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Lindy Boggs, U.S. Congresswoman from Louisiana, who led the fight for civil rights in a deeply segregated South, and was a pioneer for financial rights of women.

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Full Yield is a startup in Boston that is trying to help address the nation's obesity problem by introducing healthier foods and meals in cafeterias. It plans to introduce a line of Full Yield branded food made from fresh items and natural ingredients for sale in corporate cafeterias and prepared food sections of local supermarkets. It is based on a simple idea that if you eat healthier food you will be healthier. A study in the Jan-Feb issue of journal Health Affairs says 75% of the $2.5 trillion in health care spending deals with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. And how much of this traceable to obesity and bad eating habits, smoking and lack of exercize? This study says most of the cases are preventable by changing these behaviours. Dr. Kenneth Horpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, shows that if trends continue U.S. annual health care costs related to obesity would reach $344 billion by 2018, which is 20% of total health care spending. In 2009 it accounts for 9%. Thorpe says if even the 1987 levels of obesity were reached it would free up enough money to cover the uninsured population today. For American companies the problem has grown to alarming proportions and yet no nationwide coordinated plan bringing together companies, government, universities, public interest organizations, and other groups exists in the U.S. The CEO of U.S. grocery chain Safeway, Steven Burd, says Safeway was spending $1 billion to cover health care insurance for workers by 2005, with costs rising 10% a year- this meant putting out twice in health care insurance than Safeway's earnings and hitting another $500 million by 2010. Between 2004-2009 the costs of insurance surged 31%, making this the fastest growing single corporate expense, according to Towers Perrin. This reduces incomes of workers as companies pass on part of the extra cost, and reduces the profits that can be put back in new investment for economic growth....

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Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Majority leader in the U.S. Senate has come up with a new health care bill that is aimed at winning over reluctant Republican Senators. Two taxes on high income people on 3.8% investment income and a payroll tax of 0.9% on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples are retained in this version of the bill, which adds $231 billion over a decade. Some of this is used to offset rising premiums in the new bill, and provide additional funds. The deep cuts to Medicaid are retained and Senator Collins of Maine says she is opposed to the new bill because this will hurt people in rural areas of Maine, and does nothing to change this. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is also opposed to the bill. Opposition comes from moderate Senators opposed to deep cuts to Medicaid in Republican health care alternatives to president Obama's Affordable Care Act, and from conservative Senators opposed for other reasons.  Senator Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana introduced their own version just minutes before Mitch McConnell brought up his revised bill. All Democratic Senators are opposed to the Republican bill and call the deep cuts to Medicaid disastrous for lower income people.  ...

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Anna Fifield of the Washington Post provides this exceptional piece on Yuka Ogata, a 42 year old municipal assembly member of the Kumamoto Municipal Assembly. Yuka sat in the assembly seat with her 7 month baby in the front row to the men looking on in amazement. Ogata has a Masters degree in conflict resolution from George Mason University. Ogata was earlier reported to have created a stir by sitting while pregnant while asking questions.  Yuka Ogata says she wants to draw attention to the struggles of women as they seek to work so that they can raise a child and work happily. Japan's government has announced the key goal of "womenomics" to increase participation of women in the economy as a way to increase growth. Earlier Yuka had asked the Assembly authorites to open a day care center or let mothers bring their children to work. Both requests were denied and Ogata's child was removed from the Municipal Assembly. Here Anna Fifield gives other examples. Larissa Waters who according to new rules nursed her baby in the Australian parliament. Licia Ronzulli, an Italian member of the European parliament takes her daughter to the chamber in Strasbourg sine 2010. Yuka Ogata says it helps to know what other countries are doing as she makes her own efforts to get the same opportunities in Japan. ...

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The distrust in negotiations between Republicans Boehner, Ryan, Cantor and Democrats Reid, Obama, and Pelosi, during the weeks in October 2013 preceding the reopening of U.S. government after the shutdown. Republicans call attention to the rising deficit from $4.9 trillion in 1993 compared to $16.7 trillion in 2013, triple the increase in the deficit in just one decade compared to the five decades prior to this period. Democrats say sharp spending cuts would hurt economic growth and the unemployed.

