Although its economy is shaky, Italy has the world’s healthiest population according to Bloomberg News. An Italian newborn can expect to live into his or her eighties. Sierra Leone, where life expectancy is 52, ranks 163. The United States, with its obese population, comes in at 34.
Italians, known for a diet filled with pasta and prosciutto, also consume lots of vegetables and, of course, extra-virgin olive oil.
We’ve been told breakfast is the most important meal. What is a typical breakfast in healthy countries? (Pop-Tarts or dairy products flavored with Starbucks coffee gets you number 34.) Here’s how people start the day in the healthy countries:
Italy – cappuccino or espresso and, yup, pastry
Iceland – granola or oatmeal with berries, bread and butter,
Switzerland – granola with fruits and nuts
Singapore – noodles, noodles and noodles, usually with broth
Australia – espresso coffee and, um, Vegemite
Denny’s Grand Slam was not on any of the top-ten breakfasts.
April 11 is Equal Pay Day. The second Tuesday of April is recognized as the approximate date that the workplace begins compensating women for the year in comparison to men who begin earning on January 1. Its purpose is to bring attention to estimates that, on average, women earn 79% of what men do for similar work. This is an improvement over the previous year’s 77%. Younger women are doing better percentage-wise: they are paid 93% of what men are. That’s progress, or it could be that the pay gap is smaller at the lower end of the scale, where the younger workers beginning their career paths presumably are.
President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963.
A few years ago, the Wall Street Journal published a piece about people earning less than $12,000 a year. The paper called them “Lucky Duckies” because they paid no federal income tax. (WSJ didn’t mention that they paid Social Security and Medicare tax at a much higher percentage than high-wage earners.)
There has been much in the news about people agitating for a $15.00 per hour minimum wage. Here is a handy chart that shows you how to build wealth on half that.
A few highlights:
Sell your car. Buy a used bicycle for your commute.
Relocate to a place where rents are cheaper. If you’re in San Francisco, move to Amarillo. But how do you pay for a one-way rental truck when you’re making the minimum wage? Well, maybe you’ll take only what fits in your car. Oh, that’s right; you don’t have a car.
Buy your clothes at the thrift store.
Spend $0.00 on entertainment.
But buy health insurance. (Your minimum-wage job doesn’t include medical coverage.) Of course, Congress is working feverishly to eliminate subsidies for low-income people.
Not mentioned: Don’t have children. There’s no money in the budget for that. Practice celibacy; you can’t afford birth control either.
(In what other first-world country do people regularly come together to raise money to help pay a friend or neighbor’s medical bills?)
Put aside for a moment all the headlines about repealing Obamacare and replacing it with Paul Ryan’s handiwork. (You knew he was serious because he presented his PowerPoint overview wearing rolled-up shirtsleeves with not one, but two U.S. flags behind him.) The U.S. spends more, way more, per capita on health care than any other country. The U.S. ranks near the bottom in life expectancy, infant mortality and obesity.
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Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, and a professor in the department of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health and in the department of surgery at Harvard Medical School, compared our health care processes and results to the processes and outcomes at the Cheesecake Factory chain of restaurants.
At the Cheesecake Factory, for preparation of Hibachi Steak:
“…the instructions were precise about the ingredients and the objectives (the steak slices were to be a quarter of an inch thick, the presentation just so), but not about how to get there. The cook has to decide how much to salt and baste, how to sequence the onions and mushrooms and meat so they’re done at the same time, how to swivel from grill to countertop and back, sprinkling a pinch of salt here, flipping a burger there, sending word to the fry cook for the asparagus tempura, all the while keeping an eye on the steak. In producing complicated food, there might be recipes, but there was also a substantial amount of what’s called “tacit knowledge”—knowledge that has not been reduced to instructions.”
At the hospital where the author is a surgeon, he gives the example of knee-replacement surgery:
“…there was now, for instance, a limit as to which prostheses they could use. Each of our nine knee-replacement surgeons had his preferred type and brand. Knee surgeons are as particular about their implants as professional tennis players are about their racquets. But the hardware is easily the biggest cost of the operation—the average retail price is around eight thousand dollars, and some cost twice that, with no solid evidence of real differences in results.”
The South Waterfront in Portland is a neighborhood in transition. Formerly a heavy industrial area – the attendant pollution has supposedly been cleaned – it now features high-rise condominiums and newly-constructed apartment buildings. Although a couple restaurants have come and gone, in the last few weeks three, count ‘em, three new pizza shops have opened. There is also a gourmet ice cream shop and a place selling four-dollar donuts.
A free-pizza grand opening had people lined up all dayGrilled cheese and hand-dipped corn dogs!
Health care for our four-legged friendsWe take good care of our dogs
Haven’t yet figured out what to do about dog urine
The neighborhood’s first auto dealer is getting ready to open and sell their electric cars
Zidell is building its last barge. They have concluded developing their waterfront property is more lucrative than building vessels. Food carts are now adjacent to their barge construction.
Zidell’s Emery Apartments – in the shadow of the Ross Island BridgeZidell’s last bargeFood carts moving in on barge construction
Although its economy is shaky, Italy has the world’s healthiest population according to Bloomberg News. An Italian newborn can expect to live into his or her eighties. Sierra Leone, where life expectancy is 52, ranks 163. The United States, with its obese population, comes in at 34.
Italians, known for a diet filled with pasta and prosciutto, also consume lots of vegetables and, of course, extra-virgin olive oil.
