Don’t miss the excellent piece on the importance of immigrants to Silicon Valley in the New York Times February 9, 2017. Some highlights: “Silicon Valley is unlikely, as a phenomenon — it is not the default state of the world,” said John Collison, an immigrant from Ireland who is a [continue reading . . . ]
![Magnet Northwest](https://michaeljparks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Cendata-A-150x150.png)
Population of the Evergreen State has grown about 60% faster than the national average in first half of the decade. Only seven states have grown at a faster rate; only two of those seven have more population than Washington. International migration — people moving from other countries — accounts for [continue reading . . . ]
![Income inequality illustrated](https://michaeljparks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Share-of-income-from-wages-150x150.jpg)
For a presentation May 8 to the Washington Alaska Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, I added to my talk a few comments on income inequality. It is not hard to find ways of illustrating growing income inequality in the United States and elsewhere. Here a few slides prepared [continue reading . . . ]
![Population explosion . . . NOT](https://michaeljparks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/UN-dependency-ratio-020413-150x150.jpg)
Do Malthusian nightmares about the population explosion keep you up nights? Relax. Chill. We Americans (numbering 315 million) are having too few babies. Middle-class fertility has fallen to about 1.6, far below the replacement rate of 2.1. That means fewer workers to support your Social Security benefits. And the problem [continue reading . . . ]