This weekend I expected to be writing about the results of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s trip to China and prospects for the reopening of China’s post-Covid economy. Instead, Americans have been mesmerized by the week-long journey of a Chinese balloon, and I have been bombarded with questions about what it means. A symbol of both China’s rise and presence in the US, a white balloon galvanized the media in a way that a diplomatic visit would never have equaled.

A weaker dollar, falling interest rates, lower inflation and oil prices are offering a welcome, albeit temporary relief to emerging markets.

Demonization and its economic consequences, and a peek ahead to the 118th Congress

A reckoning in the digital asset industry that started in June after the collapse of improperly collateralized investment assets gained new urgency in November. Following the professional and possibly legal improprieties that led to bankruptcy and chaos at the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, the industry is regrouping and putting distance between legitimate market participants and the grifters.

Drawing on the fact-free politics of Donald Trump, Republicans are selling the meme that Americans are much worse off economically and financially under President Joe Biden and the Democrats.  That is demonstrably untrue.  Yet, the Democrats’ main response has been to mumble an apology for the inflation they didn’t cause and try and change the subject.

The work argues that the problem is not the “lack of a strategy,” but ensuring that the strategies that we apply are appropriate, adequately resourced and coordinated, and the tools we use are up to the task. In addition to concisely stating the nature of the risks to the US and the region arising from some dimensions of PRC engagement, the recommendations advanced by the work include: (1) holding the line for Western corporations, strategic technologies and liberal institutions, (2) helping our partners to strengthen their institutions to get a better deal from their work with the PRC and other actors; (3) fixing, rightsizing and better coordinating our institutional tools for competing, (4) improving our data supported messaging, and (5) advancing clear new strategic concepts for the military as part of a whole of government response, coordinate with our likeminded allies.

Are central banks overreacting to inflation? Are we in for a positive surprise?

Steward Health Care System has pioneered the creation of accountable care networks nationwide through private funding sources. Steward was the first for-profit healthcare system to use private equity funding (Cerberus) to rescue, reimagine and reinvent a nonprofit health system (Caritas Christi). Steward subsequently became the first health system to use REIT financing (Medical Properties Trust) to fund aggressive expansion of their operating model to new markets.

Clay Christensen’s insights on disruption and innovation have shaped my perspective on health industry transformation and featured prominently in both of my books. In Part 1 of this series, I detailed his pathbreaking work on “Jobs to be Done (Jobs)” at Harvard Business School. By understanding what “jobs” customers “hire” products to do, innovative companies can design their products to get those jobs done.