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Jena McGregor's interview with Ben Horowitz of Silicon Valley. Horowitz says its best to keep the founder as CEO, because its harder to teach a professional CEO to innovate, than it is to teach a founder to be a CEO. Better to take the advice of one football sports team owner to his coach when told about injuries and problems: "Nobody Cares. Just coach your team." Best to focus on the task ahead than to get overburdened by thinking about the hurdles. Many companies make the mistake of overhiring and finding they are in trouble when business falls off. At that time a moment of honesty is essential, even though a trust with the employee has to be broken, one cannot hide or blame the employee- only by saying we screwed up and planned the business the wrong way, can one make an honest effort to recover. Not making the honest assessment and being frank with oneself and colleagues can be fatal for a young company. Andy Grove of Intel, cites this example in his book "Only the Paranoid Survive," - to shift out of the memory chip business and close plants was essential once it was clear the Japanese had an unsurmountable edge, a long term move into microprocessors had to start now for Grove and Intel in 1986. An outsider's impersonal logic and no emotional involvement had to be Grove's mindset, as if he was replacing himself as the new head of the business, going out one door and coming back in. Panasonic's moves in 2013 under CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga to exit the plasma television business and focus on new business opportunities, including electric car batteries, is a recent example. On motivation or purpose: no big vision has to be announced and repeated- it is enough to make being a good company at what you do the end goal, make craftsmanship or doing the work you enjoy and can contribute in the end goal and purpose. The modest and straightforward is enough reason for existence and doing very well. How important is training? A lot, a great deal more than one can imagine. People can be talented but not productive. Companies that have good and extensive training programs can do much better than companies that lack these programs. Managers who can continue this with on the job training are also valuable to build on training programs. Sony's Akio Morita personally interviewed new hires, new engineers joining the company at all levels- it is really the contribution of the thousands of engineers that he personally interviewed that built Sony into a global pioneer in electronics in his time. He says the future of the company is determined by the people the company hires. Goes even further, by saying the fate of the company is in the hands of the youngest recruit on the staff. Horowitz finds Jim Collins as management writer a bit abstract and mushy, he prefers Intel's Andy Grove and his books such as High Output Management, as more specific about how to manage business. One could add "Made In Japan," and Morita to the list....

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With the theme of championing the interests of the people left out in the last 2 decades under both Bush and Obama, left out my technolgical changes and world trade trends, left out by the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath of deep unemployment for older people especially white men, struggling economically, Hillary Clinton tells the Democratic convention, "I will carry all your voices and stories with me to the White House." She tells millions of Bernie supporters  that she has heard them loud and clear-  "your cause, is our cause." In this way Hillary Clinton sought to dispel any doubts about her in people's minds for not being forthright on questions related to a private email server and from earlier periods, and from overzealous fundraising. Telling people that on the things that really count and matter in people's lives, just as Bill Clinton did in his campaign at a similiar juncture- she will be there for them always, and always working to put their hearts up and centre, with her Methodist upbringing and her unmatched ability to work relentlessly in pursuit of worthy public goals. ...

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The coverage of the Republican healthcare bill and how it affects the elderly, and people on Medicaid, people in rural areas, is likely to have changed public opinion in the U.S. about the necessity of ensuring all Americans have health coverage. The Pew survey cited here in this NYT report by Zernike and Goodnough was done in Jan 2017, and shows a shift. The shift would be much higher today after people look hard at the consequences of what were simply hypothetical positions or ideological positions taken without looking at consequences in daily living. On Medicaid that opinion by July 2017 compared to Jan 2017 has shifted 10 percentage points for Republicans to 53% who think Medicaid is important to them and their families, according to Kaiser research. There is stronger sentiment about people having benefits taken away.  [article-55059] The opinion has shifted to where people see that coverage is important and people should not have coverage denied or benefits taken away from them. Opinion remains strong in favor of changes to reduce the high premiums, but not to replace the existing health benefits and law with no law at all to replace it. That leaves 20 million more uninsured according to the Congressional Budget Office. Changes have to be constructive is the popular view today,  and this requires dialogue between Republicans and Democrats- which has not taken place. ...

