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Here KGNU host, Claudia Cragg, talks for 'It's The Economy' with Judy Wicks, author of Good Morning, Beautiful Business.

The book is a memoir about her White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, as well as about the evolution of Judy to becoming an entrepreneur who would not only change her neighborhood, but would also change her world—helping communities far and wide create local living economies that value people, nature and place more than money.

Wicks recounts her life as a girl coming of age in the sixties, living a year in an Eskimo village, cofounding the Free People’s store, her accidental entry into the restaurant business, the creation of the White Dog Cafe and her eventual role as a pioneer in the localization movement.

Passionate, fun, and inspirational, Good Morning, Beautiful Businesse explores the way entrepreneurs, as well as consumers, can follow both mind and heart, cultivate lasting relationships with each other and the planet, and build a new compassionate economy that will bring us greater security, as well as happiness. 

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Charles V. Bagli of The New York Times, talks here to KGNU's Claudia Cragg about the collapse of America's biggest ever real estate deal.

In 2006, the Middle Income Lower Manhattan housing projects, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper were sold at competitive auction for $5.4 billion, a deal that has since fallen apart leaving the first-, second- and even third-generation families that lived there in residential jeopardy.

Caught, as they have been, between a real estate rock and hard place, the tenants and the estates themselves have come to exemplify the excesses of the housing boom at its very worse. However, as Bagli explains here, the reverberations not only continue to be felt today, but also represent the squeezing out of affordable properties in key metros, not only in New York, but potentially also in other cities around the US.

Bagli is a New York Times reporter who covers the intersection of politics and real estate. He has written about the sale of high-profile buildings, political contributions of the real estate industry, the battle to build a $2 billion dollar stadium for the Jets, bid rigging in the construction industry, payoffs at the tax assessor's office, and a Sutton Place co-op that turned public land into a private park. He has worked for the New York Observer, the Daily Record of Morristown, New Jersey, the Tampa Tribune and the Brooklyn Phoenix.  

At the end of the interview, a 2010 documentary now on YouTube by filmmaker and Huffington Post contributor, Sandi Bachom, is featured with many Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper residents.

Sandi Bachom Contact Details:

Twitter: @SandiBachom

Website: SandiBachom.com

And reads the book. 

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KGNU's Claudia Cragg talks here with Melvin Goodman, a 24-year veteran of the CIA, who according to his publishers, City Lights, brings peerless authority to his argument that U.S. military spending is indeed making Americans poorer and less secure, whil undermining its political standing in the world.

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KGNU's Claudia Cragg talks here with former Microsoft executive, the brains behind the 'Room To Read' organization which, he says, all started with a case of job burnout. John Wood escaped to Nepal for a much-needed backpacking getaway and while hiking in the Himalayas, met a Nepalese “Education Resource Officer” who invited him to visit a school in a neighboring village. Little did John know that this short detour would change his life forever. At the school, John saw the harsh reality confronting not only this village, but millions of Nepalese children–a dilapidated schoolroom and a severe shortage of books. John was stunned to discover that the few books this school had had–a Danielle Steele romance, the Lonely Planet Guide to Mongolia, and a few other backpacker castoffs–were so precious that they were kept under lock and key...to protect them from the children.

As John left the village, the headmaster made a simple request: "Perhaps, Sir, you will someday come back with books." His request would not go unheard. John emailed friends asking for help collecting children's books, and within two months had collected over 3,000 books. The following year, John and his father, accompanied by a train of eight book-bearing donkeys, returned to the village in Nepal. Seeing the faces of the children with the books convinced John to leave the corporate world and devote himself to becoming the Andrew Carnegie of the developing world. In late 1999, John quit his executive position with Microsoft and started Room to Read. Beginning in Nepal, John and his Nepali co-founder, Dinesh Shrestha, started by working with rural communities to build schools (School Room) and to establish libraries (Reading Room). 

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KGNU’s Claudia Cragg talks with Blair Levin about the new book he has co-authored ‘The Politics of Abundance - How Technology Can Fix the Budget, Revive the American Dream, and Establish Obama’s Legacy’

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EXCERPT - “Some will tell the President that the government should never have a growth strategy beyond being fiscally prudent and letting markets allocate capital. But a government that can land a thinking machine on Mars surely can develop an informed opinion about what sectors of the economy can grow rapidly and contribute to a high and rising standard of living for everyone. In any event, currently the knowledge and power markets cannot readily allocate capital appropriately because they are constricted by a web of law, externalities, and monopoly bottlenecks. Moreover, the government plays such a large role as a spender and regulator in these markets, that its conduct, whether or not coherently focused, enormously affects industry trends. Finally, if the United States economy does not rebuild the knowledge and power platform far faster, better, and cheaper than market forces are now doing, then Americans will suffer from inadequate educations, poor and expensive healthcare, and devastating climate change, for generations to come.

