A Vermont federal judge has ruled that a person cannot be compelled by police to divulge his PGP key. This is by no means the end of the legal debate (Orin Kerr comments), but it’s certainly good news.
Clusty search on the 5th Amendment.
Daily Archives: December 24, 2007
The Rise of Medical Tourism
What used to be rare is now commonplace: traveling abroad to receive medical treatment, and to a developing country at that.
So-called medical tourism is on the rise for everything from cardiac care to plastic surgery to hip and knee replacements. As a recent Harvard Business School case study describes, the globalization of health care also provides a fascinating angle on globalization generally and is of great interest to corporate strategists.
“Apollo Hospitals—First-World Health Care at Emerging-Market Prices” explores how Dr. Prathap C. Reddy, a cardiologist, opened India’s first for-profit hospital in the southern city of Chennai in 1983. Today the Apollo Hospitals Group manages more than 30 hospitals and treats patients from many different countries, according to the case. Tarun Khanna, a Harvard Business School professor specializing in global strategy, coauthored the case with professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Carin-Isabel Knoop, executive director of the HBS Global Research Group.
The medical services industry hasn’t been global historically but is becoming so now, says Khanna. There are several reasons that globalization can manifest itself in this industry:
The US sub-prime crisis in graphics
BBC:
The US sub-prime mortgage crisis has lead to plunging property prices, a slowdown in the US economy, and billions in losses by banks. It stems from a fundamental change in the way mortgages are funded.
Traditionally, banks have financed their mortgage lending through the deposits they receive from their customers. This has limited the amount of mortgage lending they could do.
In recent years, banks have moved to a new model where they sell on the mortgages to the bond markets. This has made it much easier to fund additional borrowing,
But it has also led to abuses as banks no longer have the incentive to check carefully the mortgages they issue.
A Bit of Wisconsin Open Records History
Walter H. Besley may well have been Wisconsin’s first open-government crusader.
Back in 1853, five years after Wisconsin became a state, Besley, the clerk of circuit court in Jefferson County, billed the County Board of Supervisors $22 for two expenses: wood to furnish his office and a large box of candles to light and warm it.
The board rejected the expenditure. Besley sued and won. The board was ordered to pay these expenses, plus interest and “the costs of suit.”
In 1856, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard the case on appeal. It affirmed the circuit court’s ruling, citing a state law mandating that the clerk and other county officials “keep his office open during business hours, Sundays excepted, and all books and papers required to be kept in this office shall be open for the examination of any person.”
The court said the Legislature’s intent was clear: “to accommodate the wants of the citizens” who had business to transact. “To require these officers to keep their offices open during business hours,” it wrote, “and yet provide no means of warming or lighting them would be simply absurd.”
While the law did not require the clerk “to keep a tavern” — which presumably would also accommodate the wants of some citizens — “it is clearly the object and intention of the statute that these county offices shall be kept open, and in a suitable condition.” Thus the expenses presented by Besley were “a proper and legal county charge” that the board was wrong to reject.