Photo, above:  Zong Qinghou says his daughter, Kelly Zong, will take over Wahaha when he retires. Photographer: Imaginechina/AP
Zong Tops China Billionaires as Communist-to-Capitalist, by Bloomberg News on October 31, 2012    Twenty-five years ago, when Zong Qinghou was 42, he made his living selling soft drinks and popsicles to schoolchildren. He says he earned about $8 a month -- less than a third of China’s average wage at the time -- and was so broke that he once slept in a tunnel under the streets of Beijing rather than spend on a hotel.  Today, Zong, 67, is still selling soda -- and lots of other things -- as the wealthiest man in mainland China, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its December cover package, “The World’s Richest People.” His net worth of $20.1 billion as of Oct. 5 ranks him No. 30 in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Supermarkets stock the juice, soda and bottled water his Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. produces, and doting Chinese parents buy his baby formula and children’s clothes. In all of Asia, only Hong Kong property developers Li Ka-shing and Lee Shau-kee and Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani are richer. [more]
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-31/zong-tops-china-billionaires...
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, The Kudlow Report, CNBC; and Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  8 Jan 2013 / Hour 1, Block A: Larry Kudlow, in re: No budget submitted by the Senate for he last one thousand-plus day. The law is that there must be a tax floor and a spending ceiling. President says we’re not spending too much; Congress says we are.  GOP needs to challenge him on spending, w the sequester and beyond it Leave the fiscal bill alone; focus on spending deficits, debt.  Budget chaos.  Harry Reid forbad development of a budget last year - odd.  It’s insane.
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 1, Block B:   Tod Lindberg, Hoover and Weekly Standard, in re: GOP chaos on Capitol Hill. What's produced in the end is agreement on something over nothing. Raucous caucus.  Could vote against it knowing it would pass – a luxurious position. Revolt against Boehner was a clown-car incident.  He's given up on achieving a grand bargain with the president. Were he able to achieve a long-term deficit reduction with the president, it'd get a lot of Democratic votes.  Biden is an important player – trusted by both sides from when he was in the Senate.  There's enormous waste ad fraud in the Pentagon without touching the basic/essential work.  http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/gop-chaos-capitol-hill_693768.html
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 1, Block C: . Stephen Moore, WSJ editorial board member & chief financial writer, in re:  The Education of John Boehner  . Eighty bil of crony tax credits to Hollywood, GM, NASCAR, and a bunch of unacceptable recipients.  Europe, China, Brazil, all soft.  Dodd Frank: the means of financing for a lot of bz activity s up in the air. Big guys can borrow, but others cannot. Unwilling to make ten- and twenty-year commitments.  Tax, regulatory, global economy uncertainty all are holding back growth even more than the debt.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732348250457822562023490210...
 
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 1, Block D:  Larry Kudlow, in re:  They won’t hire the fifty-first person. Wages, investment – keeps everything lower. OCC, FDIC – breathing heavily down the backs of the local community banks, stomping on possible "risky loans"  - pfaugh – and crushing banking investment in new business. Don’t underestimate the elongated housing problem.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 2, Block A:  Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal; Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, in re: The Tunisian government has freed Ali Harzi, a key suspect in the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. The FBI questioned Harzi in December, and Ansar al Sharia Tunisia released photos of the investigating agents online. Unlikely that there wasn't enough evidence to hold him" – he was reporting info on the attack in real time. He was busted in Turkey en route to Syria; denied FBI access  till a few weeks ago. Ansar al Sharia Tunisia stalked FBI agents, took photos of them as they interviewed al Harzi, and put them online immediately.
US launched six strikes in Pakistan in eight days.  Killed "pro-govt Taliban" – it kills everyone except the Pak govt, so the govt loves it. Drones are tactical.  "Small kill box."  The younger Zawayhiri (younger brother) arrested n Syria!  He may or may not have been  Cairo and [Dara?, in Syria].  Reports at variance; odd reporting. In fact, he is in Cairo.  Longtime mil commander of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He operates in a circle of (genuine) al Q terrorists.  Many al Q ops living comfortably I Egypt under Musrsi.  Ansar al Shariah there is headed by a fellow who's wonderfully open about his loyalty to al Q, appears in videos in front of an al Q flag. 
