יום חמישי, 30 במרץ 2017

Why some coal companies want Trump to stay in Paris climate deal

The industry divide mirrors the broader split within the administration over the global climate deal.

By Andrew Restuccia




Murray Energy General Manager Kevin Hughes and President Donald shake hands in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Feb. 16.




The coal industry is divided over whether President Donald Trump should pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate change agreement — with some producers hoping they could gain some economic leverage if he chooses to stay.

The top three U.S. coal producers — Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and Cloud Peak Energy — indicated in recent meetings with White House officials that they would not publicly object to sticking with the international accord, particularly if the administration can secure more financial support for technology to reduce pollution from the use of coal, according to industry officials and sources close to the administration.



Some Trump administration officials have been flirting with such a strategy.

But that approach faces resistance from others in the industry, such as Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray, mirroring the broader split within the administration over the global climate deal.

Peabody, Arch and Cloud Peak hope to see their policy priorities reflected in the reworked domestic climate plan that the Trump administration would probably submit if it decides to stay in the 2015 Paris deal, the sources said. Together the three companies mine more than 42 percent of the coal produced in the U.S., according to the Energy Information Administration.

Arch spokeswoman Logan Bonacorsi praised the administration for reconsidering former President Barack Obama's climate change regulations for power plants and focusing instead on "driving progress on advanced, low-emissions fossil fuel technologies that will provide far greater benefits over time," but she did not directly address the company's position on the international deal.

יום רביעי, 29 במרץ 2017

Energy Department climate office bans use of phrase ‘climate change’




Environmental activists gather March 28 outside the White House to protest President Donald Trump's executive order that directs the EPA to begin rolling back Obama administration energy initiatives. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

The Office of International Climate and Clean Energy is the only office at DOE with the words ‘climate’ in its name, and it may be endangered as Trump looks to reorganize government agencies.

By Eric Wolff


A supervisor at the Energy Department's international climate office told staff this week not to use the phrases "climate change," "emissions reduction" or "Paris Agreement" in written memos, briefings or other written communication, sources have told POLITICO.

Employees of DOE’s Office of International Climate and Clean Energy learned of the ban at a meeting Tuesday, the same day President Donald Trump signed an executive order at EPA headquarters to reverse most of former President Barack Obama's climate regulatory initiatives. Officials at the State Department and in other DOE offices said they had not been given a banned words list, but they had started avoiding climate-related terms in their memos and briefings given the new administration's direction on climate change.


The Office of International Climate and Clean Energy is the only office at DOE with the words "climate" in its name, and it may be endangered as Trump looks to reorganize government agencies. It plays a key role in U.S. participation in the Clean Energy Ministerial and Mission Innovation, two international efforts launched under Obama that were designed to advance clean energy technology.

The office has regular contact with officials from foreign countries, which may have led to the more aggressive action on language than in other offices, a source said. At the meeting, senior officials told staff the words would cause a "visceral reaction" with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, his immediate staff, and the cadre of White House advisers at the top of the department.

A DOE spokeswoman denied there had been a new directive. "No words or phrases have been banned for this office or anyone in the department,” said DOE spokeswoman Lindsey Geisler.

Another DOE source in a different office said that although there had been no formal instructions about climate-related language in their office there was a general sense that it's better to avoid certain hot-button terms in favor of words like "jobs" and "infrastructure."

יום שלישי, 28 במרץ 2017

Why the young don't vote in New Zeland


Willie Jackson says he'll be out enrolling as many voters as possible. Which is what political parties have always done. Illustration / Peter Bromhead


By Brian Rudman

Born-again Labour supporter Willie Jackson is on a crusade to drag poor and young non-voters into the political system for "the health of our democracy." And good luck to him.

That nearly half eligible young Maori under 29 and over a third of non-Maori in the same age group failed to vote in the 2014 election, is troubling. And not just to Jackson. Prior to the 2014 contest, for example, Laila Harre, another recently born-again Labourite, but then leader of the Internet Party, said her main focus would be to mobilise the "missing million" who had failed to vote in 2011.

She failed to make much head way in that mission, something she shared with Labour, which since the 2002 election, has also been trying to turn around the fall-off in voting, particularly amongst its natural support base.

Now Jackson's having a go. Rather forgetting that's he still trying to sweet-talk himself into a high position on Labour's list, he's taken a swipe at all political parties in the latest Manukau Courier, asking "how can we make our society fairer and more equal if political parties only pander to a certain group of voters?" He means by that, the "middle class."

