General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), which is closing plants as it suffers some of the largest quarterly losses in the history of the company, is going to pour nearly half a billion into a new diesel plant in Thailand.

The Detroit automaker said it will invest $445 million into the Thai plant to ensure it can meet growing demand in the Asian market at the same time the U.S. market is tanking. Putting your eggs in more than one basket is always a good thing -- although GM should have done this years ago to help soften the blow from the currently anemic U.S. economy.

The new Thai plant is scheduled to open in 2010, with an engine building capacity of 100,000 engines per year. The engine types will be 2.5L and 2.8L diesel engines to serve the Southeast Asia market, little of which has a need for larger V6 or V8 engines like you'll currently find sitting abandoned in larger trucks and SUVs all over used car lots in the U.S.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide (NYSE: HOT) announced today that its W Hotels unit will open W Bangkok in 2011. The new hotel will feature 400 rooms and will be part of a mixed-use development in Bangkok's commercial and diplomatic center. If you think that the company will not fall by too much over the next few months, now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on HOT.

After climbing to a one-year high of $75.45 in July, HOT took a nosedive to a 52-week low of $52.63 just six weeks later in August. The stock has had a bumpy ride over the past few months, but appears to be settling in with support just below $60. HOT opened this morning at $59.55. So far today, the stock has hit a low of $59.06 and a high of $61.53. As of 3:00 p.m., the stock was trading at $60.46, up $0.72 (1.21%). HOT's chart is improving from bearish to neutral, while S&P gives the stock an encouraging 4 STARS (out of 5) buy rating.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a January bull-put credit spread below the $45 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 6.4% return in just 3 months as long as HOT is above $45 at January expiration. Starwood Hotels would have to fall by more than 25% before we would start to lose money.

HOT hasn't been below $45 since October 2004 and has shown support in the upper $50's recently. This trade could be risky if the company's earnings (due out 10/25) disappoint, but even if that happens, this position could be protected by strong historical support around $55. Additionally, HOT has a strong history of beating earnings estimates, with the company's last earnings miss coming in Q1 2003.

Meg Massie is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.
DISCLOSURE: At publication time, Meg neither owns nor controls positions in HOT.

After having its YouTube site blocked in Thailand due to videos considered offensive by the country's government, and facing the specter of a lawsuit over the matter, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) executives can sleep a little better tonight: Thailand has dropped its lawsuit against the company. The Ministry of Information's decision came after Google agreed to remove the 12 offensive video clips, which depicted things like shoes with their soles directed towards the King, which is offensive in that country.

It's unclear exactly how Thailand would have enforced any judgment its courts gave it against the company and, frankly, I'm a little disappointed to see YouTube backing down on this matter. In a letter to the country's Ministry of Information, Google wrote that "We have the deepest respect for His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej. We likewise respect Thailand's law and tradition and hope that we will be able to reach a mutually acceptable resolution to the current controversy."

Couldn't YouTube have said, "We respect the King but we also respect free speech and are committed to promoting these values"? It's not the first time Google has backed down in a free speech right. It also agreed to censor its site for China, removing references to events the government there considers offensive.

YouTube's video service is currently being blocked in Thailand because the site contains images of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, which Thailand's government considers to be offensive.

The Google-owned company has repeatedly declined to censor the images, winning cheers from proponents of free speech. According to Youtube's Head of Communications Julie Supan "While we will not take down videos that do not violate our policies, and will not assist in implementing censorship, we have offered to educate the Thai ministry about YouTube and how it works."

This statement is a little bit hypocritical, given Google's decision to censor its site to gain access to the Chinese market. It looks like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is using Thailand, a market which would produce relatively insignificant revenue for the company, to make a statement about how strongly it feels about free speech. But with a larger market like China, Google has censored references to Taiwanese independence and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

I can see both sides of the issue. On the one hand, it's better that people in nations with tyrannical leadership have access to some information rather than no information, and if censorship is the only way Google can give them some access, then so be it.

But Google can't claim the moral high-road of "not assisting in implementing censorship" in one nation when it does just that in another.

Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube just isn't making a lot of friends these days. Viacom Inc.'s (NYSE: VIA) suing, network's are mad, and now a country has banned the video-sharing website. Again. According to Winai Yoosabai, head of the censorship unit at Thailand's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, "We have blocked YouTube because it contains a video insulting to our king."

Apparently Thailand banned the site after asking YouTube to remove the offensive video and receiving a curt refusal from the Google-owned company: According to the New York Times, "The clip, crude and amateurish and lasting less than a minute, depicts the king with clown features painted onto his face and an image of feet pasted over his head, an insulting gesture in Thailand."

In March, Turkey blocked the country for a short-time after a video appeared that was insulting to the founder of modern Turkey. A Brazilian court had the site blocked after videos of a famous actress from the country with her lover appeared on the site.

And so, as a patriotic American, I am here to make an impassioned plea to the American government. In recent weeks, numerous videos have appeared on YouTube making fun of one of our nation's most talented and beloved entertainers. I'm speaking, of course, of Sanjaya. Consider this clip of the Sanjaya Anthem. We simply cannot stand for this crude mockery of our national treasure.

Do traders have souls?

That's a question that always springs to mind when I watch the market buzz surrounding any disaster. Whether it's Hurricane Katrina, the great Tsunami, or this week's coup in Thailand; you'll always see articles like this one in the Wall Street Journal [subscription required]. Teaser: "Analysts React to Thai Coup: 'Bargain Opportunity'"

Lovely. It reminds me of a piece I heard on This American Life, Ira Glass' gripping radio show. A commodities trader recounts his education in chaos after the Chernobyl accident. He got to work late, a little stunned by the news, and was amazed to see the energy level was nearing giddy on the trading floor. "That disaster made more money, in one day, that I had made my entire life up 'til then," he said, chuckling uncomfortably.

Michael Kurtz at Bear Stearns has obviously restrained himself greatly, using words like "regrettable" and "political frictions" and "toll." But you can almost feel a teensy bit of glee sparkling through from the Bear Stearns trading floor (you know those traders are known for their distinct lack of polish, don't you?) when he writes, "Investors have heavily penalized Thai stocks since last year amid deepening political uncertainty, with the benchmark SET Index having gained just 9% in U.S. dollar terms since January 2005; as such, the SETI now elicits some of the region's deepest valuation discounts."

There you have it: scoop up the bargains in Thailand, enjoy the chaos while it lasts. If your soul can handle it.