Abdelbasit Alhaj Alhassan Haj Hamad and Mohamed Makawi Ibrahim Mohamed murdered a US diplomat and his Sudanese driver in Khartoum in January 2008. Notice pattern of al Q killing Americans in North Africa.
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 2, Block B:  . Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal; Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, in re: US drones launch 2 strikes in North Waziristan
Two compounds were hit in the Mir Ali area. The US has now launched six strikes in Pakistan so far this year.  Mohammed Jamal al Kechif trained murderers of Chris Stevens in Benghazi. US obliged Egypt to imprison him but US is not given access. He's close to the top al Q leadership, is close to al Zawahiri's younger brother; all h tese guyd have some link or affiliation with al Qaeda.  Note that Syria is a battlefield for al Qaeda and Salafists.  One big emirate starts in Cyrenaica goes to Nile then Western Syria.  They’ve been kicked out of Yemen, doing well in Mali, making headway. 
The long war: we are not winning.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/#ixzz2HPlhZSvg
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 2, Block C:  Matt Miller, Bloomberg, in re: Billionaires get richer. Bllionaires have been having a good year.  Gats sells a portion of his Microsoft owning every year and invests in Cascade [Holdings?} widely. Most of his wealth is not from Microsoft.  He's committed all his money to charity, but not to his foundation.  Fellow who owns Zara, Mr Ortega, a Spaniard, made $22 bil last year. We track billionaires and their fortune day by day. Brazilian, Mr Batista, lost $10 bil last year – in an up year.  Sheldon Adelson is up $2bil so far in 2013.  Zong Qinghou, WaHaHa soda pop, with his stake in closely-held Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co, is the richest man in China.
. Billionaires Worth $1.9T Seek Global Advantage in 2013   
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 2, Block D:  LouAnn Hammond, Drivingthenation.com, at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronic Show, in re: Ideas.   1. Remotely configure your seat and start your car with your iPad.  2. Configure your seat to your body and the settings on your iPhone and be able to take it to another car and just press one button for it to configure the same way. 3. No more touching your nap system to change the buttons; you just gesture.  4. Automated systems from Bosch that are lightweight but allow you to have a copilot-like technology in your car.   5. Perhaps something from Continentale - an aftermarket product that would allow you to hook your iPhone into your car and have a GPS stereo everything in your car even if it's a 1993 Lexus.  6.  Both Ford and GM are allowing developers to develop apps for their car.   7. Kia's Linux -based system has a new service called e-service that allows you to have apps and services for free.
Apps have taken over the world – so many I never even knew exisetd. Continentale seat configuration is marvelous.  Can do that with the cushion inside the car seat, massaging unit, heat – and transfer it to every car seat.  Ford and GM have completely surrendered.
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 3, Block A:   David Sanger, NYT,  in re: Chemical weapons showdown with Syria led to a rare accord. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/world/middleeast/chemical-weapons-showdown-with-syria-led-to-rare-accord.html?_r=0
Tuesday  8 Jan 2013 / Hour 3, Block B:  Reza Kahlili, author, A Time to Betray, in re: IRAN'S NUCLEAR BOMB PROGRAM COMPLETE

 Source reveals secret site; last obstacle is to arm missiles.   http://bit.ly/13eM45K
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 3, Block C:  .Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: NOAA today released its newest monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle; the latest graph, with annotation, is posted below the fold The Sun crashes. The sunspot numbers for December not only were startlingly low, they actually plunged to levels not seen since May 2011, at a time when the Sun is supposed to be approaching sunspot maximum and the number of sunspots is supposed to be increasing.
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 3, Block D:   Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Bigelow and NASA have signed a contract for doing preliminary work on the construction of a Bigelow module for ISS. This is a significant story, with important ramifications.
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 4, Block A:  Ben Protess, Dealbook, NYT,  in re: Rescued by a Bailout, A.I.G. May Sue Its Savior / http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/rescued-by-a-bailout-a-i-g-may-sue-its-savior/
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 4, Block B:  Jed Babbin, NRO, in re:
Jed Babbin: Why Obama chose Chuck Hagel for Defense | WashingtonExaminer.com
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 4, Block C:  Sid Perkins,
Tuesday  8  Jan 2013 / Hour 4, Block D:   Bill McGurn, WSJ, in re: The Education of a Newspaperman: The WSJ is where I learned that the definition of prudence is knowing when to pick a fight.
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