Everybody’s getting in on it! Bernanke has a plan. Paulson has a plan. McCain has a plan. Obama is working on a plan. Bush… well, I just hope Bush is working on anything. Ryan Peeler has a brilliant plan that will both inject the economy with cash and determine the next president.

Even those Libertarian Madison Avenue-types are getting onboard the Bail-Out planning bus, albeit for different reasons:

But don’t worry, even ACTUAL recession won’t reduce the Ad Industry’s precious consumer spending, let alone RUMORS of recession.

Remember that spike 9 days ago when your mutual fund bounced back and things didn’t look so bad? What the NYTimes reported as “the stock market soar[ing] last week on rumors that there would be a bailout.” RUMORS, people. Stay with me, here.

And this morning, Goldman shares jumped back towards their pre-Lehman Brothers price just on rumors of Warren Buffet‘s $5 billion or $10 billion dollar investment. Again, RUMORS.

So JEC Chairman Chuck Schumer (Sen. D-NY) says “Americans are furious” about the price tag on the current plan for bail-out. The people are getting angry–furious–but absolutely nothing has been done, yet. So far it’s just talk. Just RUMORS that things are going bad, RUMORS that things are going to get worse.

So, if the largest obstacle to approving the bail-out is the price tag and the strongest force on the US economy today is the rumor mill, I propose a 100% Free Plan to bolster the economy, save the struggling markets and stimulate America’s move back to a happy, ignorant, credit-based, stable financial economy.

We need to start the rumor that everything is going great. I recommend it start with a speech from the White House– George Bush puts one arm around McCain and another around Obama and he tells the cameras that “They’d miscalculated. Bernanke did his math wrong. Everything’s good. Going great.”

Then we shoot this via satellites and internet, and of course, YouTube, over to Europe and Asia and they hear that the US economy is fine, that the “crisis” was just a “bank error,” and it renews the confidence of global financial markets who are quick to swoop up the deals of the weakened dollar, buying more Converse shoes and Michelin tires.

Finally, I suggest we get some people on megaphones to stand around on Wall Street and read government reports on how much more ethanol fuel we produced, how many more pairs of boots, and how much higher our standard of living is compared to years past. We could put a few Squeelers right on the steps of the Capitol building. Just to remind everybody that times are good and that you’re not really in as much debt as you think you are.

Either that, or admit that the threat of recession and the entire subprime mortgage crisis was a trick to get Sen. McCain out of Friday night’s debate with Sen. Obama.

But more importantly: The Browns are gonna go with Anderson again this week. Anderson! Let’s just say we’re a country that loves a losing streak.

Translation Services are today’s Snake Oil and Magic Dust. I have just completed an over 15-hour translation project turning this company’s over 75 product descriptions from English into the material for a Spanish/Latin America Catalog. About half of that time was spent with a Native-speaker who is also an industry-insider. At the completion of our translation, I still feel like there may be some confusing descriptions, but at least I’ve straightened out my terms for “pan” and “tray.” You see, the trick in translating Industry-Specific terms, is that even when you have an exactly-right literal translation, it can still be utter nonsense to your expert readers.

I am going to share with you today’s observation of China. Close your eyes and envision a map of the United States. Okay, now open your eyes and keep reading… You’re going to point on that map to these locations as I list them: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose. These are the Top 10 U.S. Cities by Population and Rank. You may have noticed your finger stopped in about every major region of the country and crossed the continent at least 3 times. Further down that list you’d touch Detroit, Memphis, Jacksonville and Seattle at 23.

Now, the Top 10 Cities in China are Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guanzhou, Tianjin, Nanjing, Dalian, Hangzhou, Shenyang and Harbin. If you were to do the same mental map-pointing with this country, you’d find your finger never strayed from the east coast. In fact, you’d find that most of these cities, 8 out of 10, cluster like shotgun fire to within 2 hours of each other.

