A better deal than freebie

Oil price has plummeted all the way to abyss. Now, producers need to pay (yes, pay) customers in order to take their crude oil away. This happens to the low-grade oil, North Dakota Sour crude oil, which was $13.50/barrel one year ago and $47.60/barrel two years ago.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-north-dakota-oil-worth-less-than-nothing-20160119-story.html

holy grail from aspiring voters

Ritual as ever, Taiwan's election is among today's New York Times front-line stories. To ride the stagnant economy out, a holy grail in every country, will be a vexing challenge to the new administration.    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/asia/taiwan-elections.html?_r=1 

shortcut to strike it rich

China might try to become an innovative country but they also took an alternative but unscrupulous approach; stealing of trade secret. Tonight's CBS 60 Minutes vividly reported how Sinovel (華銳風電) took this short-cut.     http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-great-brain-robbery-china-cyber-espionage/

mecca of innovation

最近一期的Wired雜誌報導的中國創新能力的擴張速度, 讓我非常驚訝. 2014年美國的創業基金總共有480億美金, 中國雖"只有"155億美金， 但是在急速上升。 中國中產階級的人數急速增加，使得很多20幾歲的年輕人不再需要為衣食煩惱，可以從事高風險性的創業。 由於創業風氣鼎盛，一個新的idea在中國出現，很可能有上百個競爭者，最後存活的都是 battle-hardened 的青年創業家。 而且中國青年創業家有獨天獨厚的好處: 1) 鄰近全世界最急速膨脹的消費市場 2)鄰近累積30年的全世界最有效率的製造基地。 而且還有很多創業諮詢機構，付一點錢就可以得到專家的創業建議， 眾多青年創業家的互相切磋討論，還有仲介公司能幫你找到願意承擔風險, 幫一個無名小卒做 prototype 的製造公司，像上海的新車間( xingchejian.com) 和 深圳的 HAXLR8R ( 7個月前改名叫 HAX Accelerator). 中國創業風氣的擴散，已經使得全世界(包括美國)的創業家來到中國取經和利用中國的創業環境.  http://www.wired.com/2015/12/tech-innovation-in-china/