About the Author Marina Parrish is a Strategic Finance and Operations professional, entrepreneur, and the founder of Entertaining Economist LLC. A native of Kiev, Ukraine, she immigrated to the United States in March 1998 and is now a proud American citizen. Her unique perspective as a post-Soviet immigrant, combined with over two decades of expertise in healthcare finance, real estate lending, and digital media, forms the backbone of her writing. Marina’s professional journey is rooted in the rigorous analytical traditions of her upbringing. Her mother, a PhD in Cardiology and former head of Functional Diagnostics at a major Soviet hospital in Kiev, instilled in her a deep respect for precision and systems. Marina carried this legacy into the American workforce, serving as a medical biller and legal appeal processor for US physicians, where she mastered the complexities of ICD/CPT coding, insurance claims, and the bureaucratic intricacies of the US healthcare system. Parallel to her medical career, Marina developed extensive expertise in real estate financing. As a Branch Account Manager for CitiFinancial and through her own lending ventures, she specialized in primary and secondary mortgages, short sales, and post-bankruptcy financing. This dual background in health and finance gave her a front-row seat to the systemic dysfunctions, corruption, and "Soviet-style" in efficiencies that can exist within American institutions—themes she explores critically in her work.