Thinking out loud

Check out Shai Agassi’s talk concerning ideas on infrastructure and technology to enable mass adoption of electric cars…

Link: TED Blog: A bold plan for mass adoption of electric cars: Shai Agassi on TED.com

Check out this video of Google Voice Search:

Next Big Future took some key notes from McKinsey’s View of China’s Future Urbanization: Chinese Cities in 2025 and 2030.

Below are some interesting key facts concerning the urbanization of this giant country:

China is leading the global urbanization trend of developing countries and in 2025-2030 one in five of the global city dwellers will be in Chinese cities
* Based on current trends, China in 2025 will have 221 cities with more than one million people compared to Europe with 35. 25 of China’s cities will have more than 5 million people
* China’s cities in 2025 will generate about 95% of its GDP (versus 75% today)
* Of the 350 million people added to chinese cities by 2025 (about the population of the USA) 240 millinon will be migrants
* More concentrated higher density cities will have higher per capita GDP and require less infrastructure
* China has relaxed the Hokou system of household registration which restricted movement and migration within China

Link: Next Big Future: McKinsey’s View of China’s Future Urbanization: Chinese Cities in 2025 and 2030

Adam Smith warned against subprime lending. In The Wealth of Nations, he advocated usury laws within the context of a free market.

From The Wealth of Nations:

The legal rate…ought not be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent, the greater part of the money which was to be lent would be lent to prodigals and projectors [promoters of fraudulent schemes], who alone would be willing to give this high interest….A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it.

When the legal rate of interest, on the contrary is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown in the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.

naked capitalism: Adam Smith Warned Against Subprime Lending.