Economics
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Reflexivity of the dollar
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1 min read
James Surowiecki elegantly encapsulates yet another economic trend, this time it’s the falling-yet-floating dollar. Essentially the dollar is falling because Americans don’t save and keep spending, accumulating incredible debt, and the dollar is not crashing because Americans keep buying… from Asia, who is interested in buying lots of dollars to prop up our currency and…
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Integrated thinking in health care
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2 min read
Brett points to The Quality Cure? (paid archive) a New York Times profile of David Cutler’s ideas for reforming healthcare in America, where providing more care without going bankrupt seems impossible. Cutler, an economist, developed financial models to show how we should “focus on improving the quality of care rather than on reducing our consumption…
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The new global currency?
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1 min read
The Economist says, tongue-in-cheek: …the dollar has been dethroned even sooner than we expected. It has been superseded not by the euro, nor by the yen or yuan, but by another increasingly popular global currency: frequent-flyer miles. Turns out there’s about $14 trillion in frequent flier miles in circulation.
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Econ 101
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1 min read
I recently read Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan, a writer for The Economist. He covers many of the more interesting ideas, highlights some underappreciated thinkers, and offers a sound perspective on a field that tries to stay within the boundaries of statistics while undeniably bleeding into politics and sociology. Also see…
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Selling many to many
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1 min read
Chris Anderson’s article in Wired, The Long Tail, is about making previously unprofitable products profitable by making them more widely available. C. K. Prahalad’s book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, is about making previously unprofitable products profitable by making them more widely available. The primary difference is that Anderson describes it happening…