Weekend Digest: The Beatles And Brain Surgery Edition

The following stories are for our weekend business and political readers.

TV SHOW: CONGRESSMAN FRENCH HILL

This week on Talk Business & Politics:

Cong. French Hill. Flooding in his district and debates in Congress over infrastructure, international trade, and government waste. Where does the freshman Republican see the discussion heading?

In politics, Mike Huckabee swings through Arkansas, Hillary Clinton says the GOP is out to curb youth and minority voters, plus an assessment of Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s first 6 months in office. Our roundtable includes KATV’s Janelle Lilley and Elicia Dover and TB&P contributor Frank Scott.

Finally, we’ll hear from Jessica DeLoach Sabin and Wes Brown on several key political and business topics, and we’ll look at the latest top Arkansas companies to make the Fortune 500 list.

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics on Sunday at 9 a.m. on KATV Ch. 7.

TIRED OF WAITING FOR U.S. TO ACT, STATES PASS CROWDFUNDING LAWS AND RULES

The New York Times reports, “In 2012, President Obama signed a law that he called a ‘potential game changer’ for entrepreneurs seeking financing to start or expand a business: Small companies looking for financial backers could advertise their offerings online, and average people — not just wealthy accredited investors — would be allowed to buy stakes in businesses they found promising.”

More than three years later, entrepreneurs are still waiting for federal regulators to finish drafting the long-overdue rules that would let that part of the law take effect. Now, state agencies and lawmakers, tired of waiting, are taking action, passing crowdfunding laws and regulations to let local businesses raise money from local residents.

And the Times says, “the movement is growing.”

But the Times also reports, “While state officials are bullish on equity crowdfunding, entrepreneurs and investors have been slower to join in.”

For the complete story, go to this link.

TESTING THE WATERS BEFORE PURSUING A MINI-IPO

Entrepreneur posts, “Rather than spending large sums of money to roll out a mini-IPO with hopes of raising up to $50 million, a company can use a revolutionary provision of Regulation A+ from the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) to ‘test the waters’ before hitting the market.”

In other words, a company can legally gauge interest from prospective investors before spending more than $100,000 to see if there is sufficient interest in their stock offering to move forward.

Basically, this means a company can’t bind anyone to buy or mislead anyone when they test the waters.

Find out more about how the JOBS Act made this more affordable approach a reality, at this link.

THE FIRST ONE IN THE OFFICE

Is that a good thing or a sure bet for unhealthy stress?

Fast Company believes it’s a good thing.

We all know the saying, “The early bird gets the worm.” While it can be tempting to hit the snooze button in the morning, it turns out there are some benefits to being the first one in the office.

Find out what they are here.

WHAT MILLENNIALS ARE REALLY BUYING

Forbes reports, “Conventional wisdom suggests Millennials — that sprawling generation of 75 million 18- to 34-year-olds, often described as “digital natives” — live their lives on the Internet. They’re hunched over their iPhones, iPads, and Kindles. They shop via mobile apps. They stream all their entertainment.”

New data suggests, however, that the buying habits of most Millennials are still fairly analog.

Real-time analytics firm Neustar isolated online and offline transactions made specifically by Millennial college graduates from a data set of 220 million U.S. adults.

So again, what are they really buying?

For the answers, click here.

THE BUILDING OF THE CLINTON FOUNDATION EMPIRE

The Washington Post calls it a “sprawling organization” that has an annual budget of $223 million, yet it’s philosophy is simple.  Do good on a global a scale.

And at the heart of the foundation is the “convener”, Bill Clinton.

Originally founded in 1997, the (Clinton) Foundation now includes 11 major initiatives, focused on issues as divergent as crop yields in Africa, earthquake relief in Haiti and the cost of AIDS drugs worldwide. In all, the Clintons’ constellation of related charities has raised $2 billion, employs more than 2,000 people and has a combined annual budget of more than $223 million.

In the middle of it all is Bill Clinton, a new kind of post-presidential celebrity: a convener who wrangles rich people’s money for poor people’s problems. In the process, the foundation elevates the wealthy by giving them entree to one of the nation’s most prominent political families.

