Academic-Capital

The Senate passes a bi-partisan infrastructure bill. It will go through a process of amendment and further debate on details. Senators voted 67-32 to advance the bill; 17 Republicans and all 50 Democrats voted yes. This bill will hopefully have a fairly large impact on the quality of access to information and improve upon our general infrastructure to create net positives and improve U.S. competitive advantages (Let's not forget China is already working on its infrastructure.) There are opportunities to include education and information sharing networks for cluster development (One choice leads to others. Doors open and close.) I'm happy my fellow Republicans supported an infrastructure bill  (Enough wiggle room to still get things done beyond partisan politics. Both sides are guilty of this and if the idea seems solid and likely to have beneficial traction we should consider it.). That doesn't mean it needs to be supported in whole or that there isn't room for some de

The police officers of the Capitol Riots had a tough job that day. It wasn't coffee, check lists and patrol as usual. When chaos occurs and people must fall back on their training and instinct is when we know things got serious. What happened during this time was not a pure coincidence and was more likely a result of multiple factors coming to head at one time (pandemic, sociological shifts, foreign manipulation of media, possible "agents" hyping the crowd, etc...etc...) It was not a normal day for these officers and for the nation that could have been thrown into violence if a mob would have turned right instead of left down a hallway that led to other congress members (This was a serious day that forces us to reflect on our political dysfunction on both sides. I don't know if all of our politicians are truly grasping he danger of hyper politics and its rhetoric and lack of wide reaching solutions.)  In this battle for America's soul we have those who follow the

Consumer confidence is rising and generally that prompts that people want to buy things. Much of our economy (I believe around 75%) is driven by consumer spending. When confidence rises people spend more and the economy improves. We should remember that one of the reasons we have boom and bust economies is because of spending, supply, and contraction/expansion of that supply/demand network. That will hold true until we move into a higher level digital platform where such flow disruptions are lessened through better management and preemptive cycle adjustments (One of the benefits of big data. There are some detractors as well. I don't know. Sounds ok. ) The following was taken from The Conference Board .  "The Conference Board  Consumer Confidence Index ®  was relatively unchanged in July, following gains in each of the prior five months. The Index now stands at 129.1 (1985=100), up from 128.9 in June. The  Present Situation Index —based on consumers’ assessment of current busi

 A couple of quick comments because I'm a little busy tonight. :) I would say that any time we can cut waste we are stretching the dollars further. We as Americans pay our monies into this system that could be used for other resources. If we are going to continue to do that we must make sure its not a "cash cow" for shifty vendors.  This was taking from District 1 Congressman News...... For Immediate Release July 27, 2021 Contact: James Hogge 231-944-7633   Bergman, Axne Introduce Bipartisan Protecting Patients from Medicaid Fraud Act     Washington  - Today, Reps. Jack Bergman (MI-01) and Cindy Axne (IA-03) introduced the  Protecting Patients from Medicaid Fraud Act,  a bipartisan bill to improve oversight of Medicaid, prevent improper payments and waste, and protect patients from fraud. This legislation is based on  recommendations from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) , a nonpartisan agency that works to improve the operations and fiscal responsibility of the

Drugs are a problem in just about every city in America. While we have tried different strategies we can't seem to get out of the drug hole as the poison leaks into the community and destroys futures. According to an article by Public Radio 90's Nicole Walton entitled ' UPSET arrests Delta County man on drug, gun charges ', " Detectives seized about 34 grams of suspected crystal meth, a small amount of suspected heroin/fentanyl, more than $3,600 and a loaded handgun that was reported stolen." (Walton, 2021, para 2) As we think about national policy places like Delta County (DC) offer opportunities to try out ideas when they seem beneficial (It would need a little more  multi-department and community coordination of different institutions.. i.e. courts, police, mental health, social work, government programs, new jobs, community groups, public awareness, etc...). The beauty of DC is that its small and isolated enough to have a better grasp of the factors invol

 I'm watching the talks between the U.S. and China (as a growing trend). We have two major super powers that want to find a way to work with each other. Part of the argument is that American companies felt taken advantage of by China. I'm sure China has a few complaints or otherwise they wouldn't be there. What we can say is that there are some things we can work together on and that is climate change and pollution. It impacts both societies and that might be a nice place to start in any long term negotiations (When I did some union-mgmt. negotiating in the past I thought about similarities and tried to find where both parties agreed and where they didn't. Defining/breaking down further and further until we get to the root of the difference makes sense. Most often its ideological but sometimes if we use these root agreed upon assumptions we can find other similarities.).  At the end of the day its two different ideologies competing. They both will be impacted by climate