Managing disabilities in an integrated health environment: the experience of Aetna

Disability-related outlays are increasing at a rate well above the medical inflation rate. This article discusses the experience of one company in its attempt to manage these skyrocketing costs, by developing a new program that integrates health and related benefits by combining the medical and human resources interventions into a unified program. The authors discuss the initiation, development and progress of the program, concluding with measured results revealing reduced lost work time, improved employee health and productivity, and reduced disability costs.     

Betraying a futurist: The misappropriation of Gandhi''s Ramarajya

Discussing how a political futurist may envision present-tainted ‘realist’ futures, ideology-oriented ‘ambitious’ futures, ethics-inspired ‘ideal’ futures, or other types of futures, this essay describes who an idealist-futurist is. Proving that Mahatma Gandhi is such an idealist-futurist who builds his futurism on the rock of humanistic values by relishing the good and rejecting the bad, emphasizes the futures for the weak, and insists on working for future through futureful means such as truth and non-violence, it is pointed out how Gandhi's futurism has come to be pilfered and betrayed by the brahmanical Hindu right-wing future-thieves in present-day India.     

Revolution and counter-revolution: two views of unemployment

There is a view in economics that Keynes did not have a microeconomictheory underpinning his explanation of macroeconomics. For example,Friedman (1970) even goes so far as to maintain that pricesare arbitrary in Keyne's approach to economics. The conclusionwhich follows from this critique of Keynes is that Keynesianeconomics cannot explain the occurrence of unemployment in amarket economy except by invoking ad hoc assumptions. It isargued in this paper that the above critique is based on a misunderstandingof the focus of the Keynesian explanation of unemployment. Thefocus in Keynes is not choice, but exclusion from choice. Inconventional microeconomics, the concept of choice is not consideredproblematic. The observation that a particular action is takenis confused with the view that the action is voluntarily chosen.The Keynesian explanation entails an exploration of what theconcept of voluntary choice means.     

我国加入世界贸易组织(WTO)对电力工业的影响及对策研究

本文首先分析了我国加入WTO后对电力工业的影响,包括对电力贸易、电力需求、电力技术装备水平、电力法律法规体系、电力企业经营和电力体制改革的影响:然后提出了国家和电力企业在我国加入WTO问题上应采取的对策建议。     

2000年上半年电力市场分析报告

本文是一份全国电力需求市场半年分析报告。2000年上半年我国的经济运行发生了一些积极的变化,宏观经济形势出现了重要转机。同时,我国电力供需形势也发生了一些新的变化:扭转了1996年以来我国电力有效需求不足,用电增长缓慢的局面,上半年全社会用电增长速度超过10％;工业用电结束近年来低速增长的局面,成为上半年用电增长的有力支撑。针对这些变化的原因和特点,本文进行了详细分析,并在此基础上对全年的需电量进行了预测。     

South Asia: Before and after

Ever since the two-pronged ‘divide and rule’ approach of the British and the ‘two nation’ theory of the communal forces led to the partition of the subcontinent, the elites of South Asian countries have always bifurcated the region's modern history with the independence divider. The contemporary period thus comprises of ‘before 1947’ when the British themselves ruled, and ‘after 1947’ when British ideas rule. Demystifying the all too familiar ‘before and after’ analysis of the elites and their pompous claims of post-independence ‘achievements’, this paper attempts to elude that scheme, exposing the emptiness of such claims. The author exhorts the poor of South Asia to put independence behind them as another major political event in the long history of the region and to press ahead with collective preparations for their common futures.