Weekend Digest: The feedback for Millennials, Chinese take-out box, and ‘Dude Perfect’ tennis shots 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 in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.:

Congressman Hill
Congressman French Hill on border security, VA accountability, health care, Donald Trump and more. We’ll go one-on-one.

Behind Bars
Prison overcrowding and sentencing reform. KATV’s Janelle Lilley discusses what the data says about Arkansas prisons.

Sticker Shock
Plus, Sen. David Sanders weighs in on the subject and talks about this week’s health insurance rising rates shocker. What does one of the chief architects of the Private Option, now known as Arkansas Works, believe will happen next?

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

LIFE’S WORK: AN INTERVIEW WITH YO-YO MA
Harvard Business Review posts, “Yo-Yo Ma was by age 30 widely regarded as one of the world’s finest classical cellists, both onstage and in the studio. Then he branched out—to bluegrass, tango, jazz, and other genres and also projects with filmmakers, artists, and designers.”

The Music of Strangers, a documentary on the Silk Road Ensemble, a group he formed in 2000 to showcase composers and performers from around the world, will be released this month.

Enjoy HBR’s insightful interview with this brilliant artist at this link.

2017 ACA PREMIUM REQUESTS UP 16% IN 9 STATES
Bloomberg reports, “Average premium requests for 2017 for the most popular type of ACA marketplace plans are 16% higher in the first nine states to make them public, according to an Avalere Health analysis released May 24.”

The 16% average increase is for all silver-tier plans, which cover an average of about 70% of medical claims. The Avalere analysis was based on premiums for a 50-year-old male nonsmoker.

However, the average increase requested for the lowest-cost silver-tier plans was only 7%, and it was 8% for the second lowest-cost silver plans, Avalere Senior Vice President Caroline Pearson told Bloomberg BNA May 24.

“Rates are certainly going up more in 2017 than they did in 2016,” but the fact that premium increases are lower for the lowest-cost silver plans “tells you that insurers are still competing aggressively to win enrollment by being the lowest-cost insurer,” she said.

Click here for more on this story.

DO STATE TAXES DRIVE AWAY THE RICH?
“Not really,” says Forbes.

Liberals and conservatives have been arguing for years over whether high taxes drive away people with high-incomes. Do millionaires flee from high-tax states to low-tax jurisdictions, as tax-cutting lawmakers claim? Now, in the most extensive look at the question to date, a group of researchers from Stanford University and the U.S. Treasury Department have the answer:

What is it? Go to this link to find out.

GOLDMAN SACHS FIGURED OUT SOMETHING IMPORTANT ABOUT MILLENNIALS
Business Insider says, “Goldman Sachs has discovered something important about its employees: They want more feedback on how they’re doing.”

The firm is overhauling the way it gives feedback following an internal survey that highlighted that desire.

“Last year’s People Survey results show that you want more real-time feedback to support your ongoing development and that such feedback is critical to your experience and tenure at the firm,” chief operating officer Gary Cohn said in a video about the changes.

Cohn and CEO Lloyd Blankfein announced the changes in a memo to staff this week.

Business Insider adds, “We’ve written before about the battle for top talent on Wall Street. Recruiters and human-resource staff across the Street know that millennials – a growing part of the banks’ workforces – are looking for lots of attention from leaders and managers who will spend time with them and help them develop. They also want to feel like their work has an impact.”

To read the memo, and for more on this story, follow here.

SANDERS ANGERS DEMOCRATS WITH TRUMP DEBATE PLOY
“‘It’s bullshit,’ says one Democratic senator.”

For some Democrats, Bernie Sanders’ latest gambit – challenging Donald Trump to a debate to cap all debates – is the last straw, reports POLITICO.

“Bullshit,” said Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. “That confirms what we’ve been saying. Why would you expect Bernie should be considerate or be nice or be working to bring everyone together? Why? He’s not a Democrat.”

The party’s frustrations are boiling over with Sanders as the primary season winds down: Namely that Sanders seems unwilling or unable to admit that Hillary Clinton is on course for the nomination. The ire toward Sanders began earlier this year among the loudest Democratic cheerleaders for Clinton – and now it’s seeping into nearly the entire Senate Democratic caucus.

Lawmakers reacted with puzzlement, sarcasm and barely veiled anger as Sanders’ campaign and Trump himself played up an event that would exclude Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

For the complete story, click on this link.

HILLARY IS CONFIDENT VOTERS WILL LOOK PAST EMAIL ISSUE
Voters may have concerns about her use of a private email system as secretary of state but will consider “the full picture of what I have to offer” as she runs for president, Hillary Clinton said Thursday, reports The Washington Post.

