The news that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase joined forces to create their own healthcare company rocked the industry. The ten largest health insurers and pharmacy businesses lost $30B in market value in two hours.[1]

California teachers have teamed up with an East Coast activist hedge fund to petition Apple Inc. to step up its game and give parents the tools and choices they need to ensure smartphones don’t damage children’s health. Together, CalSTRS and JANA Partners are turning an old adage on its ear about gifting shiny apples to teachers.

In my last newsletter, I said that global economic fundamentals seem to be positive, and in spite of market turmoil in the interim I am going to reiterate that statement.  Volatility has returned, which will bring opportunities for those who are not faint of heart.  This is an exciting time, never dull, never boring.

If you have a bully pulpit, use it. That’s precisely what BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink did when he championed corporates’ engagement with purpose to staunch the pace of climate change and embrace the preservation of the public commons together with its specific stakeholders.

Expect state government agencies and legislators to move most quickly on providing regulatory clarity on FinTech regulation in the United States. U.S. federal regulatory agencies have initiated enforcement actions against some of the most egregious cryptocurrency investment practices and are watching the industry closely.

Heavy rain drenched San Francisco the first day of JP Morgan’s 36th Annual Healthcare Conference. Many reported seeing Noah building an ark in Union Square. The “big ship” metaphor carried into the conference. Healthcare giants across all sectors are scaling up to withstand transformational pressures while driving toward better outcomes, lower costs and more consumerism.

"Changing consumer preferences and behaviors are focused on ease of use, convenience, and immediacy of payment that can be obtained through the mobile channel," reports the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in its most recent mobile payments study.

Yet the mobile experience in the mainstream of U.S. commerce hardly meets that ideal.

In the mid-1800s, English philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill developed “Utilitarianism,” a framework for making moral decisions. In Mill’s formulation, an action achieves optimal social utility when it advances the well-being of the most people, i.e. “the greatest good for the greatest number.”

I am sharing with you my article on Chinese engagement with Chile, recently published by the e-journal "China Brief."  The article, based on research and interactions during my November 2017 engagement in Santiago is also available at the website of the Jamestown Foundation.

Chicago's FinTech development and investment reputation has been on the rise, and we're expecting big things in this city for 2018. Crain's Chicago Business suggests that Google is planning a major new center here, while city officials remain hopeful that it will make the first cut for Amazon's HQ2.