Wisdom in fragments

Public health goes everywhere. Winslow defined it as 'the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organised efforts of society'. I think that's a good start, but we have to see the culture and ecosystem of public health in the context of the community. Not only is happiness important to public health, but so is GDP and the environment. It's an immensely broad subject.

UK's Chief Medical Officer & Leading Public Health Advocate

The essence of public health as a field of action is that it tries to stop problems from happening where possible, and prepares societies for problems that are unavoidable. That's why it requires us to understand the entire population.

Global Health Leader & Former Dean of Harvard School of Public Health

Public health is mostly a field for research and inquiry, but it's also an arena for action. The best way to think of public health as to see it tackling the health needs of an entire population rather than individuals (that is mostly what medicine does). I am a physician, but when I went into public health I said that my position was now that society would be my patient.

Global Health Leader & Former Dean of Harvard School of Public Health

Despite huge and on-going technological advances in electronic transactions technologies, it [paper currency] has remained surprisingly durable, even if its major uses seem to be buried in the world underground and illegal economy.

Economist & Harvard Professor; Former IMF Chief Economist

If the government is too abrupt is abandoning a century-old social convention, it will destabilize inflation expectations, introduce a risk premium into bond pricing, and generally induce unexpected macroeconomic instabilities.

Economist & Harvard Professor; Former IMF Chief Economist

Another important argument for maintaining the status quo is that eliminating a core symbol of the monetary regime could disrupt common social conventions for using money, possibly in unexpected ways. For example, it could lead to a precipitous decline in demand for debt and not just for fiat money.

Economist & Harvard Professor; Former IMF Chief Economist

There is nothing, however, in standard theories of money that requires transactions to be anonymous from tax- or law-enforcement authorities. And yet there is a significant body of evidence that a large percentage of currency in most countries, generally well over 50%, is used precisely to hide transactions.

Economist & Harvard Professor; Former IMF Chief Economist

Paying a negative interest rate on currency, or on electronic reserves at the central bank, may seem barbaric to some... But it is arguably no more barbaric than inflation, which similarly reduces the real purchasing power of currency.

Economist & Harvard Professor; Former IMF Chief Economist

Many people speculate in BitCoin. It is approximately 8 times more volatile than the stock market. However, that is not the primary use of BitCoin. BitCoin is designed to efficiently and securely aid in transactions.

Duke University finance professor; pioneering research on market anomalies and asset pricing

BitCoin might not be the final model but it is definitely here to stay. Many have criticized BitCoin because it enables illegal transactions. I think the critique is lame. Did you know that 75% of the value of all U.S. cash is in $100 bills? Cash is the problem.

Duke University finance professor; pioneering research on market anomalies and asset pricing

The block chain or general ledger could be a secure repository of private information, property ownership, and conditional contracts. For example, consider buying a car. The dealership sells it to you and it goes into the block chain. You have a private code that identifies you as the owner.

Duke University finance professor; pioneering research on market anomalies and asset pricing

The BitCoin general ledger is called the block chain. It is remarkably secure. To break into the chain, you would have to amass 25,000 of the world's fastest supercomputers. That seems completely infeasible.

Duke University finance professor; pioneering research on market anomalies and asset pricing

Crypto-currency is a means by which people can exchange property in a secure way without the use of a central institution like a bank or the Federal Reserve. The currency is digital and particular crypto-currencies like BitCoin go to extreme lengths so that you can only spend your digital currency once.

Duke University finance professor; pioneering research on market anomalies and asset pricing

Sometimes people view disability as something permanent when, in fact, our bodies are malleable with technology. One could be disabled for a portion of one's life, and then not be for another; the body is malleable and transformable with technology. Disability is not a fixed condition, it's fluid. This is good news- it means that we can ultimately eliminate disability

Bioengineer and amputee who pioneered advanced prosthetic limb technology

Disability is an impairment, but an impairment is not necessarily a disability. The interaction of an impairment with the social barriers that surround you may or may not turn that impairment into a disability. For example; I am a wheelchair user, and If I see a building in front of me with three steps, I cannot get into it. If I cannot get into it, it's not because I'm on a wheelchair; it's because the building has 3 steps. If the same building had a ramp, my wheelchair would not be an impairment and I could easily get into the building.

Disability Rights Activist & Founder of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People

In the standard putty-clay model, firms, able to get access to long-term capital at a very low interest rate, will invest in highly capital-intensive technologies, because wages have not fallen as much as the cost of capital. But this means that, at any given level of demand for output, employment will actually be reduced.

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist & Critic of Globalization