What’s China’s Real Inflation Rate? by Dexter Roberts, Bloomberg Businessweek
“There has been a jump in prices that isn’t reflected in the numbers,” says Chinese Academy of Social Sciences economist Yu Yongding, who formerly served as an adviser to China’s central bank…Another sign of rising prices: Multinationals in China expect to hike wages an average of 8.4 percent this year, according to human resources consultant Hewitt Associates (HEW). Ordinary Chinese, meanwhile don’t see the steep jumps in their housing, education, and medical expenses reflected in the official stats. “Inflation could well be 6 percent now for most people in China,” says Pettis…If the doubters are right, then the government has a serious inflation problem that it either hasn’t figured out how to measure or has chosen to ignore…The political risks are high, too: Social unrest in China often increases when ordinary workers can’t keep up with the cost of living…Medical costs are the No. 1 concern for 84 percent of China’s rural residents, according to a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Officially, medical prices are only up 2.8 percent so far this year.”
Bill Gates’ Favorite Teacher by David A. Kaplan, Fortune
“What’s remarkable about Khan Academy, aside from its nonpareil word of mouth and burgeoning growth, is that it’s free and prizes brevity. Remember your mumbling macroeconomics teacher whose 50-minute monologue in a large auditorium could bore the dead? That isn’t Khan. He rarely cracks wise — if you want shtick, check out Darth Vader trying to teach Euclidean geometry on YouTube (“The Pythagorean theorem is your destiny!”) — but in less than 15 minutes Khan gets to the essence of the topics he’s carved out.”