The Democratic presidential front-runner spoke one day after a State Department report concluded that she had gone around department procedures in setting up and using a private email system that operated outside government security and record-keeping controls.

In a short television interview in Las Vegas, Clinton repeated her long-standing explanation that previous secretaries of state also had used private accounts.

“This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state. And I know that because it is well known, it’s pointed out in the report. But it was still a mistake,” Clinton said. “And as I’ve said many times, if I could go back, I would do it differently. I know people have concerns about this.”

The complete post is at this link.

WILL: BRITAIN AT THE CROSSROADS
“Sixty-five years ago, what has become the European Union was an embryo conceived in fear. It has been stealthily advanced from an economic to a political project, and it remains enveloped in a watery utopianism even as it becomes more dystopian,” says George Will in an op-ed piece for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The EU’s economic stagnation – in some of the 28 member nations, youth unemployment approaches 50 percent – is exacerbated by its regulatory itch and the self-inflicted wound of the euro, a common currency for radically dissimilar nations. The EU is floundering amid mass migration, the greatest threat to Europe’s domestic tranquility since 1945.

“The EU’s British enthusiasts, who actually are notably unenthusiastic, hope fear will move voters to affirm Britain’s membership in this increasingly ramshackle and acrimonious association. A June 23 referendum will decide whether ‘Brexit’ – Britain’s exit – occurs. Americans should pay close attention because this debate concerns matters germane to their present and future,” he further writes.

Will goes much deeper at this link as to why Britain is at the crossroads of the EU association.

INDIANA GOV. MIKE PENCE FACING TOUGH RE-ELECTION
“Gov. Mike Pence is trying to pivot his focus from social issues to Indiana’s improving economy as he faces a difficult re-election campaign,” reports U.S. News & World Report.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence smiled for the TV cameras this month as a technology company announced plans to hire hundreds of new workers and add its name to the tallest tower in the Indianapolis skyline. Then the celebratory news conference took an awkward turn.

Scott McCorkle, the CEO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, used part of his time at the microphone to advocate for expanded LGBT rights. It was a not-so-subtle rebuke of a policy Pence championed more than a year earlier that provoked national backlash and threats by some businesses to leave the state.

Indiana’s financial outlook has improved since Pence took office less than four years ago, but the Republican is facing a tougher than expected battle to keep the job in the reliably red state for reasons that have little to do with economics.

Under Pence, who has described himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order,” Indiana has marched to the front lines of the nation’s culture wars. It’s a significant detour from the vision of his wildly popular predecessor, Mitch Daniels, who once called on Republicans to adopt a “truce” on social issues in order to focus on the economy.

The most visible departure from Daniels’ truce was Pence’s signature in March 2015 on a religious objections law, which critics argued would allow businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians for religious reasons.

Go to this link for the full story.

SMALL WONDERS OF DESIGN: THE CHINESE TAKE-OUT BOX
“So well-designed” it’s “hard to improve upon.” We’re talking the Chinese take-out box here.

“Nothing quite says ‘Dig in!’ like the unmistakable sight of the iconic Chinese take-out box,” says CBS Sunday Morning.

“You see it, and you know exactly what it means,” said Peter Kim, executive director of New York’s Museum of Food and Drink.

So iconic, in fact, that the take-out carton will soon be featured there.

If you’re getting hungry reading this, please click here to finish this fun piece, before you order out.

SERENA WILLIAMS SERVES UP TENNIS TRICK SHOTS WITH DUDE PERFECT
Mashable asks, “How many Dude Perfect members does it take to score a point against Serena Williams?”

More than exist, evidently. Williams tags along with YouTube’s favorite trick shot guys and outshines them all with her accuracy, power and patented Serena grunt.

You can serve it up by going here.

BAYLOR COACH ART BRILES TAKES DISGRACEFUL EXIT
Baylor has fired it’s hugely successful head football coach “following a damning report.”

Baylor University demoted president Kenneth Starr and fired its popular football coach Art Briles following revelations Thursday that the sports program responded to sexual assault accusations against its players with alarming indifference or outright hostility toward alleged victims.

The Texas university’s Board of Regents apologized to the school community for the findings of an outside investigation it commissioned in the fall. A damning 13-page report, prepared by law firm Pepper Hamilton, revealed a football team allowed to run amok by university administrators and law enforcement officials who were grateful for the prestige and exposure that football success lent the Waco school.

We were horrified by the extent of these acts of sexual violence on our campus,” Richard Willis, the chair of the Board of Regents, said in a news release. “This investigation revealed the University’s mishandling of reports in what should have been a supportive, responsive and caring environment for students. The depth to which these acts occurred shocked and outraged us.”

Follow this link for full details from The Washington Post.