Weekend Digest: The rich and poor divide, political acting skills and dates with wolves edition

TV PREVIEW
On this week’s TV edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9:30 a.m. on KATV Channel 7 in Central Arkansas and now in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.:

• Arkansas Barnstorm
It is the week before Election Day and Arkansas is ground zero for the Presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump – all making appearances as they barnstorm across the state. Roby Brock will have an exclusive 1-on-1 with Ted Cruz.

• Talk Politics
John Brummett leads a roundtable of GOP surrogates and supporters. Who is backing the major players? Brummett is joined by Sen. Jason Rapert and Republican consultant Richard Bearden.

• The Supremes
Besides the Presidential match ups, one of the biggest races on the ballot Tuesday will decide the next Chief Justice of the Ark. Supreme Court. Justice Courtney Goodson and Judge Dan Kemp will answer tough questions on the state of the race.

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics in Central Arkansas on KATV Channel 7, Sundays at 9:30 a.m. and now in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.

THE DIVIDE GETS BIGGER BETWEEN RICH AND POOR COMMUNITIES
“As the most prosperous communities in the United States have gotten richer since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, economic conditions in many distressed areas have deteriorated even further,” reports The New York Times.

A new report by the Economic Innovation Group, based on an analysis of Census Bureau data, found that a number of cities in the old industrial heartland are still among the worst even as surrounding areas have improved markedly. By contrast, the pain has been more spread out in states across the Sun Belt.

Which includes Arkansas, particularly the Delta and the southwest part of the state.

For more on this story, as well as a map that scores counties by well-being across the country, go to this link.

WHAT’S IN WARREN BUFFETT’S LETTERS?
Bloomberg Business posts, “For decades, the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman has published annual letters to shareholders and, if the past is any guide, his next one Saturday will include references to everyday topics such as baseball, country music or the Bible, as well as some colorful analogies.”

Last year, Buffett repeated a mention of bugs to make a point about how one nasty surprise at a company is often a sign that others are hiding nearby:

“In the world of business, bad news often surfaces serially,” he wrote. “You see a cockroach in your kitchen; as the days go by, you meet his relatives.”

For a look at Buffett’s favorite and recurring themes in his letters, click here.

COALITION OF 20 COMPANIES WANTS TO CHANGE U.S. HEALTH CARE
Harvard Business Review says, “For too long, employers have outsourced management of their employees’ health care benefits to those with little incentive to improve value.”

In a departure from this norm, 20 major corporations earlier this month announced that they were joining forces to create the Health Transformation  Alliance (HTA) to help them take a much more active role in the health and health care of their employees and beneficiaries — some 4 million people. The HTA’s self-described goal is “to improve the way corporations provide health care benefits in an effort to create better health care outcomes for their employees” by aggregating its members’ purchasing power and using it to gain additional leverage with care providers.

The HTA would significantly improve the likelihood of achieving the “Triple Aim” — better care for individuals, better health for populations, and lower per capita cost — by employing these five strategies:

Find those strategies at this link.

BRANDS NOT PREPARED FOR THE PROLIFERATION OF SERVICE CHANNELS
“We are used to creating separate help accounts on social media to serve customers. While this isn’t a big deal today, what will be a big deal in the future is making it very easy for the customer to get help,” says Forbes.

The problem with this approach is the proliferation of service channels. Where as in the past customers had to tag customer service accounts or write on our wall for brands to find them, in the future you will see less and less of the tagging of service accounts. Why should we depend on customers to keep up with our accounts? We should be finding our customers wherever they are.

“Brands lost control, tried to regain control, and now they will lose control again. The reason they will lose control is the proliferation of service channels. There is no way for brands to operate with the same approach they have in the last few years. Every week there is a new latest channel customers talk to each other on. They are sending Snaps to friends, WhatsApp messages, Weibo, WeChat, texts tweets, and even sending images and commenting via Instagram photos, and for a second they even sent messages through an app called Peach. The proliferation of channels is upon us.”

For the complete story follow here.

SUBTLE WAYS CANDIDATES LOOK SPONTANEOUS DURING DEBATES
It’s called acting folks and Fast Company says, “To varying degrees, the U.S. presidential contenders use these two patterns to avoid seeming canned.”

In the two most recent debates, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Marco Rubio each worked a few subtle patterns into their performances in order to appear more spontaneous — some more frequently than others.

Click here for those most excellent acting tips.

