Community Matters

(Community Matters) Tonight’s Sonya & Reid Cramer’s 17th Anniversary

Dio, Sonya Cohen, Reid & Gabel

(Community Matters) reading Frank Rich’s story in Oct 3 New York Magazine while on Amtrak to DC, “In Praise of Extremism.”

“Pew has found that nearly half of independents are in fact either faithful Democrats (21%) or Republicans (26%) who simply don’t want to call themselves Democrats or Republicans. (Can you blame them?) Another 20% are ‘doubting Democrats’ and another 16% are ‘disaffected’ voters, respectively anti-business and anti-government, angry and populist rather than mildly centrist. The remaining 17% are what Pew calls ‘disengaged’-young and uneducated Americans, four fifths of whom don’t vote anyway. There’s nothing about the makeup of any segment of these ‘all important independent voters’ that suggest bipartisan civility has anything whatsoever to do with winning their support” posted from my blackberry

(Community Matters) Thanks to my friend Joe Liemandt, a bunch of us flew to New York yesterday to have dinner with Mr. Buffett.

Warren Buffett, Joe Liemandt, Andy Tobias

.

It was beyond a great trip and evening. Warren was completely gracious, warm and candid. He even gave an important stock tip and freely discussed everything from his observations about the economic recovery (businesses are well positioned, consumer spending is returning), doesn’t worry about deflation, Europe a problem (but doesn’t believe high probability/high impact US contagion), monetary policy v Keynesian (we’ve probably done what we can – the housing overhang is taking time), that his taxes this decade have been at the lowest rate ever, and that people will pay a premium to live and work in the USA (taxes).

I love his genie stories (2 of them, ask me). And, he appears to have near perfect recall citing esoteric statistics with ease and a passage from Andy’s book that Andy even had to stop to recall.

Kirk Rudy, Marc Winkelman, Laura & Morris Gottesman, Joe Ross & Walt Penn joined us on the flight & dinner. Jack & Ava McDonald, Andra Liemandt, Erin Driscoll and Wesley Gottesman flew with us to NY. Robert & Marcy Garriott joined us at dinner. After, a few of us had drinks with Austan Goolsbee. Agapi Stassinopoulos joined us at the end – great to catch up with her and talk about her new book.

(Community Matters) Wednesday evening attended the premiere of Gina Patterson’s Aphrodite Dances: Chocolate.

After being receptioned with chocolate covered strawberries, port and chicken mole, we were seated and toasted with warm liquid chocolate.

My favorite piece was Muse – alive, beautiful and sensual; it was set to Hildergard Von Bingen music.

Aphrodite Dances is a series of boutique performances merging dance and the culinary arts. Gina conceived the series while on retreat at the Interlochen School of the Arts last year. Compania de Danza 21 (from Puerto Rico) joined Gina, Eric Midgley, Rebecca Niziol and Chris Hannon in this performance

Gina Patterson’s Voice Dance Company

(Community Matters) from Playbook

THE BIG IDEA – “Rethinking the Boosterism About Small Business: Politicians may love to extol the virtues of small business, but big companies are still the key to growth,” by Charles Kenny, a fellow at the Center for Global Development and the New America Foundation: “If you’re looking for a lot of good-paying, stable jobs, you’d better hope there are some big companies around that want to hire. … Kansas City Federal Reserve economist Kelly D. Edmiston … found that … [h]ourly wages at the largest companies, those with more than 2,500 employees, average around $27, compared with $16 in companies with payrolls of fewer than 100. … Although politically unpopular, attracting more large companies from China and India to set up shop in the U.S. could be a better use of resources than providing yet more tax breaks and loan guarantees for small business. … Given how many ‘small employers’ are doctors, lawyers, money managers, and other ready sources of campaign finance, there is a good probability they will continue to be pampered by politicians.” http://buswk.co/oQMMJ4

(Community Matters) This evening’s sunset signals the Jewish New Year and Rosh Hashanah

L’shana tova tikatevu

(Community Matters) from Playbook

CNN/OCR: “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right — just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time?” “Just about always” clocks in at 2% — statistically unchanged from Dec. ’08. The shift came in the next two categories, with a 10% point swing from “Most of the time” (now 13%) to “Only some of the time” (77%). “Never” is statistically static at 8%.

(Community Matters) AISD has a long history of opting for secrecy over disclosure. I fear this has become SOP. It predates our current superintendent. I get the periodic need for this or the consistent need as relates to individual personnel matters & complex financial negotiations; however, there appears to have been nothing served by yesterday’s withholding. The costs appear to far outweigh any illusionary benefits unless “showing them” has become some perverse win.

Admittedly, there could have been behind the scenes play of which we aren’t aware. Perhaps there was still disagreement among staff or the board about how far to go at Monday’s meeting. If so, this should leak. The benefits of explaining outweigh the costs.

(Community Matters) Very difficult to understand this in the middle of the US standing up for Israel in the UN Palestinian state dispute.

(Community Matters) In Salon, the handy frame coined by far right

thx, KK

(Community Matters) Congratulations, Robert!

Judge Robert Pitman was confirmed last night by the US Senate as the next US Attorney for the Western District of Texas.

(Community Matters) from Playbook: “[Coke CEO] Kent argued that US states did not compete enough with each other to attract businesses while Chinese provinces were clamouring to draw investment from international companies. … ”

my initial reaction: 1) I agree our political polarization is bad for business; it’s bad for everyone, 2) Seriously Mr Kent? how would you like to operate under China’s rule of law? 3) he has some points – but that US states need to compete more or that we need to allow even more tax breaks, on the face, appears unreasonable. Close loopholes, reduce marginal rates and improve predictability? I can buy & support this.

Read full excerpt of comments: Continue reading →