The House approves $819 billion stimulus bill with not a single Republican voting in favor. All but 11 Democrats voted for the plan. The package was approved with a 244-to-188 vote. The Senate leadership is preparing to bring their $900 billion version of the package to the floor on Monday. President Obama signs his first bill into law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, named for a veteran female Goodyear Tire & Rubber manager, who had sued for pay discrimination only to have her suit rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that she was too late in filing it. The law President Obama signed this morning allows the workers alleging pay discrimination to file a suit for a period of six months after they receive any paycheck that may be discriminatory, thereby increasing in practice the amount of time the workers have to file. And Chinese Premier blames the U.S. for the economic crisis in Davos. The Chinese government is apparently ticked off that some of its American investments (two words, Morgan Stanley) went bust and also about Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s statement that China is a currency manipulator. Premier Wen Jiaobao blamed an "excessive expansion of financial institutions in blind pursuit of profit," a failure of government supervision of the financial sector, and an "unsustainable model of development, characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption." Well, it’s quaint for the Chinese government to criticize U.S. high consumption, since that’s what China has been relying on for its own economic development. And how about the blind pursuit of profit in its own country that leads to the suppression of workers’ rights and dangerous and willful violations of product safety measures in order to squeeze out more profits with less, as in the latest milk tainted with melamine scandal (not to mention “the failure of government supervision”?) If ever there was a more perfect example of the kettle calling the pot black, show us!