People in Germany need to have more sex. Or keep their clunkers. According to the Economist. Well, kind of.

People in Germany really need to start having more sex.

Otherwise they are really going to need Death Panel for Grandmas, you know, when there are no more young people to take care of the old people.

That was my first thought when I saw this chart.

On second thought, sex does not necessarily lead to pregnancy, unless you are having it in the back of your parents' car. Or your very first beat-up old clunker. Better if you are drunk.

So my revised word of advice:

Germans need to have more drunken sex in the back of their parents' car, or get more clunkers.

Then I saw this other chart, comparing government sponsored "Cash for Clunkers" programs in several countries:

Hold on a second, while I take a mental note...

Note to self: Great cocktail conversation tidbit - "Do you know the U.S. is not the only one, and definitely not the first one, to come up with the 'Cash for Clunkers' program?"

Note to self, again: Scratch that. Someone is bound to say, "Exactly. Those are all socialist, or Facist, countries, or whatever, European! countries. That's why we should object to it loudly. Preferrably bring a loaded handgun with you to town hall meetings." And then the cocktail party, if I were ever invited to one, would go downhill from there... So, NOT A GOOD IDEA! Ok. Fine! Scratch the entire Note to Self 1.

When I saw this second chart about Cash for Clunkers program in other countries,

Eureka! I thought.

See how the government in Germany spent $7.1 billion on their "Get Rid of Clunker" program?
There you go, my friend. That is why the birth rate in Germany remains the lowest.

Americans pay $650 billion more for health care than comparable countries...

It is technically $643 billion, the additional amount Americans paid for health care in 2006 compared to the other countries with comparable wealth and health, according to the research article "Why Americans Pay More for Health Care?" in the December 2008 issue of the venerable McKinsey Quarterly. (Ok, probably not as venerable as The Harvard Business Review, but still a good thing to be inserted into your conversation with your interviewers...)

Please don't freak out: this article is actually quite easy to follow and it is written in plain English, so there is no "Huh? WTF are they talking about?" or "Do they know what they themselves are saying?" moment. I promise. In addition, there are a lot of charts. We love charts! And these charts actually say something and make sense. Bonus.

Some quick takeaways:

Countries spend more on health care as they become wealthier.

The main source of this gap of $650 billion? Outpatient care. "Outpatient care is by far the largest and fastest-growing part of it, accounting for $436 billion, or two-thirds of the $650 billion figure. The cost of drugs and the cost of health care administration and insurance (all nonmedical costs incurred by health care payers) account for an additional $98 billion and $91 billion, respectively, in extra spending."

"Today, the US system delivers 65 percent of all care in outpatient contexts, up from 43 percent in 1980."

Although in theory this shift should have cut the cost down, in reality the overall cost went up because of the high utilization rate of outpatient care. However, it is not because we go to see the doctors a lot more often, rather, the average costs per visit has gone up and the number of expensive tests, such as MRIs and CT scans, are performed more frequently.

The root cause of this? Insurance and low out-of-pocket expense.

There is no check in place to guard the price increase. On the contrary, seeing a doctor may be like buying a high-end purse -- if it is expensive, it must be good. And vice versa.

The article concludes thus, "In the United States, the 'average' consumer of health care pays for only 12 percent of its total cost directly out of pocket (down from 47 percent in 1960), as well as for 25 percent of health care insurance premiums, a share that has stayed relatively constant for the last decade. Well-insured patients who bear little, if any, of the cost of their treatment have no incentive to be value-conscious health care consumers."

This sounds familiar but now we have the numbers to back up our suspicions: in order for any health care reform to work and stick, it is important that we carry out the education and cultivation of a new generation of patients that are "value conscious" and treat the burden of health care, even when they do not have to pay for it DIRECTLY, as ultimately their own INDIRECT cross to bear.

Latest Poll: Less than 40% of Americans believe in Evolutionism... Wonder whether Canada fares better

as they have more Democrats and Liberals than we do?

This is the latest poll by Gallup this month, in honor of Darwin's 200th birthday, an update from the Economist Daily Chart that I posted a week ago: data for that chart was from 2006, and at that time, less than 50% of the Americans believed in Evolution.... What happened??!! We all collectively took the stupid pill?