How did this “empire” grow from its beginnings in Little Rock and now with Hillary Clinton running for president again, what are the controversies of her candidacy facing the foundation and The Clinton Global Initiative?

Click on this link for the inside story on how the Clintons built a $2 billion “ingenious machine that can turn something intangible — the Clintons’ global goodwill — into something tangible: money.”

SOMETHING TO JOKE ABOUT

The size of the GOP presidential field that is.

“It’s not just comics who joke about the size of the presidential field — candidates do, too.”

POLITICO says, “If it’s Monday, it must be Lindsey Graham entering the presidential fray. If it’s Thursday, it must be Rick Perry. The GOP field just keeps growing, and the candidates are feeling the crush of the crowd.”

“We’ve got 75 people running I think, last time I checked,” cracked Jeb Bush in Florida on Monday. “I haven’t checked how many people announced today.”

But the size of the presidential field is more than a punchline — it’s shaping the contours of the Republican nominating contest: forcing candidates to carve out narrower niches, making national polls relevant, and making it harder for activists and donors to commit.

Consequently because the traction is so hard-going, how will the candidates slog along in the bog?

Connect here for POLITICO’s take, that’s no joke.

THE CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL PIRACY IN THE AGE OF STREAMING APPS

It caused almost a much buzz about The Fight, than the actual boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.

We’re talking about Periscope that some say uses a format of piracy that amounts to “digital theft.”

But the hype surrounding the widespread use of Periscope to stream the “fight of the century” between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao touched a nerve with me, particularly as I was headed to Capitol Hill just a few days later to join the Creative Rights Caucus for a briefing on the challenges of digital piracy in the age of streaming apps.

Periscope is a new platform, but the digital theft of creative works is a systemic problem and nothing new. Meaningful reductions in piracy can be achieved when all technology companies, from the hot new start-ups to the top of the Fortune 500, take two key steps.

Find out what they are and what the CEO of Periscope has to say about it all at this link from The Hill.

A MAP OF WHAT EVERY STATE WOULD BE IF IT WERE A COUNTRY

Now that’s an intriguing thought. Using the economies from countries around the world, The Washington Post has a match-up of states with similar GDPs to that of foreign countries.

Who knew Oklahoma’s GDP compares to New Zealand’s or Oregon’s matched-up with Portugal’s.

The American economy is really big. That’s the takeaway of this fascinating map of the United States from Mark Perry, an economist who runs the Carpe Diem blog at the American Enterprise Institute.

The map, which has been around for a while, has a lot of explanatory power when it comes to America’s position in the global economy. For each state, Perry finds a country that had a roughly similarly sized economy in 2013.

So who does Arkansas match-up with? Check them all out at this link.

PLAYING THE BEATLES WHILE HAVING BRAIN SURGERY

We’re not talking about background music for doctors while performing brain surgery. No, we’re talking about the actual patient playing Beatles music along with some other tunes on a guitar.

Anthony Kulkamp Dias treated doctors at Our Lady of Conception hospital in Tubarão, Brazil, to a very unusual concert: the 33-year-old sang and played his guitar while undergoing brain surgery to remove a tumor.

What was the reason for this unusual concert and how did it sound? Take a look at this link.

‘SOCIAL IMPACT’ VACATIONS

USA Today asks, “Would you take a cruise to help people in need?”

Industry giant Carnival Corp. is betting on it.

The parent company of Carnival, Princess and Holland America announced plans for a new cruise brand to debut in 2016 that will offer week-long “social impact” vacations to developing countries such as the Dominican Republic.

Find out more about how Carnival will “cater to an under-served market of consumers who want to have a positive impact on people’s lives” at this link.

‘A GOOD STAMP IS HARD TO FIND’

So was a good man, which was the title of one of the noted works of Flannery O’Connor, “the 20th-century master of the short story, the ‘hermit novelist’ who fused her art and life as a Southerner and a Roman Catholic with stories that are shocking, hilarious and often bloody.”

Now a stamp has come out to honor O’Connor. But there’s a big storm of controversy over the stamp that has critics and fans howling.

What is it? The New York Times has the story at this link.