Nearly five years later, one of these two states is doing quite well. Policy.mic had an interesting report this week.
Since 2011, Minnesota has been doing quite well for itself. The state has created more than 170,000 jobs, according to the Huffington Post. Its unemployment rate stands at 3.6% – the fifth-lowest in the country, and far below the nationwide rate of 5.7% – and the state government boasts a budget surplus of $1 billion. Forbes considers Minnesota one of the top 10 in the country for business.
As Patrick Caldwell recently explained very well, Minnesota’s gains come on the heels of tax increases on Minnesota’s top 2% and higher corporate taxes, both of which state Republicans said would crush Minnesota’s economy. As for their neighbors to the east:
By a number of measures, Wisconsin hasn’t fared as well as Minnesota. As the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal reports, Wisconsin’s job growth has been among the worst in the region, and income growth is one of the worst in the country. It has a higher unemployment rate than Minnesota. And the budget is in bad shape.
Back in January, the editorial board of LaCrosse Tribune wrote, “The governors of Wisconsin and Minnesota each presented their versions of new year’s resolutions in various media interviews last week….Which approach is better? As we enter the new year, Minnesota is clearly winning by a long shot.”
via Wisconsin and Minnesota: A One-Sided Political Competition | MSNBC.
rePost::Leo Sambayan's Blog: My Bestfriend Theory (from Peyups.com)
Emphasis mine.
We’ve all been hearing all these “falling in love with the bestfriend” stories. From it being a success, a complete disaster or a one-sided melancholy. We have seen movies with the same premise, from the heart-wrenching “My Bestfriend’s Wedding” to Sharon and Aga’s “Kung ako na Lang Sana”. It can’t be an isolated case right? The Falling-in-love-with-the-bestfriend Phenomenon reached a universal state and everybody’s experiencing it, of course except those who don’t have a bestfriend, silly. I can blame it on whoever started the adage, Friendship is the foundation of love. Screw him/her, whoever he is. I don’t think friendship is the best groundwork of love, it’s an illusion, it’s a fallacy, a hasty generalization. Bestfriends fall in love for convenience, for lack of options or for mere boredom and exhaustion from the lifetime quest for the “LOVE OF HIS/HER LIFE”. It’s not about “Kung ako na lang sana” but it’s “Sige na nga, ikaw na lang.”. Got that?
via Leo Sambayan’s Blog: My Bestfriend Theory (from Peyups.com).
rePost::Lawyering for the MILF? | Inquirer Opinion
One has to be able to summon enough forbearance and charity not to bristle or break down in the face of such verbal abuse. This is the kind of provocative questioning that, instead of making room for cogent arguments, drives reason into retreat. How is one supposed to react when each time you refuse to rush to judgment or form a conclusion on the basis of unverified reports, you are accused of lawyering for the enemy?These are professionals recruited by President Benigno Aquino III to find a solution to the long-festering armed conflict in Mindanao. Before she joined public service as peace adviser, Secretary Deles headed a peace institute and was part of a vigorous peace movement that grew in the wake of Edsa I. Chair Ferrer is a professor of political science with a rich field experience in postconflict East Timor. Both have solid grounding on peace issues.Deles and Ferrer may not be political combatants or courtroom gladiators, but they are no pushovers. I am sure that, if they wanted to, they would have been able to respond to Senator Cayetano’s acerbic interventions with fitting eloquence or dismissive disdain. To their credit, they controlled themselves. Senate hearings are not the right venue to tangle with politicians who like to think of themselves as the voice of the sovereign. The Senate is a seat of power, and the consciousness of that power distorts communication.
via Lawyering for the MILF? | Inquirer Opinion.
rePost::Why London Should Stop Trying to Be New York and Start Trying to Be Paris – CityLab
Read the linked article and see what a mayor with the political will and the conscience of doing stuff can do.
The way that politics is done in the Philippines Binay could have done more as Secretary Robredo has shown us with his work on Naga City.
Just outlining all of Paris’ plans is a marathon. Since mayor Anne Hidalgo gained office last April, the city has set aside €3 billion to build new public housing over the next six years, at a rate of 7,000 units a year. She’s tabled a new law to fine office owners who choose to leave their properties empty rather than convert them to residences—a plan designed mainly to convert formerly residential older real estate back to its original use. Hidalgo is also trying to prevent total gentrification of formerly working class areas by establishing a list of earmarked apartments that the city would have a “right of first-refusal” to buy should they go up for sale. The idea there is that the city can increase its social housing stock in a given neighborhood if it wants.
Solutions that might be impossible across the Atlantic still have a fighting chance of acceptance in London.
Paris’ pollution, meanwhile, is being attacked by plans to phase out diesel fuel and make central Paris a residents-only zone for drivers by 2020, by which time cycle lanes will have been doubled. New nationwide laws to create city rent rise caps and clamp down on exploitative letting agent charges are also helping the city make progress. And finally, the unhealthy division between Paris and its suburbs is being bridged by the Grand Paris project, through which greater regional cooperation will be boosted by a massive expansion of the metro and suburban train network. To make the city more accessible to poorer suburbanites, the cost of transit fares from the far periphery to Paris’ core is also being slashed.
via Why London Should Stop Trying to Be New York and Start Trying to Be Paris – CityLab.
rePost:How Singapore Became an Entrepreneurial Hub – HBR
What Singapore shows us is that with the right help from the government, the right concentration of academics, and a lot of technologist a place can really be the next Israel or Singapore.
