Since 1992 China’s economy has grown by 1,700%, yet its stock market has declined by 40%. What gives? Carl Walter and Fraser Howie found out:

• It’s because of the way the stock market is set up. Only state-run companies are allowed on the market, and the Chinese government must have at least 51% ownership of the company.
• When a Chinese company first sells shares on the market, the Chinese government sets the share price, and then forces other state sponsored enterprises to buy shares at that price – guaranteeing a successful sale.
• If Steve Jobs were to start a company in China its valuation would not be driven by how visionary his ideas were, rather, it would depend entirely on his relationship with the Chinese government.
• While the Chinese government could change the way it does things, it won’t, because that would require the introduction of private property and the Communist Party of China would rather that everything just belong to them.

Read more about the largest IPO in history, the veneer of a modern economy, and more over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

Yesterday Apple previewed the latest model of the iPhone. The company has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, so even if the iPhone 5 ends up disappointing consumers it shouldn’t be too big a deal for Apple right? Not so argues Henry Blodget. Apple’s future depends on the iPhone doing well:

• Apple’s legal battles with Samsung forced the company to release detailed financials. They showed that Apple depends on the iPhone for almost 66% of its profits.
• The iPad generates about another 15% of the company’s profits.
• Tim Cook talked up the post-pc era, but Apple better hope that this future isn’t driven by iPads. The cost of making the device is so high and its price is so low that if the iPad became Apple’s dominant product, its profit margins would be crushed.
• All of this means that if the iPhone fails then Apple’s financials will take a steep dive. The company’s future is entirely dependent upon the success of this one product.

Read more about these estimates, what experts have to say, and a fascinating graph that visualizes the profits from Apple’s different products over here.

Source: Business Insider

According to McAfee, Emma Watson is the most dangerous celebrity in the world:

• If you search for Emma Watson on the internet there’s a 12.5% chance that you’ll end up on a site that could harm your computer.
• If you append the words “nude pictures” to your search for “Emma Watson” you further increase your chances of landing on a site that could compromise your computer.
• In general searching for women on the internet is more dangerous than searching for men.
• The only male to make the top-20 list of most dangerous celebrity searches is Jimmy Kimmel.

Get the full list over here, and find out who Emma Watson displaced to take the top spot this year.

Source: Slate

Everybody loves the experience of eating fruits that were grown in one’s own garden. The problem, however, is that few of us have enough space to plant more than a couple plants. As it turns out however it is possible to get a single plant to yield an assortment of fruits…enough to create your own home-made garden picked fruit salad. Ferris Jabr wrote:

• By combining together the branches and stems of different plants it is possible to create one super organism that grows several different types of fruits.
• Some examples include a single tree that can grow peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots and peachcots. Another can grow winter oranges, summer oranges, mandarins, lemons, limes, grapefruits, tangelo and pomelos.
• Farmers have engaged in this practice for years – mostly for practical reasons. They attached the kind of plant they wanted to grow to the roots of another plant that grows well in the local soil. This is why most of Florida’s orange trees have the roots of lemon trees, and why in California the reverse is true.
• Some of the combinations are quite creative. A pomato plant grows potatoes under the ground and tomatoes above the ground.

Read more about how these plants are made, some ground rules for making them, why you can’t always trust a seed, and some of the other fascinating combinations, over here.

Source: Scientific American