Energy and the Environment

Thursday, September 4, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

For the first meeting of September, we will start a new theme, Energy and the Environment. For at least one of the meetings, we will cover the topic suggested by Bill, the pros and cons of fracking for natural gas and oil. But the first meeting is open for general discussion of the theme. Please come with suggestions on what other energy and environment topics we should cover.

While climate change may not affect us directly, it will be the legacy we leave the next generation. We talked about it last June. Here is TED Talk by John Doerr, a venture capitalist who invested heavily in greentech for the sake of his daughter's future.

Minimum Wage

Thursday, August 28, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We will conclude this month's theme of Money a Wealth with a discussion about the minimum wage and its politics. Here is a TED Talk by Nick Hanauer to get the discussion started.

Hanauer is a wealthy venture capitalist who warns his fellow plutocrats that they ignore growing inequity at their own peril. This is actually his second TED Talk, but you will not find his first TED Talk on the main TED website. When Hanauer complained to TED curator Chris Anderson, Anderson created a YouTube channel only for Hanauer's first talk. Anderson has since had a change of heart and invited Hanauer to give an expanded talk at the TED office. Here is the backstory.

The Psychological Nature of Inequality

Thursday, August 21, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

In the previous meeting, we discussed how Thomas Picketty used historical financial records to show that Inequity is indeed increasing. He used national trends to forecast how individuals will fare in the future, a top-down approach.

In this week's meeting, we will look at Inequity from the bottom-up. Experiments on how Inequality affects individuals can help us predict how society will fare if inequality continues. Here are four TED Talk videos about experiments which explore the psychological nature of Inequity.

1. Paul Piff -  Shows what a rigged Monopoly game reveals about the super-rich.
2. Dan Pink - Uses the famous candle problem to evaluate Pay for Performance.
3. Frans de Waal - Show that even animals have a sense of fairness.
4. Michael Norton - Answers the question, Does Money Buy Happiness?

To help you decide which videos to watch before the meeting, here's the plan. We will show the first video in its entirety, but only excerpts from the second and third. The fourth video was already shown, so it will not be played again, but will still be part of the discussion.

Inequality Revisited

Thursday, August 14, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We already discussed Income Inequality last October, but it remains a hot topic, so we will revisit it next week. Since our last meeting on Inequality, French professor Thomas Piketty released Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It presented empirical evidence that Inequality has returned to pre-WW1 levels and is likely to increase. The book has fanned the flames of the Inequality debate and its English translation become a best seller in this country. Here is a quick video summary of the book.

For the next meeting, we will show and discuss excerpts from this Huffington Post interview of Picketty. It doesn't hurt that Elizabeth Warren is also there.

Wealth and Money

Thursday, August 7, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Wealth and Money is the theme for August and we will start with a meeting to select the topics for the month. We will do a session on income inequality for the second meeting, but we need topics for the third and fourth meetings.

We had several suggestions, including Bitcoin, the FED, minimum wage and the Import Export Bank. Please consider if these topics are appropriate for a 90 minute meeting, and if you would like the lead the discussion. Suggestions for other topic are also welcome.

To get things started, we will show a TED Talk by Michael Sandel about the use of markets in our civic lives.