Yeah, why doesn't China buy India?

Excerpt of William Pesek's very interesting article on Bloomberg, which opens with a bit of tongue in cheek about private banking head cum wannabe dancer Mimi Wong, and ends up talking about China's huge currency reserve!

$1 Trillion Ideas

Here are eight things China could do with some or all of its $1 trillion of reserves.

-- Buy India. Why not just put to rest all these China versus India analyses and grab Asia's fourth-biggest economy? With the flick of a pen, China could get its hands on a billion- plus-person nation, more than 50 percent of which is younger than 25. Overnight, China's English-proficiency rankings would get a big boost. So would its software and service industries.

What's more, the price tag for India's economy -- $775 billion -- leaves plenty left over to grab New Zealand, home to lots of natural resources that Chinese industry needs.

-- Scoop up all of Vincent van Gogh's paintings. In May, an 1890 Van Gogh portrait -- titled ``L'Arlesienne, Madame Ginoux'' -- sold for $40 million in New York. China could corner the market for the Dutch master's most coveted works. And it could spend the rest of its money building huge new museums to house the art.

Gates and Google

-- Put Bill Gates on the payroll for life. China wants to raise its technology game and cultivate entrepreneurship. It could hire the Microsoft Corp. co-founder to help do just that. Forbes magazine put his net worth at $50 billion this year. Beijing could pay him ten times that, and then some. It also could buy Google Inc. Why bother getting the most-used Internet search engine to help you censor cyberspace when you could own it?

-- Build 833 Stephen Wynn casinos. This week, thousands of mainland Chinese flocked to Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia, to check out Wynn Resorts Ltd.'s new $1.2 billion casino. China could scatter its own Wynn-like joints around the country. Given demand for gaming tables in China, it's hardly a gamble.

-- Purchase 77 million Rolex Daytona watches at $13,000 each. And if you walk the streets of Shanghai, or any sizeable Chinese city, pirated versions can be had much, much cheaper.

Prizes Galore

-- Buy Sony Corp. and about 20 other companies with its market value. The good news is that China could grab stock in the world's biggest maker of video-game players on the cheap. News yesterday of setbacks in bringing the PlayStation 3 to market this year sent Sony shares down 1.6 percent.

-- Finance 729,000 Nobel Peace Prizes. China could buy itself Nobels for chemistry, physiology, you name it. Of course, if China figures out how to slow the economy to avoid overheating, while also creating hundreds of millions of jobs to maintain social stability, it would deserve a peace prize for sure.

-- Pay for 526,000 years of Latin dance lessons. Wong's original deal with her dance instructors breaks down to about $1.9 million per year. At that rate, China's current reserves could have officials dancing for joy pretty much forever.