06-12-2016, 11:44 PM
The Food and Drug Administration approved OxyContin, a time-release formulation of oxycodone made by Purdue Pharma, in 1995. Over the next five years, Purdue more than doubled its sales staff and aggressively marketed the drug as a "first-line defense" against everything from musculoskeletal pain to pain after surgery. The company assured doctors and patients that OxyContin was less addictive than other pills. It wasn't. The marketing campaign worked: From 1997 to 2002, prescriptions of the drug for noncancer patients increased tenfold. Before long, Purdue was ringing upmore than $1 billion in global sales each year. By that point, the United States was in the midst of a prescription opioid epidemic that continues to this day... The result has been an eye-popping increase in more than just Purdue's bottom line: In 1999, there were 4,000 deaths in the US attributed to prescription painkillers. By 2011, that figure was close to 14,000 - more than the number of overdose deaths from cocaine and heroin combined. In 2014, the most recent year for which figures are available, the number of overdose deaths in the US had risen to 18,893. That's more than 50 people a day.
Opioid prescriptions addiction - Business Insider
There are basically four different activities that all go by the name of macroeconomics. But they actually have relatively little to do with each other. Understanding the differences between them is helpful for understanding why debates about the business cycle tend to be so confused.
Economics Struggles to Cope With Reality - Bloomberg View
For most people, a toilet with a decent seat and flusher is just about all that's necessary for their bathroom experience. But there's a good chance they haven't tried the luxurious Kohler's intelligent Numi toilet and its abundance of features. Not only does the $4,750 toilet open and close automatically, it has a heated seat, foot warmers, a customizable bidet, an air dryer, a deodorizer and speakers to play your favorite music.
13 crazy pricy gadgets you wish you could afford
New research shows that men often underestimate their female partner's interest in sex because they're missing a lot of signals. Here's what psychologists suggest to fix the divide.
Women Are More Interested in Sex Than You Think - MarketWatch
Occasionally, there comes along an opportunity so gigantic that it would be hard to miss. In a round-up of some of its strongest long-term investing themes, Bank of America Merrill Lynch highlighted one such opportunity for businesses and economic growth: the explosion of the global middle class. "In a world starved for growth, we believe that the answer lies in uplifting the 4.5 billion people at the base of the economic pyramid," wrote BAML's thematic investing team.
Market could be biggest in history of commerce - Business Insider