Henry Blodget was a Wall Street analyst who became famous during the dot com boom for his bullishness about Internet stocks, especially those of Amazon.com. When the bubble burst, he was one of the people blamed for encouraging irrational exuberance about the so-called New Economy.

Now he wants to understand China. In a Slate.com article, he admits that he is completely ignorant about China and can barely find Beijing on the map.

So he wants your help:

Maybe you're an American entrepreneur who has a great story about doing business in China. Maybe you're a Chinese businessperson who can't believe how foolish American investors are. Maybe you are someone who knows a great factory I should visit in Shanghai, a brilliant executive I should talk to, or just the right guy in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. If you are, please tell me about it (on background, if necessary: I don't believe in risking one's career just to get the word out).

So if you have any suggestions for people I should talk to and topics I should study, please e-mail me at chinagoldrush@yahoo.com.

UPDATE: Steven Schwankert comments:

Who's Henry Blodget? The Motley Fool described it this way: "No one person represents the wretched excess of the Internet stock bubble like former Merrill Lynch analyst Henry Blodget."

Blodget did such a fine job picking Internet stocks at Merrill Lynch that the firm fired him, and he is now banned, for life, from working in the securities industry.

Does Slate have Jayson Blair warming up in the bullpen to cover media ethics? You can bet that Michael Jackson won't be making any appearances with children's foundations regardless of the outcome of his trial. And yet Slate's going to let this guy write about "the gold rush" in China.

Well, there's one less Web site I need to bother reading.

LINKS:
Blodget's request for help;
An August 2000 article on Slate about Blodget's post boom performance;
Cnet story about Blodget from July 2000;
Story found via Peking Duck.