Two Stories from Mexico, Global Health Care Costs, and Precious Gems in Afghanistan

Is this precious gem the key to Afghanistan’s economic future? Maybe, according to US gem expert Gary Bowersox. For this week’s Global Economy Podcast, we catch up with Mr. Bowersox, who is in Afghanistan to try to teach the Afghans how to mine gemstones correctly (they’re currently using hand grenades to do the blasting…). He figures it could help Afghans break their dependence on growing things like poppies for opium. And he reckons that if the country learns to mine the gems correctly, it can count on $300 to $500 million dollars worth of merchandise. But that’s only if the country can also achieve some kind of political and social stability too. Big, big ifs.

We also can’t escape a swine flu update in this week’s podcast. Mexico City businesses recently reopened after being forced to close for a week, to help stem the spread of the H1N1 virus. We have an interview with Mr. Jose Muñoz, owner of Café Tacuba in Mexico City. And then we follow that with an interesting look at how Mexico is being hit by a credit card crunch. The story has echoes of what may be coming here in the United States, so you’ll want to listen.

President Obama spoke this week about the need to cut health care costs in America. The President said: “When it comes to health care spending, we are on an unsustainable course that threatens the financial stability of families, of businesses and of government itself.” Well, we use the President’s remarks as a springboard to discuss how much citizens of other countries spend on health care. We have an interview with Karen Davies of The Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private foundation that supports research on health care issues.

(Photo by Géry Parent from Wikimedia Commons)

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