Financial Times writer James Kynge describes an incredible economic transformation in rural China. "Reforms in rural finance, the monetisation of agricultural land and social welfare appear poised to turn China’s countryside from an indigent backwater to a driver of national economic growth over the next five to 10 years," Kynge reports. 

The biggest change is the opening of a market in land. Until recently, rural land was an "inert asset," according to Kynge. Beijing is now encouraging the sale of land and as a result rural land is now being accumulated into larger parcels. This is "spurring the creating of larger, more mechanized and more profitable farms, boosting the sales of both agricultural machinery companies such as First Tractor and farming enterprises such as Zhongpin." Small farmers are starting to use land as collateral to borrow money and expand their operations. And this is increasing the number of new companies being formed in rural areas. The Chinese government is also backing loans to farmers and this is increasing productivity in rural communities. In one peculiar Internet venture, an entrepreneur is buying pig farms an then broadcasting his pigs development to pork buyers in cities.

"Already this year the growth rate in rural retail sales has outpaced that in the cities," Kynge writes. "It remains to be seen if this can be sustained but the rollout of a rudimentary social welfare system – including an ambitious plan to provide healthcare in every village and pension cover for all rural residents by 2020 – might free up disposable income."

"Don't worry about the insurance companies," David Pearson said. Insurance companies are going to do just fine. But rural hospitals ought to be worried about the various health care reform bills now before Congress, said the president of the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals (TORCH). "Right now, we're barely getting by." 

Pearson was talking to a meeting of the (really good) Texas Rural Innovators Forum about health care reform.  He said the small hospitals TORCH represents aren't supporting any of the bills now being considered. (Pearson noted that none of the bills addressed access to health care, a primary concern in rural America, which has lost hundreds of hospitals over the last generation.) He did say rural hospitals have several concerns. For example, Pearson said rural hospitals aren't funded the same way as urban hospitals. Any change in funding needs to treat rural and urban hospitals with that in mind. Rural hospitals also treat undocumented workers when they come for care. Most of the bills currently under consideration cut funding for treatment of immigrants. Immigration policy shouldn't be resolved by a health care bill, Pearson said.

If there is a public plan, Pearson said, it needs to pay at least as much as Medicare or rural hospitals won't be able to provide care. Finally, Pearson said that any oversight board established in new legislation ought to be required to have rural representation. "Rural is unique," Pearson said, "and we're worried." 

Texas state comptroller said recently that the wind industry in the state had created only 500 to 800 jobs in the state, a fraction of the jobs she says will be lost under the climate bill pending in Congress. "I don't know where the new jobs are going to come from," Ms. Combs says. "They're not going to come from wind." Landing a green job in Texas, she adds, could be akin to finding a "unicorn—a sort of mythical beast."

That comment stirred Greg Wortham, mayor of Sweetwater, Texas. He reports that in 2008 a researcher talked to 20 wind firms in his county (Nolan, in the Texas Panhandle) and  found 1,000 wind energy jobs. For those that don't know the deep Republicanism of the Panhandle, Wortham writes, "And we are not an isolated "greenie" subculture. We are a proud Texas energy community, where 20 percent of the work force is in wind energy, 20 percent is in oil and gas, and 10 percent is in nuclear energy. We are also scheduled for the world's first commercial-scale carbon sequestration coal-fired power plant." 

Then he lists the Texas towns with wind energy firms: Abilene, Pampa, Dumas, Odessa, Sterling City, Roscoe, Snyder, Gainesville, Big Spring, San Angelo, Amarillo, Albany, Robert Lee, Round Rock, Stanton, Vega, Perryton, Corpus Christi, Houston, Freeport, Beaumont, El Paso, Nacogdoches, Dallas, Fort Worth, Coleman, Brownwood, Dickens, Floydada, Blackwell, Trent, Merkel, Nolan. "If there were only 20 jobs in each of those towns, that would exceed the 500 unicorns claimed by the comptroller," Wortham wrote. "Given that Sweetwater has well more than 1,000 wind energy jobs and several others in the list have hundreds of permanent wind energy jobs each, it is with great confidence I can claim that the unicorn is alive and well and growing in Texas."

Most people get their health insurance through their jobs. But having health insurance appears to be related more to income than to employment.