Mainland Chinese Flock to Hong Kong to Give Birth

For years, Hong Kongers have nursed complaints about the growing parade of visitors to their city from mainland China. The mainlanders spit, litter, jaywalk and cut in line, the locals grouse; they talk too loudly, eat on the subway and otherwise flout Hong Kong’s more refined standards of public behavior. Those are quibbles, though, compared with the uproar over the latest mainland invasion: pregnant women flocking here to give birth.

Full story at The New  York Times

3 Economic Misconceptions That Need to Die

At a conference in Philadelphia last October, a Wharton professor noted that one of the country’s biggest economic problems is a tsunami of misinformation. You can’t have a rational debate when facts are so easily supplanted by overreaching statements, broad generalizations, and misconceptions. And if you can’t have a rational debate, how does anything important get done?

Here are three misconceptions that need to be put to rest:

Full story at Daily Finance

Not A Single One Of The World’s Biggest Shopping Malls Is Located In America

America, with its endless suburban sprawl and love of food courts, is mall country. But it’s no longer home to a single one of the ten biggest malls in the world, according to the latest statistics from building data provider Emporis. These days, nine of the 10 biggest malls in the world are located in Asia, and the two biggest are in China.

Via Business Insider

The 15 Most Dominant Retailers In The World

Global retail sales are expected to slow this year as China and the rest of the BRICs face tightening monetary policy and weaker demand abroad. That’s the takeaway from Deloitte’s annual ranking of the top 250 retail chains by sales.

Via Business Insider

Industries That U.S. Has Lost To China

Americans are used to the U.S. being the leader, or a top-ranked nation, in many areas. But in a number of industries and businesses, the U.S. has lost that first place, usually to China.

Link Business Insider

How the U.S. lost out on iPhone work

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president. But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas. Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Full story at The New York Times

This Article explains why Apple makes iPhones in China

The manufacturing processes of Apple and other electronics companies have come into sharp focus of late, with the revelation of more details about what life is like for the Chinese workers who make the world’s gadgets.

And money is certainly part of it. But an amazing new article by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher of the New York Times reveals that there’s a lot more to it than that.

Via Business Insider

Scientists Learn why Coffee Helps Prevent Diabetes

Scientists have long known that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but researchers out of China may have figured out why.

Via Los Angeles Times

Your iPhone was built, in part, by 13 year-olds working 16 hours a day for 70 cents an hour

We love our iPhones and iPads. We love the prices of our iPhones and iPads. We love the super-high profit margins of Apple, Inc., the maker of our iPhones and iPads.

And that’s why it’s disconcerting to remember that the low prices of our iPhones and iPads — and the super-high profit margins of Apple — are only possible because our iPhones and iPads are made with labor practices that would be illegal in the United States.

Via Business Insider

Asian Social Media users create, Western users consume

Social media users in metropolitan China and India are much more apt to be “creators” on the platforms than their Western counterparts, according to a new report.

Forrester Research polled about 100,000 consumers in Asia, Latin America and North America in the second and third quarters of 2011, and the results show that people in emerging markets are often enthusiastic adopters of social media. Among those who have Internet access, 93% report using social media once or more a month vs. 49% in the seven European countries in the study — the U.K., France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Italy.

Consumers in emerging markets also tend to be creators, according to the report.

Full story at Mashable