Behind today's happy, happy news for investors that the S&P 500 hit a 13-month high is that, among other reasons, China's industrial production soared.

More on China in a moment, but meanwhile, no one believes Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, currently on a world tour and, as the WSJ says, "sticking to his mantra on foreign-exchange policy as the U.S. currency continues its broad downtrend." The dollar is dolor (despite a small uptick today), but there's probably a method to his madness:

Back to China: Check out Der Spiegel's excellent backgrounder, "Reluctant Partners: Global Crisis Makes US More Dependent on China than Ever."

Are the U.S. and China joined at the hip? Yeah, our two economies are making the springs squeak. And the two countries' inevitable spats will take on more and more importance. A divorce is highly unlikely, but everything just short of domestic violence between the two is, especially when it comes to trade issues.

The Yes Men punked the Chamber of Commerce yesterday in D.C. See the phony press conference in which the "Chamber" suddenly embraced climate-change legislation.

Is global warming a hoax? At last the obstinate business group finds evidence that it can be. The Heene family couldn't be reached for comment.

Let the Fratricide Begin (WashPost, Dana Milbank)

"As Michael Moore threatens moderates, Democrats begin tearing each other apart over health care." (WashPost's straight news story here.)

'08 rise in NYC rich club (NY Post)

"The jump was part of a rapidly growing income gap across the country that saw middle- and low-income families get pinched more by the recession."

Mixed Data Reflect Fragility of Economic Recovery (WSJ)

Are We Poised for Another Great Bull Market? (Seeking Alpha, Babak)

Probably not. "At best, we are going through a cyclical bull market — otherwise known as a bear market rally."

Moral decay? Or deregulation? (NYT, Paul Krugman)

A big dose of fluoride squirted on David Brooks's "moral decay."

Cyber Gangs Hit Healthcare Providers (WashPost)

Yet another threat to health care that's even bigger than the Democrats' infighting: Thieves, believed to be based in Eastern Europe, defrauding U.S. nonprofits that serve the disabled, uninsured, and kids. Another health threat from overseas, but this one affecting people from overseas: "The 'keister bomb' is the newest terror threat."

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What's worse than the destruction of jobs? The permanent destruction of jobs. Just because the market's humming right along for now doesn't mean that the jobless rate is going to suddenly drop toward normalcy.

Barack Obama's future will only get more complicated. Hidden in a rambling Bloomberg piece by Rich Miller are some really harsh truths about the unemployment rate, the deficit, and the interest rate. Plus the differentiation, if it's even possible, between the mere destruction of jobs and the permanent destruction of jobs in industries ranging from housing to finance.

Good details to skim before you tackle Liam Halligan's screed in the Telegraph (U.K.) about the hot air produced by Obama and others at the G-20 summit in already polluted Pittsburgh.

The funniest thing to come out of the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh is the vow to phase out subsidies for the production and consumption of fossil fuels.

As the WSJ notes in "G-20 Falls Short on Fossil-Fuel Agreement," the summit's communique doesn't even set a deadline for the phase-out, except to say the government supports should vanish "over the medium term," a period that could mean sometime in the next 10,000 years.

But that's not what makes the G-20's vowed "phase-out" so ridiculous. For one thing, oil companies are trumpeting a plethora of new discoveries, and oil companies will fight like hell to keep their subsidies to help pay the cost of extracting that difficult-to-reach oil.

Despite the cheerleading story the other day in the New York Times that announced these new discoveries and declared that there really is no "peak oil" crisis, industry figures themselves reveal that in some ways oil companies are going nowhere fast.

As the Oil & Gas Journal noted yesterday:

Oilmen are always crying about how they need oil prices to stay high so they can finance exploration and production. No sympathy from me — and I grew up in an influential oil town. The O&G Journal also notes: "High oil prices during most of 2008 helped industry to generate record cash flow of $590 billion, up 36% from 2007. ... The industry's cash flow exceeded capital spending by $100 billion."

That record cash flow, propped up by tax breaks and other subsidies, may not have generated record production, but it did generate record profits and big paydays for oil company execs.

The Republicans' Deaf Ear Is a Preexisting Condition (WashPost, Dana Milbank)

Funny piece on the first day of the Senate's "debate" on the health-care bill. GOP senator Jim Bunning declared he was against the bill, no matter what form, and then he promptly fell asleep. The Republicans might as well have sung "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It," Groucho Marx's bit from Horse Feathers (1932). Or just stayed home to watch re-plays of former colleague Tom DeLay dancing with the stars.

A New Bubble Of the Fed's Creation (WashPost, Steven Pearlstein)

Stimulus packages boost the market so much that, well, another boom is underway. Here's an example of excessive greedsters feasting on carcasses artificially bloated by government money, from the WSJ: "Speculators Seek Fortune in AIG." The NY Post notes that Lehman alums are setting up funds to pick at the carcass of their failed bank. Stocks are rising and traders are waiting with bated breath as the Fed meets this week to figure what, if any, action it will take.

Delayed Foreclosures Stalk Market (WSJ)

Though some foreclosures are being delayed out of good intentions to help beleaguered homeowners, "some analysts believe the delays are prolonging the mortgage crisis and creating a growing 'shadow' inventory of pent-up supply that will eventually hit the market."

A Teflon Rally Running on Volume Fumes (Seeking Alpha, Babak)

Warning: "... this rally is the largest one powered by the least volume ..." Even crazier, an astonishing share of volume has been from a mere handful of stocks. See Liam Denning's "Smoke Signals From the Stock Rally" in the WSJ.

Prosecutors say half of Bernie Madoff's investors lost nothing in Ponzi scheme (NY Daily News)

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Smooth as silk, Barack Obama sounded the alarm this morning at the U.N. about global warming and said the U.S. was full-speed-ahead on the problem, and the press dutifully reported it as such.

Obama's delivery paid off: The Wall Street Journal headlined it "U.S. Determined to Act on Climate, Despite 'Doubts and Difficulties' " and quoted Obama as saying, "We are determined to act."

But all the talk in the U.N. hallways is how the U.S. is dragging its feet, in part because Obama and Congress are so consumed by the health-care fracas.