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"In the spring of 1971, I met a girl," with that beginning Bill Clinton gave one of the most memorable speeches at a Democratic Convention in history, to introduce the very human, Hillary- sometimes frail, but always looking for new mountains to climb, new barriers to break, new injustices to be righted. Of the long courtship at Yale and the years at Arkansas, buying that house in Little Rock Hillary liked before proposing marraige,  the time when they cried while leaving their daughter Chelsea at college dorm in Stanford; and all the private moments of a political couple one gregarious and outward looking, the other serious and inward looking. An introduction to someone you have heard too much about but you never knew. Never saw too close because of her intense longing for privacy- possibly coming from her own mother- Methodist upbringing that you were never the one to focus on, and family experience. Bill had seen this Methodist up close, and shared his experience with his countrymen who had not known her so well as he had.  ...

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The large response triggered on the internet by Anne-Marie Slaughter's article in the July/August 2012 issue of the Atlantic on women and work, how it is difficult for women to work and raise children without making changes in today's American society so that a healthy balance can be achieved.

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Laura Meckler describes the many experiences as First Lady in Arkansas and in the White House, the many political investigations that happened, that led to the more cautious style Hillary has taken since becoming Senator from New York. This combined with her intense longing for privacy have led to the strange situation where people do not the human person that is Hillary, when they are inundated with information about the Clintons as a couple. With the 2016 campaign that human person is what is coming out as her fighting spirit kicks in, for someone who has seen all sides over a long time. 

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Janet Yellen Fed chairwoman, says many obstacles still exist for women in the workforce. Bringing more women into the workforce will increase the productive capacity of the American economy. The increasing participation of women in the workforce was factor in the growth and prosperity of America by the middle of the 20th century. In a speech sharing her personal narrative at Brown University, her alma mater, she described how other nations had passed the U.S. in women's participation in the workforce, and how it remains stalled at 75% for women either working or looking for work. Her speech was at a conference "125 Years of Women at Brown." The U.S. is now 17th among 22 developed nations in participation of women in workforce, mostly because of government and business policies that relate to paid maternity leave, affordable child care, and flexible work schedules.

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Sara Ehrman describes the time when Hillary Clinton worked in Washington D.C. as a 26 year old lawyer working on the Watergate committee, and Bill Clinton was teaching law in Arkansas. In August 1974 Hillary was living for about 1 year with Mrs. Ehrman, a friend who was a congressional aide at the time. She is 97 today, and recalls that time when she tried to discourage Hillary from going to Arkansas to join her boyfriend. Ehrman felt not much would come out of Bill Clinton, though she thought him to be handsome, and later worked in his presidential campaign and Hillary's presidential campaign. Ehrman was 55 then, and describes Hillary Clinton as a bit sloppy in her habits, such as not making her bed and having a lot of stuff strewn about her room, but really intelligent and very hardworking. At the time both lived together. Ehrman describes a daily routine of seeing Hillary go to work with coffee in the morning and come back exhausted late at night, having yogurt and going to bed, day after day.  The two met for the first time in 1972 when Ehrman was co-director of issues and research in the McGovern campaign in Texas, and Hillary was helping with voter registration. This report describes in detail the road trip to Arkansas that the two made together, when Mrs. Ehrman drove Hillary to Arkansas in her old Buick. They stopped at small towns  in the 1200 mile journey, and this journey ends with Mrs Ehrman crying that she could not get Hillary to change her mind about Bill Clinton and Arkansas. About what she thought was a bright woman throwing her life away in the deep South of the seventies. Hillary she remembers insisted she loved Bill Clinton, and having passed the Arkansas Bar exam had firmly decided on settling in Arkansas. ...

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Claire Cain Miller points to the high cost of child care in the U.S. and the benefits to society from providing affordable child care. It has a high impact on women's employment and incomes, and ability to pursue opportunities in education and career. The effect on children especially for low income families is enormous. Average cost for child care in the U.S. is by one estimate $16,514. The higher the quality of care in early years the better the outcomes are for children in education, careers, income, and later in life.