China is investigating sales of GM, Ford, and Chrysler vehicles, and the inquiry could lead to higher tariffs for American automakers.

Read more here. Comments are interesting. Do you have any? Let’s hear.

Pictured: Fort Fiesta unveiled in China (2008).

Is the Chinese market open to sufficiently low-cost foreign solar suppliers?

Your guess is as good as mine but to learn more, read this.

Additional resources:

China plans world’s largest solar plant

Reuters Summit-China, U.S. to dominate solar market

West vs. China in solar war

Photo: China’s great solar-powered LED wall.

Day 4 of the Technorati State of the Blogosphere dawns, and we can finally follow the money. (See earlier articles on Technorati blogonomics here and here). So, what can we glean:

Firstly, about half of the blogosphere (46%) don’t use Ads. Of those that do, most (28% out of 54% who use Ads) use 3 Ad methods or more (Search 38%, Display 30% and Referrals 20%) As you’d expect, most (69% ) use Pay Per Click Ads, but (35%) use referrals and 19% negotiate deals directly. Most who don’t advertise feel its because they either don’t want the hassle and/or the site cluttered, and the most of the rest don’t think they don’t have enough traffic.

But what you really wanted to know about is the money, I’m sure

This is the money-shot slide:

Blog Ad Revenue from Technorati

Look at the European vs US revenues – you would have thought the US would have higher earning blogs, given people like Shiny Media’s travails vs the clear funding offerings the US blogs have received. Its doubly surprising given the CPMs:

Blog CPM forom Technorati

European blogs get, on average 80% higher revenues with 75% of the CPM rate, that implies nearly double the traffic. The Median also implies double the traffic….hmmm

And the typical pro-blogger profile – a top 10% blogger earns $19k pa, is likely to be professional, and many (c 2x) more are self employed than employed. The typical output is vc 80 posts a month, c half blogging over 10 hours a week (a lot more to get 80 posts methinks) and investing $7.5k, for a return of c $11.5k – so just under $1k a month.

If you have found yourself with some extra money, you know how difficult it is to find a good, solid way to invest it so that it won’t lose its value and, if possible, make something out of it too. But investing on your own can lead to disastrous results if you don’t have some guidance from a reputable investment expert.

APFinancial is a solid, safe way to make that investment. This company, with branches in Denver, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio, Tampa, Dallas and Loveland, is one of the leading financial services firms in the US, with years of experience in providing you with the best investment opportunities.

And that’s just the beginning: APFinancial is affiliated with InterSecurities, Inc. (ISI), a full-service investment firm with more than 1,800 registered representatives nationwide, so that if you are interested in investing in places where there are no APFinancial branches, you’ll still get access to the best investment opportunities out there, no matter where you want to invest.

As a sample of the kind of commitment APFinancial has towards its clients, they’re planning a new Office, to be located in Fort Collins. The Fort Collins Office will be launched and managed by the company’s youngest Executive Director, Aryn Goldman, a Colorado native and graduated from Colorado State University in 2005.

With the opening of the Fort Collins office, Ken C. Perrin, Senior Partner at AP Financial says, “we hope to provide a greater focus to areas in Northern Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming. AP Financial has experienced a phenomenal growth rate over the past few years and they plan to continue the trend.“

Every business has to go though times of uncertainty and financial crisis. Setting-up an emergency fund is thus vital for survival of most businesses, and even for businessmen. Here are some tips for setting-up an emergency fund.

• Determine the minimum emergency fund the business need. For most companies the optimum emergency fund is the sum of 5 or 6 months working capital.
• But the emergency fund size depends on many other factors like industry, company type, number of employees, money flow, etc. If a company’s daily/weekly money expense nearly equals the income, then they can have small sized fund.
• Find cash for setting up the emergency fund from other than your working capital; like from profits, commissions, cost-savings, replacing/avoiding of high-cost systems, etc.
• Keep your emergency fund separate from working capital.
• Keep your emergency fund always accessible. That is not investing them for long-term profits or money market accounts. Short-term profits are ok, but make sure that you can get money whenever you need.
• Never plan anything which needs spending of your emergency fund.
• Grow your emergency fund every year. It is also good to maintain an upper maximum limit, so that it never grows too much.