China is a huge country, roughly the same area as the United States, but with more than four times the population. Across such a broad expanse of people and geography, one expects the country to have developed several distinct and unique cities and cultures. In the US, for example, we have Northerners and Southerners, we have City People and Country People, but we also have Suburbanites, Rednecks, New Englanders, Westerners, Mid-Westerners, Snow Birds, Beach Bums, Grunge Rockers, Cowboys, and Californians. There are lots of different lifestyles with different cultures and values, but these groups are dispersed across the length and breadth of the country. From what I can tell, China does not work this way.

In China, the businesses, industries, infrastructure, government, and foreign political influence—not to mention the wealth and leading founts of culture—are all located on a stretch of the country’s east coast spanning from Beijing down to Shanghai, the rough equivalent of the state of California. Meanwhile, the western portion of the country, perhaps 90% of the land area, is occupied by about 60% of the population and responsible for less than 25% of the GDP.

So, why does this strong disparity between East and West exist in China? Similar to that of the industrial North and agrarian South in the antebellum US, the cause is the drastically different cost of doing business in the regions. “The government is doing things to move China west,” said Randy Creel, a logistics expert at a major MNC in China. “The hesitation is the lack of infrastructure and its effect on logistics costs.” Effects on logistics costs that work out to about 200% more investment per mile for companies to run their businesses in Western China. China is on a self-perpetuating cycle of eastern growth and western lag that will require more than government incentives to Western businesses and FDI spenders. It may require an all-out reallocation of infrastructure build-up that the country has never before undertaken. At least not until the 2008 Beijing Olympics. –Shawn Butler

We arrived at the world headquarters of Alibaba.com in Hangzhou to a fanfare of music–music that could have come from the soundtrack to the original Super Mario Bros. Across the less than 1,000 sq. foot office floor, the 115 employees stood inside their 4×4 ft. cubicles and stretched their arms in the air. Then, in unison, the entire mass of twenty-somethings began doing jumping jacks. They continued their group exercises while our group of MBA students was escorted past the cube-clusters into a large meeting room.

The calisthenics are but a small, visible piece of the unique corporate culture of Alibaba Group, an English language web-based business-to-business eCommerce and eAuction service specializing in connecting international buyers and small- to medium-sized Chinese sellers. Our guide quickly made us aware that the company knew it was unique. “For most companies,” he said, “employee culture is like a cliché or a joke.” Well, it is not that way for the employees here. “Everybody is happy,” he continued. “It is our environment.”

We were then given a rough translation of a company joke that concerned a stubborn donkey in a mill that refused to work for his master. The master enticed the donkey to do his work at the mill by threatening to send him to work for Alibaba.com. “Here we all work like donkeys!” he announced as the punch line. Indeed, the word “work” actually appears in 2 of the 6 points of their printed company motto. So, are hard work and teamwork the strong points that make Alibaba such a successful company? Or is there more to this unique start-up’s corporate culture?

The lobby of HQ is decorated in orange scarves and bright orange hanging plastic fruit. And one other ubiquitous decoration—photos of company founder, Jack Ma. Ma is the poster-child of the New Chinese, the modern entrepreneurial self-made success story that this newly-capitalistic nation adores. And he is on posters. Giant reprints of the man’s photo adorn 2 out of every 4 walls in the building and line the staircase up to the top floor. In ’88, Ma was an English teacher fresh out of college. 11 years later, after a visit to Seattle and a crash course in computers, Ma was founding his own eBay-esque business. Then, 8 years later, he took his company public on the HKSE to raise $3 billion USD and become the IPO with the greatest increment in stock price at first trading in 2007.

Jack Ma’s influence is everywhere and his success is a model to the employees of his company. “He has us call him Kwai Chang, from the TV series Kung Fu,” our guide told us. During our tour, every action and idle quip of the 43-year-old founder was revered as holy writ, and even offered as justification for the “spirit” that prevailed there at the company. When asked what he thought Alibaba would do to maintain its growth and close the gap on rival companies Google and Baidu, our guide’s response, stars nearly visible in his eyes: “I can’t answer that. I’m not Jack Ma.” –Shawn Butler