This week: May 1, 2026 - Karen Willetts - Classification Talk
Dave Fitzwilliam was last week’s breakfast speaker, and we thank him for contributing his own synopsis of a very complicated topic.
“My talk was on James Rickards’ book Currency Wars. Ben Bernanke’s Fed printing of dollars (through quantitative easing to pay for the deficit) will bring a global crisis and a risk of the collapse of the dollar, The economies of the U.S., Euro, and China’s yuan are tied in a complex way and are 60% of the world economy. When the Fed devalues the dollar to prop up the US economy, it has a negative effect on China and the Euro. It causes inflation of the Euro and the Yuan. US treasuries are paid back in cheaper dollars. Abroad it causes pressure to cut costs to maintain exports and causes higher unemployment. Commodity prices (ie oil, nat, gas, gold, soy beans, corn, etc.) are inflated. As the debt increases and more $;s are printed, the sudden collapse of the dollar is at risk.
Last week’s breakfast speaker was Samantha (“Sam”) Follit, daughter of Past President Rob Follit and a 2011 graduate of Vanderbilt University. She works for the Advisory Board Company in D.C.
Sam’s area is with hospitals where Big Medicine must be introduced to combine quality control, cost control and innovation in order to provide affordable health care for delivery to millions. In reinventing health care we are essentially “moving from a Jeffersonian idea of small guilds and independent craftsmen in Hamiltonian recognition of the advantages that size and centralized control can bring. “For the changes to live up to our hopes— lower cost and better care for everyone —liberals will have to accept the growth of Big Medicine, and conservatives the growth of strong public oversight.” Patients just wont look for the best specialist anymore, they’ll look for the best system. Nurses and doctors will have to get used to delivering care in which their own convenience counts for less and the patient’s experience county for more.”
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While Montgomery College Professor Emeritus Paul McDermott was scheduled for a talk and slide show about the geography of the State of Maryland, his computer crash the previous evening prevented this presentation. Instead, he gave a very timely talk about catastrophic hurricanes—specifically the USA’s very recent presentation from SANDY.
Mr. McDermott pointed out that while modern technology is sufficient to warn of the severity of hurricanes headed towards the East Coast (usually emanating from the Coast of Africa), few USA coastal inhabitants are able to comprehend a truly dire report. The last hurricane comparable to SANDY was in 1938.
People cannot fight nature-they always lose. Our biggest concern should be allowing people to build on beaches. Berms with trees along the East Coast should be the buffer for hurricanes-with buildings behind. Creating such building codes in various states can be unending and arduous with the involvement of the government and many environmental organizations witness the “Save the Chesapeake Bay” project in Maryland.
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