“You are crazy.”
That was the predominant sentiment I heard a little more than five years ago when I told U.S.-based venture capitalists about my plans to move my family out to Singapore to oversee Innosight’s nascent investment and incubation arm. Since I had never done venture investing before, I was trying to get advice from as many people as I could. The conversations all went pretty much the same.
“Why Singapore? You’ll never find any interesting deals there.”
Sure, I would respond. At the time Singapore didn’t have a sizzling start-up scene. But the conditions seemed to be ripe for one to develop. Like Silicon Valley, Singapore has strong research institutions and limited enforcement of noncompete clauses, a condition that academics now suggest can be a major driver of innovation. Like Israel, Singapore is small, with limited natural resources, which means economic growth requires innovative macroeconomic approaches. Both Singapore and Israel have liberal immigration policies for skilled workers. Both also have mandatory military conscription for males (Israel also has mandatory conscription for females), and as Dan Senor and Saul Singer argue in Start-up Nation, the Israeli military has been a breeding ground of innovation.
via How Singapore Became an Entrepreneurial Hub – HBR.
7 Lies Employers Use To Trick You Into Working For Them | J.T. O'Donnell | LinkedIn
7 Potential Lies Told In The Hiring Process
Any time a company makes the following claims, you should push back and try to get more information before assuming it’s the truth. While some can deliver, others can’t – and it’s up to you to figure out which ones are sincere. The potential lies are:
There’s a lot of opportunity for advancement.
The bonus structure will double your income.
Your territory is protected and we won’t change it.
You’ll get extensive training.
You’ll have scheduling flexibility and can work from home on occasion.
We’ll hire you some help when it gets busy.
Once you fix this problem/department/project, etc., you’ll get to work on something new and exciting.
via 7 Lies Employers Use To Trick You Into Working For Them | J.T. O’Donnell | LinkedIn.
Political Musings 2015 02 18
I am quite pleasantly surprised that the three brave attack dogs senators have been joined by the senators that inspire my trust Angara, and Osmeña. They were even joined by the ever memory challenged senator Marcos.
This smells fishy to me. My gut feeling is that the way that Binay is sniping at the President has once again irked the President enough to have allies commence a second offensive.
The first time I believe was the tsismis that Binay had prepared an attack ad to snipe at the accomplishments of the President. Only then as rumors say that the President allowed the invigorated attack on the VP.
A maverick currency scheme from the 1930s could save the Greek economy | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
Why is this not known more?
In its original form, stamp scrip was a piece of paper on which a number of boxes were printed. The note would lose its validity unless a stamp costing 1% of its value was stuck in one of the boxes every month. In other words, the currency lost value over time, so there was no incentive to hoard it. Stamp scrip projects took off across Germany and Austria after national currencies collapsed in the early 1930s. In 1932, for example, the Austrian town of Wörgl was almost broke, unable to finance public works or to support its destitute population, until the mayor heard of Gesell’s proposal.
He put up the town’s tiny remaining fund as collateral against the same value of stamp scrip, and used it to pay for a building project. The workers then passed on the currency as quickly as they could. Like the magic pudding, this little pot of money kept circulating, enabling Wörgl to repave the streets, rebuild the water system, construct houses, a bridge and even a ski jump. In the 13 months of the experiment, the 5,500 scrip schillings in circulation were spent 416 times, creating between 12 and 14 times as much employment as the standard currency would have done. Unemployment vanished, and the stamp fees paid for a soup kitchen feeding 220 families.
via A maverick currency scheme from the 1930s could save the Greek economy | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.
A maverick currency scheme from the 1930s could save the Greek economy | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
ompare the terms demanded of the Greek government to those offered to the banks. Eurozone ministers now insist upon unconditional surrender: a national abasement that makes a mockery of democracy. But when the banks were bailed out, governments magicked up the necessary money almost unconditionally. They shyly requested a few token reforms, then looked away when the bankers disregarded them.
The German government, now crushing the life out of southern Europe, merely tickled its own banks. As the New York Times reported, though the corrupt German banking system “required a bailout bigger than the one American banks received”, “there is little appetite for change in Germany because the banking system is so deeply intertwined with its politics, serving as a rich source of patronage and financing for local projects”.
When the Greeks complain that they have been reduced to colonial subjects, they are right, but the colonial masters are not the northern members of the eurozone. They are the private banks. The governments that seem determined to destroy a sovereign state for its impudence are merely the intermediaries of power.
via A maverick currency scheme from the 1930s could save the Greek economy | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.
Boy Scouts ‘so shortchanged’ in Alphaland deal – senators
Angara also raised a question that emerged in the wake of the deal’s exposure: how is Binay able to remain as BSP national president for nearly two decades? Binay led the BSP from 1998 to 2000, and again in 2001 up to now.
The senator said that for other government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), the President can change the head of the agency.
via Boy Scouts ‘so shortchanged’ in Alphaland deal – senators.