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.

I am sharing my new article on the policies and challenges of Ecuador's recently elected president Lenin Moreno, with recommendations for US policymakers.  The article emphasizes the positive steps that President Moreno has taken in reviving an inclusive, democratic discourse in his country, as well as opportunities for the US to respectfully work with him and his government, despite persistent policy differences. The article is originally published through Newsmax.

While an optimistic consensus in corporate America is growing around last year’s passage of a sweeping US tax bill, corporate boards would be wise to pivot their spending deliberations to how companies can catalyze new technologies on behalf of improvements in real wages, growing jobs and educating the workforce. This should be the preference over stock buybacks and shareholder dividends if the US economy is to realize more than a one-time, feel-good growth spurt.

The annual World Economic Forum (WEF) will convene this week in the ski resort of Davos.  The WEF, which was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab (who at age 80, continues to run the organization) is an annual meeting of the global economic, business and political power elites. (Tidbit: the aggregate annual compensation of the two dozen global leaders of industry attending Davos is estimated at $300 million).  While uber-elitist, the Davos meetings do reflect the major issues of the day and are useful sounding boards for discussing global economic and financial matters.

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.”