EX-MEXICAN PRESIDENTS SAY NO WAY THEY WILL PAY FOR TRUMP’S WALL
The New York Times reports, “At almost all of his campaign rallies, Donald J. Trump leads a familiar refrain as he details his plan to build a giant wall along the border with Mexico.”

“Who’s gonna pay?” he asks.

Without fail, Mr. Trump’s adoring fans reply, “Mexico!”

“While the Mexican government has said little about Mr. Trump’s plan to beef up border security, two of the country’s former presidents have a message for Mr. Trump: Mexico won’t pay.”

Connect to this link to read the full story.

DEMOCRATS ESCALATE SUPREME COURT SHAME CAMPAIGN
“Democrats escalated their grievances against Republicans in the Supreme Court fight on Thursday, accusing rivals of being motivated by the same dark impulses that have driven continual efforts to delegitimize the president,” posts POLITICO.

“Even as they kept up the drumbeat against “obstructionist” Republicans who are refusing to consider any nominee in an election year, Democrats in the Senate and on the campaign trail sought to capitalize on their base’s long-simmering resentment at perceived race-related slights of President Barack Obama.”

“Let’s be blunt,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on Thursday. “Some of the pressure on the Senate to ignore its duty to fairly consider a nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy comes from the unending campaign outside the Senate to de-legitimize this President’s authority.”

For the full piece, go to this link.

RNC SEES LEVERAGE OVER TRUMP
POLITICO reports, “The GOP has resources to dangle in exchange for some message discipline from its presumptive nominee.”

“Donald Trump has steamrolled toward the Republican nomination by lambasting all things political establishment, and now that establishment thinks it can convince their insult-wielding front-runner he needs them.”

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus has begun stating in private meetings that the party has sway over its at times unwelcome front-runner because it has tools Trump will need to use to win a general election — voter data and field, digital and media operations that a nominee typically inherits from the party infrastructure.

Dangling access to these resources, Priebus thinks he can help steer Trump toward partywide policy goals and away from the inflammatory rhetoric that Republican officials see as divisive and dangerous, especially outside of the primary, according to two Republican sources who have spoken with the RNC chairman.

For more on this story, connect here.

NOT EVERYTHING IN LIFE IS LIKEABLE
Especially now in the world of Facebook.

“I come to Facebook to share all kinds of things with people I care about — from celebratory posts about practicing yoga for 60 days straight, to mourning the loss of a parent. Those same people who connect with me on my stories also have their own stories to share. Sometimes we just want a simple way to say we really love what they shared, or to express empathy when life takes a turn.”

Guess what? Now you can

People had told us that they’d like more ways to express themselves on Facebook. About a year ago, Mark brought together a team of people to start thinking seriously about how to make the Like button more expressive. We were excited to start this process — It’s not every day you get the chance to work on such an important piece of a company’s product.

Check out this major change for Facebook from Fast Company, here. (Can we all make a happy face?)

WE NOW KNOW HOW MUCH THE DINO-KILLING ASTEROID RESHAPED EARTH
Smithsonian.com posts, “The impact that wiped out large dinosaurs also dumped hundreds of feet of debris in the ocean off the Yucatán peninsula.”

More than 65 million years ago, a six-mile wide asteroid smashed into Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, triggering earthquakes, tsunamis and an explosion of debris that blanketed the Earth in layers of dust and sediment.

Now analysis of commercial oil drilling data — denied to the academic community until recently — offers the first detailed look at how the Chicxulub impact reshaped the Gulf of Mexico. Figuring out what happened after these types of impacts gives researchers a better idea of how they redistribute geological material around the world. It also gives scientists an idea of what to expect if another such impact were to occur now.

Learn the fascinating details by clicking this link.

PHOTOGRAPHER’S TRAVEL DATE WITH WOLVES IS SURREAL
The World Post says, “For most, wolves are best experienced from a safe distance. A belly-full howl from a faraway, shadowy creature provides ample wolf exposure for the majority. But not all. ”

Cleo Goosens is a photographer based in Eindhoven in the Netherlands – and, so we’ve gathered, a significant wolf enthusiast. (Her dog is named Wolf and her company, Sun of Wolves.) Recently, Goossens visited eight real, very live wolves in Germany, owned by a Dutch man who lives with them in harmony, along with his wife, son and dingo.

The photographs, some in black and white, others in color, some from far away, some startlingly close, capture wolves with an intimacy not often found in nature or wildlife photography. One image presents its subject as the lone wolf in the wild while another depicts a cuddly creature hungry for contact and love. The short but striking series shows the dynamic range of personas that wolves embody, and their surprising capacity to interact with humans.

For the glorious shots, follow this link.