The Chinese spend no money on lobbying. Their lobbying is really done by the American business community in Washington.

The Chinese really don't do any lobbying. The heavy lifting is done by the American business community.

Any time people do business locally, the money turns over a multitude of times throughout the community. With any large, nationwide business, money goes out of state. It doesn't have time to turn over in the community.

[At a meeting of the Business Roundtable in Washington, D.C., the group's chairman, Pfizer ( PFE ) CEO Hank McKinnell, said its Economic Outlook Survey shows few signs of major damage to the national economy. Sixty-one percent of CEOs surveyed described the effect of the hurricane on their business as moderately negative, while only 4% described it as strongly negative.] Katrina's effect will be catastrophic locally, ... a significant -- but not catastrophic -- national effect.

In enterprise terms, an IT shop cannot just throw money at technology or business problems to make them go away, they need people with a distinct understanding of both the problems and the solutions.

Washington is going to send another packet for me to send back, so the money is coming.