Google has redirected its Chinese users to a Honk Kong search engine to avoid the censorship of mainland China in a move that underscores the Internet giant’s volatility in the Communist country. Google has accused China of blocking users access to Google.cn, the search engine’s Chinese website. Although Google has a relatively large presence in China at 36% of the search engine market with 600 employees, the country accounts for just 2% of their total revenue.

In Hong Kong, laws are looser than in mainland China, and Google has seized upon this fact to continue allowing their Chinese users to have unmediated access to the Internet. The Chinese government can deny its citizenry access to this site at any time, as they have control over all of the .cn domains.

Already China has expressed “discontent and indignation” at Google for its attempts to allow for freedom of speech and Internet access.  This bold move may relay to other companies working within China a message about how, and whether or not, to continue providing China with its own unique set of provisions. It remains to be seen whether Chinese officials will block access to the Hong Kong site.

On Sunday the vote for Health Care Reform will be decided. The bill is expected to pass, but while Democrats try to herd the remaining fence-sitters to vote ‘ay,’ Republicans will vote no, believing that it will cost more money and lessen jobs.  Needless to say, there remains a large partisan divide.

On one hand, the revised bill will bring more people health care – about 32 million, or 10% of the country’s population. It is, however, a sign of big government, as all Americans will now be required to have health care. An increased 3.8% tax on the wealthy will be imposed to make up for the 40% tax implementation in 2018 on high-cost insurance policies. More than $60 billion will be cut from Medicare. The result removes about $500 billion from the budget over the next 10 years. The final estimate by the non partistan Congressional Budget Office is a $940 billion bill.

President Obama delayed his eastern trip until June to ensure the passage of ObamaCare. But if the bill goes through the House, it still has to pass the Senate, where many believe it will be subject to numerous procedural objections. In any event, this version, though drastically cleaner and more transparent than the one from November, still has a long way to go.

In the Senate, a jobs bill passed 68-29 with 11 votes from Republicans. This new bill will increase tax breaks for small businesses by providing them with incentives to hire the long term unemployed (those who have been out of work for more than 60 days). Business tax breaks add up to about $15 billion. It also adds about $20 billion to the country’s infrastructure programs. The Transportation Department furloughed 2000 workers in early March due to a freeze.

Good news for the markets too — they are up due to a .6% drop in the producer price index for finished goods.  This has lessened fear about inflation and has kept the Fed’s  interest rates reassuringly near 0%. The 52 week intraday high was set today at 10731 and comes after a six day string of growth for the DJIA.

Over the past few months the volatility of the markets has been much lower, with indices dropping to a quarter of where they were a year ago.  Triple digit intraday jolts occurred 14 out of 19 days last month and 11 of 19 days in January. For the first four months of last year every day had 100 point swings. The steady markets, although more boring for investors, suggest that steady rises are ahead.

Christopher Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut, will show his financial regulation proposal on Monday without presenting it to any members of the G.O.P. This financial revamp is the largest since the Great Depression, and as such, Republican Congressman are up in arms about Dodd’s unilateral action.

At present, there are four departments that oversee banking regulation. Mr. Dodd proposes leaving the Fed to oversee only the largest banks, those with over $100 billion of assets, of which there are 23. The other national banks would be overseen by a new department, merging the comptroller’s office and the thrift supervision office. The state banks would have their own overseeing department, the F.D.I.C.

The remaining issues of architectural structure vis-a-vis these regulatory agencies are still up in the air. Bipartisan opinion  is more solidly established about issues like: new councils to offer risk management and potential security for future financial disasters; more transparency in negotiations between banks and on derivatives; and the improvement of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ability to help investors.

While Senator Dodd did work at length with Bob Corker (R) of Tennessee, some view this as a move to placate other Democrats, by which Dodd will move the bill more to the right.  In any event, big government is going to be made ever so smaller with the introduction of this bill.

Bank of America has proposed to end overdraft fees on debit cards beginning this summer. For existing customers this change will occur in August and for new customers it begins in late June.

This move comes as a response to growing outrage against banks for charging fees on overdrafts, the recession’s impact on customers, and a new federal law prohibiting overdraft fees on A.T.M. transactions and debit purchases without customer consent.

Bank of America seeks to re-establish trust between its customers after having lost so much ground over the fast few years due to the role banks played in the financial crisis.

Other banks will be likely to follow suit. Previously overdraft fees have provided banks with multi-billion dollar revenue. Although only 14% of customers provide more than 90% of this revenue,  many customers incur a fee on small purchases like a cup of coffee and are outraged when it shows up as $40 on their statement.

Although these fees will soon become a thing of the past, banks will experiment in how to generate revenue with other fees. Although customers will be denied if they do not have the cash in their checking account, for $10 they can link their debit spending to savings accounts or credit cards to make their purchase.

(bars indicate rate of job loss)

In February only 36,000 jobs were lost keeping the unemployment rate at 9.7%. This news has caused mild relief on the part of many economists who were foreseeing a larger molt in the job market due to heavy snowstorms that swept across the Northeast and Midwest this past month. Some believe that the figures are depressed by the blizzards and that a rise can be expected.

While the loss is still that, a loss, it is dramatic when compared to the more than the 650,000 lost in February of 2009, the nadir of the recession. Such news has provided hope for the springtime, when American employers slowly begin to prepare for the change of season with new hirings. Many believe that the slow trickle of job losses will soon become a gain.

On Thursday the House of Representatives passed a $15 billion dollar bill to offer tax breaks to businesses in order to increase hiring.

The markets are up as a result. Look for the Dow to close above 10,500 today for the first time since December. This news shows that recovery has begun, albeit slowly.

Ford’s sales in February increased 43% from a year ago. This is the first time in more than fifty years that Ford has outsold its larger rival GM, which doesn’t augur well for the government owned vehicle manufacturer.  While 40% of sales come from rental car companies, which often resell these cars to the used car market in turn depreciating the value of newer cars, the boost to their sales seems to be well worth it.It helps that last year Ford was able to continue its business without the help of the government, further reassuring customers of its image.

This marks the first time that Ford has topped GM in over a decade, when workers from the latter company went on strike. Toyota’s sales fell 8.7% from recent recalls and quality reports. Chrysler’s sales remained steady with only a 0.5% increase in sales. Honda’s sales increased 12%.

The boost to the car markets indicated a slow recovery to the global recession. While trade values have risen by almost 30% from the the depths of last February’s numbers, they still fall short of pre-recession values by about 20%.