Featured Content
The Cost of Healthcare: A National Challenge
The healthcare economy has recently become a large focus of our nation’s attention, and justifiably so. In 2008, the US spent almost twice as much per capita on healthcare than Japan and the United Kingdom, while not necessarily producing better outcomes. Even more striking was a September 2012 article in the New York Times, explaining a recent finding that we waste 30% of the money that we spend on healthcare, or $750 billion a year. Continual cost-shifting and an increasing national debt has allowed us to incur this cost, but what policymakers and economists find most troubling is the rate at which healthcare costs continue to grow.
Predicting Election Outcomes through Stock Markets
The run up to the US Presidential Elections is often intense, with the nation kept busy with frequent polls eager to predict the outcome on November 6. As current research shows, however, looking to Wall Street might be all that’s needed.
The Impact of Higher-Order Uncertainty
When the New York Stock Exchange opened on October 19, 1987, the impetus to sell was so great that investors of 95 stocks, representing 30% of the index value, flatly refused to trade. This selling pressure did not relent, and, by the end of the day, the New York Stock Exchange had contracted 22%. Mysteriously, there were no corresponding changes in the real economy that could incite this downturn—there had been no release of important economic indicators and no world event of significance had occurred.
Burma: The Next Asian Tiger?
On a balmy Thursday morning in mid-September earlier this year, eight-seven prisoners of conscience took their first steps of freedom since being imprisoned in Mandalay Prison, some for nearly thirty years. U Nyan Win, a spokesperson for the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) said, “It’s a good sign [...] there shouldn’t be political prisoners in our country because we are now becoming a democratic state.”
Interview: Victor Yuan Yue
Dr. Victor Yuan Yue is the founder, CEO and Chair- man of Horizon Research Consultancy Group, China’s top polling firm. He also hosts China’s most popular business talk show, “Brainstorm,” and is a pioneer in China’s growing NGO sector. Victor holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Peking University, a MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, and was a 2007 World Fellow at Yale University.
