday.

According to the latest Hurun Global Rich List 2013, there were 1,453 people in the world with personal wealth of $1 billion or more at the end of January.

Another significant sign of more wealth being created in the East came with figures showing Asia was home to the highest number of billionaires, with 608, followed by 440 from North America and 324 from Europe, said Hurun researchers.

Among individual countries, the US and the Greater China area dominated with 408 and 357 respectively, followed by Russia, Germany and India.

Between them, the US and China now have half of all billionaires on the planet.

Moscow, with 76 billionaires, is the billionaire capital of the world, followed by New York, Hong Kong, Beijing and London, according to the report.

Mexican telecom czar Carlos Slim, 73, was ranked as the "Richest Man on the Planet" with a personal fortune of $66 billion, followed by US investor Warren Buffet."

Many westerners still have the perception that Chinese people live in little shantys dotted around the country. If you have been there or read about it you will know that China has become a very modern country, and they certainly know how to earn a dollar and save it.

A mall that opened when I lived in Suzhou.

 

The entrance to one of the nicer restaurants in a small city in China.

 

Another article in the China Daily talked about how the Chinese save money.

 

"China's personal savings rose to a record 14 trillion yuan (US$1.7 trillion) at the end of last year, mainly because people put aside more money to pay for education, health care and housing, analysts said yesterday.

China's personal savings rose to a record 14 trillion yuan (US$1.7 trillion) at the end of last year, mainly because people put aside more money to pay for education, health care and housing, analysts said yesterday.

A resident counts RMB banknotes at a branch of Agriculture Bank of China in Liaocheng, East China's Shandong Province January 16, 2006. [newsphoto]

The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, said on Sunday that savings reached 14.1 trillion yuan (US$1.74 trillion), or more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,200) per capita.

The figure was 12.6 trillion yuan (US$1.56 trillion) for 2004.

Yet, even as people get richer, they have become more cautious in their spending."

Remember the old saying, 'take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves'? Well this certainly applies in China. Although people will spend money on themselves when necessary, generally buying good quality clothes and household items, even if they have plenty in the bank they will still take into account the extra one or two Yuan when they spend. 

Let's face it, practically everything in every shop in the west is full of stuff 'Made in China'. That's where all our money goes.

Emanual.

Peter found this on you tube. It’s worth a look. It’s from the Australian  X-factor auditions of 2011.

The proof of the pudding. And more lousy weather.

Ha, Mates Rates seem to have done a good job.  Here is the proof. One medium sized huntsman on the outside of the house, hanging around….lol..

He might not look very big, but he has all his legs tucked up tight.

More pudding:

I have done a few posts about the mango trees at this home we are house sitting. Today we reaped the rewards. We have watched the growth of the mangos from the tiny tiny flowers to the tiny tiny fruit to the bigger fruit, and although only three grew to maturity, one gobbled by bats or birds and the other two rescued by us. Today  we got to eat one. Just delicious.

One final word today about the weather. We have had a wet summer and it is continuing. The weather has been completely lousy. The last few days have been windy again, stripping more leaves and small branches off the trees, and of course, kindly dumping some of them into the pool which means more cleaning.

About three weeks ago we had an ex-tropical cyclone go down the whole of the east coast causing havoc, well we are having a repeat of a couple of nasty weather events combining over Queensland. They are predicting 200 to 400 ml of rain all around us again, and around Bundaberg, who has not recovered from the last lot. Last night we had 50 mils, thats over two inches in the old language. It seems we will get another four to six inches today and tomorrow. What joy! This house is never going to flood, we are high up, and on a sloping hill, if we flood all the Gold Coast would be under water, so we are safe there, but even so it is likely to cause more major problems. All the local dams are releasing water as fast as they can, which causes flooding downstream anyway. Add to that water spouts off the coast, its been a crazy summer for weather.