News Stories That Caught My Interest Today

News and Views --  here are a few news items I picked up in the last 24 hours

1.      Car ownership as a percent of population was in the news today. The US leads the world, almost everyone has a car.  China, there are only 45 cars per 1,000 people, and a car is a big status symbol, thus car sharing there would be unthinkable.  In India, there are only 12 cars per 1,000 people.  Car sharing ZIP Cars here in the USA is a booming business, Avis just bought the company which now has 10,000 shared cars on the road.  The average car is shared by about 60 people who buy annual membership and pay by the hour to use the car.  The question is, what would happen if all the world adopted American fondness for car ownership?  About 4 to 10 times the amount of gas would have to be produced, with attendant pollution.  And for parking, there would need to be a space about the size of Bangladesh set aside for parking (scattered over the world).

2.      Container freight is in the news.  When the container was invented, the first ships carried about 58 containers.  Today, the mega ships carry 16,000 to 18,000 containers and the oversupply of such ships and containers is a big threat to profits in shipping.  Competition has driven down prices per container, and 16 more mega ships are on order, this could lead to huge over capacity.  Such efficient shipping has probably accounted for how cheap imported goods are today (compared to the past, like 10 years ago). Small container ships are being diverted to lesser routes, like Europe to Brazil.  The bigger ships are now running at 14 knots vs. about 24 knots design speed.  That saves fuel costs but delays the freight.

3.  A personal quest to find out about bogus charges on my Visa card bill today led to a big high-five for Amazon.  A nice person spent considerable time on the phone, totally correcting the problem and teaching me how to view all my prior purchase on Amazon easily using their website.  By contrast, I had a half hour long telephone battle with Norton anti-virus to get them to stop automatically billing me each year for a service I haven't used in years.   Finally, this time, with difficulty and language barriers with the person on the phone, I finally got it across never to bill me again, stop all auto renewals, and I refused all the "new offers" they had for me while on the phone.  Wish all customer service was as nice and accommodating as Amazon. 

4.  A news story recently about all electric buses being manufactured in Greenville, SC was of interest, since I have seen smaller (15 passenger) buses like this being run in Chattanooga.  The part of the story I couldn't believe was the stated 10 minute battery recharge time.  Hope that is a misprint.  If that's true, there is a big future for such buses.  The company making then has just gotten another round of venture capital infusion.  Hope to see this become a great new product for South Carolina to export.