Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (134471)	7/5/2017 2:54:31 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 219920

China’s Vision for a Straddling Bus Dissolves in Scandal and Arrests Chinese news outlets were harshly critical, saying the exercise was little more than a fraud from the start. “The truth is the bus was a fake science investment scam, with no scientific innovation,” a Beijing News op-ed said on Monday. “The test was nothing more than a trick to attract investors.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/world/asia/china-bus-road-straddling.html?smid=li-share By AUSTIN RAMZY and CAROLYN ZHANGJULY 4, 2017 The traffic-straddling bus during its test run in Qinhuangdao in August. Last week, more than 30 members of the company behind the project were detained on suspicion of illegal fund-raising. CreditAssociated PressHONG KONG — Maybe a giant tram rolling over pesky cars clogging the streets wasn’t the answer to China’s traffic congestion woes. A Chinese inventor’s plan to develop such a vehicle, called a “traffic-straddling bus,” has been effectively killed after 32 people from an investment company that backed the project were arrested. The bus was designed to ride on tracks, but with its body elevated so that two lanes of traffic could pass underneath. Some 1,200 passengers were to have ridden between specialized stops. The traffic-straddling bus undergoing a road test on Aug. 2, 2016. Video by New China TVBut critics raised many questions, including the expense of installing tracks and stations, whether tall trucks would get stuck underneath and about the risk to smaller vehicles and pedestrians. “Cars under the belly of the big vehicle would have no way to change direction, and even changing lanes would be dangerous,” The Beijing News said last yea After some delays and breathless news coverage, the TEB-1, or Transit Elevated Bus, was tested in August in the northern seaside town of Qinhuangdao. Photo The 72-foot-long, 16-foot-high bus was designed to ride on tracks, with its body elevated so that two lanes of traffic could pass underneath. CreditLuo Xiaoguang/Xinhua, via Associated Press In subsequent months, the Chinese news media and investors raised pointed questions about the company behind the project, Huaying Kailai. The company promoted the “reliability” of investing in public-private partnerships like the bus initiative and promised annual returns of up to 12 percent. A New York Times reporter who visited Huaying Kailai’s office in September saw walls lined with photographs of the owner, Bai Zhiming, with celebrities, entrepreneurs and local officials. A half-dozen investors stopped by over an hour. Some left with gifts and grocery bags full of cash. “We are just a private tech company. We are not a briefcase company for illegal fund-raising,” Zhang Wei, the director of development and planning for TEB Tech, the Huaying Kailai subsidiary that developed the bus, told the reporter. “Everything we do is approved by related departments in the government, and if we are an illegal company with financial issues, why are the local governments still interested in us?” In the fall, as public scrutiny increased, the test track and the huge, 72-foot-long, 16-foot-high prototype fell into disuse. In June, workers began dismantling the 330-yard track, a sign the local government would not allow the project to continue. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main storyThe Interpreter NewsletterUnderstand the world with sharp insight and commentary on the major news stories of the week. Mr. Bai was among the 32 Huaying Kailai staff members arrested last week on suspicion of illegal fund-raising, the Beijing police announced on Sunday. Company officials could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. Chinese news outlets were harshly critical, saying the exercise was little more than a fraud from the start. “The truth is the bus was a fake science investment scam, with no scientific innovation,” a Beijing News op-ed said on Monday. “The test was nothing more than a trick to attract investors.” Austin Ramzy reported from Hong Kong, and Carolyn Zhang from Beijing.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (134471)	7/7/2017 2:03:46 AM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Recommended By dvdw© Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 219920

Elroy, the beam fell down. The soil was fine - you can see from the photos that the end of the beams fell down: <<Or even funnier, the Chinese engineering could be at fault, or they didn't take soil samples. >> The problem was more likely "starter rods" which are bits of reinforcing steel put in concrete to make it look as though the steel continues all through the concrete. With not much understanding of such structures, the steel stealers are likely to leave out crucial steel instead of taking just the steel that won't be noticed unless there's an earthquake or some such. Mainland China is a melamine in milk culture so it should be expected that the producers are just interested in the dog eat dog and human eat dog principles of getting money away from other people by hook or by crook, instead of doing an honest day's work and being proud of what they have done. The local yokels know that's true which is why New Zealand milk was so popular = sure to be made of milk instead of melamine. Ironically, the dopey people at New Zealand's milk producer Fonterra, which had about 40% shareholding in the melamine milk marketing did not demand that Fonterra be in charge of all aspects of quality to ensure milk rather than melamine was used. I had better control of gasoline quality for cars than they seem to have had of milk for babies. What were they thinking? A friend had a similar engineering disaster to the failed bridge. He was supervising construction of the Ruahihi canal in the late 1970s [in NZ]. I was living in the area [but not knowing that my friend had come to live in Tauranga to do that job]. I had gone to have a look at the construction process being a curious civil engineer, and thought that for a few hundred metres the very steep and high bank holding the canal up looked dodgy. Water leaks through earth canals. The design and construction have to be good or pore water pressures build up and leakage and collapse can destroy an earth embankment. Since my job was selling bitumen [in part], I wrote to the company suggesting spraying the lining of the canal with bitumen to stop water leaking out. It was such a small amount of bitumen that I was just doing them a favour, rather than making a sale. But I like to do good things and it wasn't much effort. I didn't hear back and had profitable work to do, so left it. The canal was finished and the fat little prime minister Robert Muldoon attended to announce it open. It was brimming with water and looking great. Next day, I was going back from Hamilton to Tauranga and as I got to the bottom of the Kaimais there were warning signs of road problem. I immediately thought "Oh, oh, I hope it's not the canal". It was. What I feared would happen happened and half a klometre of canal and megatons of water went flooding down the valley, across the road and into the adjacent river. Game over! I don't know whether it was a design failure, or a construction failure, or combination. But it was a very big failure, for lack of a few tons of bitumen sprayed on the inside. It didn't even need an earthquake to make it fail so it was VERY bad. Only 1 day old!! Very very bad. It was only a few years later that I learned it was my friend who was involved. That was the end of his civil engineering in NZ. He went to Africa, then I think PNG and ended up running a squash court in MacKay, Australia. Meanwhile, my short of TSLA is now on track after a Himalayan Heights short squeeze soaring to $385 [from my short at $339]. It's always fun in the markets. Tesla was last seen at about $312. For the record, I'm all in favour of Tesla just as I was for Qualcomm. Elon Musk has done many great jobs. I disagree with some of his ideas but for the most part, he gets things right. I'm sure that even Elon wouldn't have been telling his grandmother to put her life savings and grocery money into Tesla shares at $385. QCOM share price went stupid Xmas/New Year 1999 then went all the way down to $13 a share from about $100. But the share price is not the company so Qualcomm just carried on and the rest is history. Everyone now uses Qualcomm for mobile Cyberspace. Of course many people such as Apple would rather just steal things than be appreciative and pay the price. So Qualcomm is having to ask the USA government to ban iPhone imports due to Apple being thieves. Apple are thieving scum. They say Qualcomm is charging too much money. But for some reason, Apple's market price is close to $1 trillion and Qualcomm's below $100 billion. If it was a Qualcomm overcharging monopoly, the share prices would be reversed. Apple is the overcharging greedy monster. Except that I disagree that anyone is overcharging. People should just charge what the market will bear. Tesla will probably be successful but that doesn't mean the market capitalisation should already be more than Ford, and General Motors, and many other car companies which sell umpty millions of cars including electric cars such as Prius, Leaf, Bolt, Volt and what have you. Mqurice