Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is one of the smartest financial analysts around, and he has written a short essay on the health of the global economy. Unfortunately, his analysis is pretty gloomy, suggesting that the global economy will not grow substantially for an extended period of time. His analysis of the role of debt and the concentration of wealth that accompanied that process is spot on and worth reading carefully.
As the costs of health care reach center stage in the US election, the following graph is worth contemplating. The US cannot continue to spend as much as it does on health care is certainly true. But where to cut the spending is really the issue. As the graph demonstrates, health spending is hardly uniform: most of the spending is done by a very small number of patients, usually at the end of life. If this assessment is true, then the real discussion should be on how to think more effectively about medical procedures.
I’ve paid a lot of attention to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, but there are other ocean disputes in East Asia. A dispute between South Korea and Japan over the status of an island group called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan has reached a head recently, leading the Japanese to recall their Ambassador. A group of South Korean swimmers are swimming a relay to the islands (124 miles!) and the Japanese are not amused. We’ll see ho this dispute unfolds.
World Politics News 
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