It's a familiar dilemma for U.S. investors. With the U.S. economy being stuck in low gear, delivering a paltry 1.3% growth in the second quarter of the year, investors are looking elsewhere for great returns. A great place to start is China.
China has been delivering terrific growth — in the second quarter, its economy grew 9.5%, which was five times the rate of the U.S. economy's growth in the same period. But investing in China also carries risks for the average investor. A case in point is Chinese companies making headlines recently for fraudulent accounting practices.

While Apple (AAPL) flirted with passing Exxon Mobil (XOM) as the country's most valuable company earlier this year, the selloff the past few weeks has seen Apple's stock hold up relatively better - especially in the past few days - and as of yesterday's close we have a new market cap leader.  While largely symbolic, it is quite remarkable for a company which some 14 years ago (almost to the day) needed a cash infusion from Microsoft to keep ticking.

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and raising children at Childwild.com.

Shortly after finishing college, a friend of mine was fired from his first job. He kept showing up to work late — sometimes hours late. He was charming and smart and reasonably good at his work, but his employer just couldn’t rely on him to be at his desk on time, so they let him go.

Wow, who would have thought? In the past few years, Google had grown increasingly scared and maybe even paranoid about Facebook, its growing power and how it would end up impacting Google.

One of my favorite statements about personal finance is that it all boils down to five simple words.

Spend less than you earn.

Often, I’ll break this down into two methods you can use to earn more money. You can either increase your earnings (through a better job, better investments, and so on) or you can decrease your spending (through frugality).

It’s done. S&P did what many had only thought they would do. Stripping the US of it’s AAA rating, citing a negative outlook, will provide another hit to an already fragile business and consumer confidence landscape. The US’s fiscal path and its broken political system are to blame. The political scene is ‘so caustic that lawmakers are unable to make the tough choices needed to correct the debt-to-GDP rise’.

In my ideal world, you’d now be reading an article about the freelancing or entrepreneurship or extreme couponing or one of the half dozen other topics I’ve started to write about. In my ideal world, I’d go to the gym this morning, and then to Spanish lessons this afternoon. In my ideal world, Kris and I would go see the Portland Timbers play this evening. Unfortunately, I don’t live in my ideal world.

Management of KiOR, Inc. (KIOR:  Nasdaq) and its bevy of investment bankers talked big in the weeks leading up the company’s initial public offering in late June 2011.  The deal would be priced between $19.00 and $21.00 per share they said, potentially giving the company $210 million in proceeds.  A self-proclaimed renewable fuels operation, KiOR needs the money to commercialize and perfect its proprietary technology platform to convert non-food biomass into hydrocarbon-based oil.

The market has been incredibly resilient this week. Even after the President and the Speaker of the House bashed each other publicly Monday night, stocks held strong yesterday. Both parties are drafting plans and it looks like Sen. Reid (D) will get the first shot when the House votes tomorrow. As I mentioned yesterday, the entire process will come down to the final hour. At a time when the President should be mediating, he has inflamed Republicans. The House and the Senate are divided and they desperately need his leadership.