However, those who remain unconvinced of the merits of a growth strategy, and prefer single-minded focus on the debt-to-GDP ratio, should be mollified by the fact that our legislative proposals for the two platforms reduce the deficit by about $100 billion, without accounting for the additional tax revenues that will be derived from more rapid economic growth. In Chapter 4, we suggest ways to negotiate for these measures as part of avoiding the “fiscal cliff.” Taken as a whole, our proposals outline the politics of abundance.” -Reed Hundt and Blair Levin

Levin oversaw the creation of the National Broadband Plan as the executive director of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative at the Federal Communications Commission in 2009 and 2010. He is now a fellow at the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the executive director of Gig.U, a coalition of research university communities working to accelerate the deployment of next-generation networks in the United States.

The book’s co-author Reed Hundt is the CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital, a non-profit. He was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1993 to 1997, and he was on Barack Obama’s Presidential transition team.

He sits on the boards of directors of Intel Corporation, ASSIA, a communications software firm, and Kno Inc., the education software company. He also serves on boards or as an advisor at the United Negro College Fund; the Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority of Connecticut; the Advanced Energy Economy Institute; Yale School of Management; Peek, Inc., a mobile technology company; and Mytonomy, a social network for college planning.

Hundt has written many articles and two books: In China’s Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship (Yale University Press, 2006) and You Say You Want A Revolution: A Story of Information Age Politics (Yale University Press, 2000). He graduated from Yale College, and Yale Law School.

Surveys (this is just one) show that many today feel they are drowning in too much information, but find it’s often too much of the kind they DO NOT want and rarely approaches what they might be looking for.

With nifty Power Searching techniques, anyone can ‘drill down’ to unearth hidden facts, documents, file types in a variety of locations and languages. This a skill that is only becoming more important each day.

This information, together with the Blair Levin interview (‘The Politics of Abundance) made up a one hour programme for KGNU’s ‘It’s The Economy’ on The FCC and The Economics of The Internet and Connectivity.

Hear you will hear an excerpt (with kind permission) of a recent seminar at Newsplex Asia (at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University) in conjunction with Google, covering topics from the hot and newly-emerging field of data journalism and visualization to making the most of Google Tools to generate news stories. Speakers took part through Google+ Hangouts to share their experiences on how free online tools, such as Fusion Tables, can be used to gather and display data to readers in disasters such as the Fukushima-Daichi disaster after the Japanese quake and tsunami last year. In the full-length version, YouTube experts also convey how news organisations can make the most out of the video-sharing platform.

Sign up for Power Searching with Google course.

Dan Russell's home page and site.

YouTube video of Robin Moroney's and Anthony Baxter's (for reasons of length NOT incl. in this podcast) http://youtu.be/f4hIOsahz2A

Here KGNU’s Claudia Cragg speaks to Victor Chan about “The Wisdom of Compassion” written with His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. This book offers rare insights into the Dalai Lama's life as he interacts with remarkable people from all walks of life. In these deeply engaging behind-the-scenes stories we see not only the Dalai Lama at his most human, and most humane, but also the way he approaches the world with humour and optimism.

Enhanced by the Dalai Lama's seven decades of practice and illuminated through captivating anecdotes, The Wisdom of Compassion gives insight in to how to lead more fulfilling lives. The Dalai Lama also shows how "when we open our hearts and minds to others, we are on the surest path to true happiness." 

Chan has travelled extensively through his work, including numerous treks to Tibet. He wrote the 1,100-page Tibet Handbook: A Pilgrimage Guide, published by Moon Travel Handbooks in 1994. The book is recognized as the most comprehensive guide on the culture, art, sacred sites, and pilgrimage routes of Tibet.

Victor Chan has known the Dalai Lama for over 30 years and co-authored with him The Wisdom of Forgiveness: Intimate Conversations and Journeys. The book was shortlisted for the Best Spiritual Book of 2005 (Nautilus Prize, New York) and translated into 14 languages. In 2005, Chan and the Dalai Lama co-founded the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education in Vancouver, Canada.

Chan was Chair of the Organizing Committee responsible for the visit of the Dalai Lama to Vancouver in 2004. He and Professor Pitman Potter, Director of the Institute of Asian Research, UBC convened the symposium on "How to Balance Educating the Mind with Educating the Heart" which featured the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Professor Jo-Ann Archibald. With Potter, Chan was instrumental in establishing a Contemporary Tibetan Studies Program at UBC and was the first Executive Director of that program.

In response to Chan’s invitation, the Dalai Lama returned to Vancouver in September 2006 to attend the Vancouver Dialogues dedicated to promoting the Center’s key themes of compassion, peace and education. In September 2009, the Dalai Lama Center and Chan hosted the Vancouver Peace Summit, featuring five Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and many other visionaries from around the world.

TOBIAS ORLANDO Cragg recorded a follow-up conversation with Victor Chan at the 2013 Irawaddy Literary Festival in Yangon.

You may listen to this at this link