Well, I am not sure what an "honor" the result would be. Darwin is probably turning in his grave.

Summary of the survey findings:

"On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they 'believe in the theory of evolution,' while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity."

What bothers me the most, or surprises me the most, is the fact that only 86% of the people holding a postgraduate degree correctly answered the question: "Can you tell me with which scientific theory Charles Darwin is associated?"

One can argue that whether you believe in Evolution is a matter of heart, which is subjective, and should have nothing to do with how many books you have read (esp. if you have been reading all the wrong books... and the definition of "wrong" varies by which side you are on...) But the theory with which Darwin is associated? This is basic knowledge, people! If you cannot answer this question correctly, you should march back to your alma mater and give them back your diploma!

Fewer than 50% Americans believe in the Evolution Theory... How many of the rest believe in aliens?

Numbers (or Bars) speak louder than words. Draw any conclusion based on your own bias and convictions. And don't send me any hate mail, but this visual impact is too much for me to bear. I feel dizzy. Would be interested to see how this affects the government's and Bill Gates' professed belief and vowed actions to improve science standards for education in the U.S.

Seriously, if you have any gripes, sign in to the Economist and post your comment there. As of now, there are 161 comments: obviously this is a topic that is close to home, to people's hearts and brains. (But if you ask me, it is obvious which side has more brains than the other...)

Now that I have a few moments to calm myself down from the initial impact, come to think of it, the number is not that surprising considering that this is the land that proudly hosts the Creation Museum as a historical and scientific institution. Let's be thankful that we are still behaving better than Turkey! Woohoo!

Courtesy of The Economist's Daily Chart (February 5, 2009)

The Lipstick Index: Myth Busted?

The first time I heard about the Lipstick Index was from a Mary Kay rep: I learned from her that the three recession-proof products are lipsticks, alcohol, and cigarettes. It is not difficult to understand why alcohol and cigarettes are recession-proof: if you are addicted to something, you are going to get your drink on, in good times or hard times. (The same can be said of drugs and "purchased sex", then? I imagine a flat line across the chart for these addictions?)

Above is the Daily Chart from The Economist on January 23, 2009, comparing national GDP to lipstick sales from 1989 to 2007.

The term Lipstick Index was coined by Leonard Lauder, the chairman of Estée Lauder, in 2001 during the recession. Lipstick sales in the US jumped by 11% in the 3rd quarter, (and more excitingly for the would-be theorists, the sales increased 25% for cosmetics during the Depression). The common theory states that lipsticks is a relatively inexpensive luxury for women with tighter purse strings. But statistics shown here does not show an obvious trend to prove this theory.

In my view, there will always be people who can purchase luxury goods when the rest of us are forced to "eat cake". The retail anecdotes for this past Christmas season tells an interesting story: when stores were saddled with unsold inventories, 3 (relatively) big-ticket items were hot hot hot, couldn't keep them on the shelves: Nintendo Wii, Uggs Boots, and Amazon's Kindle.

Go figure!

Now if anyone could explain to me the attractions of those Uggs Boots...

The Economist Daily Chart: World Internet Users now over ONE Billion!

I only recently discovered that The Economist online includes a "Daily Chart" section in which a snapshot of an intriguing world phenomenon or a trivial yet fascinating trend is presented daily.

From January 26, 2009: Chart showing number of Internet users by the top countries.

Three things make this moment deserve our special attention:

1. The number of Internet users surpassed one billion for the first time.

2. There are more people online in China than in the USA. This should not be surprising considering the sheer size of the Chinese population (1.3 billion vs. 300 million). However, it is mind-boggling still because of the pronounced gap between economic classes, incomes, regions, education, access to modern technologies, etc. amongst the 1.3 billion Chinese living in Mainland China.

3. The Internet penetration may have reached saturation point in the United States, whereas in China, and other countries that are playing a very impressive game of catchup, there is a lot of room for growth, and grow it will.

(Glad to see that the data used include only unique users above the age of 15 and excludes access in Internet cafes and via mobile devices. Nice - makes this more meaningful even after one takes it with a grain of salt...)