The Chinese must have taken Rahm Emmanuel’s Rule Number One: “never let a good crisis go to waste” to heart. While other countries are wringing their hands and trying to assign blame to individual companies—guilty, of course, but let’s not mistake the shadow of a mountain, for the mountain itself,--China has taken to worldwide shopping and investment tours and to generally throwing its weight around on global economic issues, whether professing its worry about the soundness of the U.S. Treasuries or lecturing the West on its profligate ways. China continues its relentless quest for natural resources worldwide, made even easier now by the economic crisis. Cash rich China has been cutting deals to lock up supplies of oil, minerals, metals and other strategic commodities all across the globe to fuel its future growth. The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee began its two-day meeting today. There’s no expectation for any reversal in the Fed’s previous line of reasoning: the interest rates will remain near zero, and more measures to boost the economy will be announced. The Fed meeting was unexpectedly given a boost by the increased housing starts in February and increased whole-sale prices. The markets were up throughout the day gaining back from the Monday’s losses.