food

Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc, the biggest foreign underwriters of yuan bonds sold in Hong Kong, say sales will double in 2011 as demand outstrips supply and the yuan appreciates.

BEIJING—To combat a surge in food prices that is worrying consumers and economists, China's government is reining in bank lending and selling down reserves of grain. But there is one driver of higher food prices that will be harder to get under control: the steady rise in the wages paid to workers on and off the farm.

When most people think about the American Revolution, they think about the remarkable ideals that lay behind it and that guide the country still, or they think of the war itself, with Gen. Washington's men freezing and half-starved at Valley Forge.

What doesn't come to mind very often is how the Revolution was paid for. "Wars are fought with silver bullets," according to a Chinese saying, meaning that the side with the most money usually wins. But in the case of the Revolution, Great Britain—the richest country in Europe and the possessor of the most advanced financial system—lost despite its silver bullets. And it lost to a ragtag bunch of former colonies that didn't have a regular money supply, let alone a financial system. Nor did the rebels have the capacity to manufacture arms or gunpowder in any quantity.

By Susan Berfield

On an unexpectedly rainy October day in Los Angeles, Stewart Resnick looks out the window of a third-floor conference room and shrugs.