- USA at 250: 4% of global population; 25% of global output; nearly half of all wealth.
- How India climbed out of poverty.
- Winners and losers in the US welfare state: “American heads of households younger than 35 now have a median net worth of about $39,000 and an average net worth of more than $183,000. Those over 75 have a median net worth of roughly $335,000 and an average net worth exceeding $1.6 million.”
- “From 2018 to 2023, the number of direct primary care and concierge practice sites grew by 83.1 percent and the number of clinicians participating in them by 78.4 percent.”
- Are Blacks and women favored over white men in elite occupations? Yes, but only if they’re politically progressive.
- More than two dozen states have passed laws banning or limiting gender-related treatments for minors in the last several years. On the other hand, A coalition of 19 states have sued to block the Trump administration’s plan to strip federal funding of such treatments across the whole country.
Category: News and Events
Dazed and Confused: Seniors Are Overmedicated.
Seniors are overmedicated. Ninety percent of seniors, age 65 or above, take a prescription drug. The average number of drugs seniors take increased 43%, from 3 in 2000 to 4.3 in 2020. Too often seniors get on prescription drugs and never get off them. They just add to the total over the years.
Wednesday Links
- Next year, the number of counties with only one company providing Obamacare will jump from 72 to 146.
- Clinicians make over 100 million specialty referrals annually in the U.S., yet research shows that as many as half are never completed.
- The United States currently recommends immunizing all children against 17 diseases. In Denmark it’s only 10. (NYT)
- One in ten participants in Canada and Poland were persuaded to change their candidate preference after interacting with an AI chatbot tasked with converting them.
- A new trend in Christmas gifts: health tracking devices. (WSJ)
- “Some 50 million Americans struggle with drug and alcohol addiction… drug overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans between 18 and 45 years old.” (NYT)
Are you a ‘principled’ conservative?
Conservative columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., smiles after a luncheon for Vice President Spiro Agnew held at Buckley’s residence in New Yor, Dec. 14, 1970. (AP Photo/Harry Harris) The number of people claiming to be conservatives has increased over the past few years, though only a portion of them are “principled conservatives.” That distinction is important, because a person who isn’t a principled conservative likely isn’t a conservative at…