China Interested in Exotic

That's what the makers of world's most exotic and expensive sports cars are hoping as they gather in Macau this week for the first Asian edition of Monaco's annual Top Marques show that began eight years ago.

The supercar companies are chasing growth in China, which is churning out scores of new millionaires each year and is home to the world's biggest auto market.

Ferraris and Lamborghinis sat alongside rare and beautiful automotive works of art from lesser known marques like Italy's Pagani, West Richland, Wash.-based SSC and Sweden's Koenigsegg. They drew admiring looks from wealthy auto enthusiasts from China and other Asian countries.

Sales staff were hoping to sign deals with some of the 20,000 expected visitors. One of them was Steve Chen, who built his fortune in China with a motivational speaking business. He was admiring the Pagani Huayra, an €849,000 ($1.1 million) street rocket sheathed in carbon fiber and titanium with gull wing doors and a V-12 engine churning out 700 horsepower.

Chen was thinking of buying a Pagani or a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport to add to his collection of 15 to 16 high-end cars, which he divides between his bases in Taiwan and Shanghai.

"I go to a lot of auto shows in China. I've loved cars since I was a kid and I have been collecting many different car brands," said Chen, who opened his leather satchel to reveal keys for a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce, careful not to display them too ostentatiously.

Story: These luxury cars have the highest theft rates

Chen, who visited the Bugatti factory in France for a test drive, said he admired the Veyron's top speed of more than 400 km/h (250 mph) though he did wonder aloud to the sales staff why the car, which has a list price of 39 million yuan ($6.1 million) in China, was so expensive.

China's billionaire ranks, boosted by the country's fast-growing economy, swelled to 271 in 2011, 82 more than last year, according to the Hurun Report, China's version of the Forbes rich list. The number of millionaires grew by 85,000 in 2011 to 960,000. Rising wealth levels are reflected across Asia, which had 3.3 million millionaires last year, surpassing Europe for the first time and closing in on North America's top spot, according to a study by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

Car Theft

While some of the best-selling cars in the U.S. also top the most frequently stolen list each year because of their sheer numbers, another look at the statistics reveals which cars by percentage sold are the most likely to by targeted by thieves.

According to data recently released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the car most frequently stolen, based on the number of thefts per 1,000 vehicles sold during 2009, was the $92,000 Audi S8 sport/luxury sedan, with 8.81 thefts per 1,000 vehicles produced. That comes out to just two out of the 227 S8s that were sold in the U.S., so it’s hardly a widespread epidemic.

Still, NHTSA’s statistics prove the point that the flashiest cars on the road can also be the most popular — for the wrong reasons.

The Ford Shelby Mustang GT had the next highest theft rate for 2009, with 8.61 vehicles per 1,000 stolen. Also in the top five were the sportiest variant of BMW’s midsize sedan, the M5 (7.58/1,000), retro-flavored Dodge Charger full-size sedan (6.47/1,000) and the no longer produced Honda S2000 roadster (5.60/1,000).

The remainder of the top 10 list of cars with the highest theft rates for 2009 included the midsize Mitsubishi Galant sedan (5.11/1,000), the full-size Chrysler 300 sedan (4.57/1,000), the Infiniti M luxury sedan (4.32/1,000) the Cadillac STS luxury sedan (4.28/1,000) and the Mercedes-Benz CL-Class luxury sport coupe (3.91/1,000).

By brand, the most frequently stolen cars per 1,000 sold, were Chrysler products, with the Chrysler Sebring, Sebring Convertible and PT Cruiser, and the Dodge Avenger and Dodge Caliber making the top 20 in addition to the aforementioned 300 and Charger.

Price Elasticity of Demand

The degree to which demand for a good or service varies with its price. Normally, sales increase with drop in prices and decrease with rise in prices. As a general rule, appliances, cars, confectionary and other non-essentials show elasticity of demand whereas most necessities (food, medicine, basic clothing) show inelasticity of demand (do not sell significantly more or less with changes in price). Also called price demand elasticity. See also cross price elasticity of demand

Price Elasticty of Demand:

Elasticty of demand-is greater than 1 but less than 0

Inelasticty of demand-Is less than 1 but greater than 0

 

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Sony
An unknown group of Hackers tried to
The group, which calls itself LulzSec, said on Thursday that it broke into servers that run Sony Pictures Entertainment websites, and then compromised the personal information of more than 1 million Sony customers.
Sony officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
It posted some of the data it accessed on the Web -- including the names, home and email addresses, and passwords of some customers. But said it did not have the resources to extract and publish all of what it collected.
"From a single injection, we accessed EVERYTHING," the hacking group said in the statement. "Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these simple attacks?"

This is the latest embarrassment in an ongoing security crisis for Sony, which discovered in April that hackers had broken into its networks, stealing data from more than 100 million accounts. Nobody has claimed responsibility for that attack.

But Sony's networks have since become a target for hackers looking for holes that will allow them to get into servers located around the globe. Sony had confirmed at least four other break-ins prior to the attack on Thursday.
LulzSec had claimed responsibility for one of those attacks, an assault on Sony Music Japan.

The group took credit for Thursday's attack in a note posted on its website. It said it had hacked into a database that included unencrypted passwords as well as names, address and birth dates of Sony's customers.

The original attacks, considered the biggest in Internet history, prompted the Japanese electronics giant to shut down its PlayStation Network and other services for close to a month.