As part of a generation that dutifully trotted off to the polling booth on reaching voting age like everyone else in the street, what I did find curious in Jackson's argument, is that he sheets home all the blame for non-voting to society, to the political parties and to the Electoral Commission. There's not a single tut tut in the direction of the non-voter.

It's society's fault for not providing "civics lessons" at school. It's the parties' fault for pandering only to the middle class. And, of all things, it's the Electoral Commission's faults for not having a secret, non-viewable electoral roll!

Apparently "the poor fear debt collectors or state agencies using their enrolment details to hunt them down, and many domestic violence survivors don't want their abusers using the electoral roll to find them."

The reality of course is, that 729,560 of the non-voters in 2014 were enrolled, so it wasn't the fear of the debt collector that kept them at home. Anyway there is already a well-used confidential unpublished roll for those who fear appearing on the published roll "could threaten your personal safety or that of your family."

Not sure if debtors qualify, but nationwide there are approximately 17,600 people on this roll. It's popular with police and prison officers, and judges. There's about 200 - 400 names per electorate. Interestingly, the exceptions are in Jackson's South Auckland, with Mangere's 52, Manukau East's 65 and Manurewa's 112 being the lowest totals in the land.

Current State of Brand Africa: Place Branding Challenges and Opportunities





What is the current state of Brand Africa? In this post, learn what leading place brand developers, managers and advisors think about the challenges and opportunities of Brand Africa, the branding and reputation of African cities, countries and destinations.
Learn about:
Brand Africa’s principal challenges and opportunities;
How image and identity of Brand Africa have changed over the last years;
Sustainable tourism as branding and economic development opportunity.
Brand Africa: The Challenges

What are the biggest challenges in building and managing Brand Africa?

Joao Freire, Portugal:

A lot of countries in Africa base their development on exports of raw material with little transformation. Therefore, there has not been a need to invest in their brands to support the attraction of resources or to help the country-of-origin effect. Of course, Africa is a big continent and each of its countries has different realities and needs.


Competition among some countries in the Middle East is an engine for transformation and they are taking into account place branding for their development strategy. I think a similar situation will also happen in Africa soon and therefore we might witness an increased interest in the discipline of place branding in Africa.

Thebe Ikalafeng, South Africa:

Africa is 54/5 countries with different sovereign leadership and at different stages of development. It is not one country with a central authority. Like all place brands, it is owned by the more than one billion Africans, who through their actions have an impact on the continental brand.

A great number of countries in Africa are not economically independent, some politically unstable with an increasingly impatient, unemployed and/or unemployable youth (70 percent of population are under the age of 30). As such, Brand Africa cannot be ‘managed.’ Even with pan-African institutions, such as the African Union, the goal is not to manage, but to influence, mobilize and coordinate the best of Africa.
Brand Africa: Cities of Opportunity

What role do cities play regarding the branding and reputation of Africa?

Hjörtur Smárason, Iceland/Denmark:

I believe African cities have a unique opportunity to position themselves as the leading cities in implementing smart city solutions and sustainable urban design. African cities are in general not the first that come to mind when you think of these solutions, but with the fastest urbanization in human history taking place in those cities in the coming decades, they have the opportunity to leapfrog over the infrastructures of the 20th century and shape the future city. I have seen this happen in digital health and mobile banking, where Africa has already taken the lead.

There are already cities developing very fast and experimenting with innovative solutions, such as Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa, Nairobi and Addis Ababa in East Africa and Abidjan, Accra and Lagos in West Africa.

I wouldn’t be surprised though if some of the smaller cities might take the lead as the most innovative. Kigali has been starting some very impressive initiatives lately and is definitely a city to watch. Libreville in Gabon is a city that is generally under the radar, but has a hidden potential to become the leading city in Central Africa.

Then there are wild cards like Juba in Africa’s youngest democracy, South Sudan. If South Sudan manages to stabilize the political situation and attract investment, that city has great growth potential.

Thebe Ikalafeng:

What is exciting is the incredible volume of innovation across the continent, largely catalyzed by mobile and technology. Many of these innovations are driven by Africa’s youth, who are restless and ambitious, and see a different future for Africa. They are the promising voices who see, believe and will fight for a better Africa.
Brand Africa: Image and Identity

Hjörtur Smárason:

If we look at the image of Africa outside of Africa, there are primarily two things that come to people’s minds. The first one is the image of exotic animals with zebras, giraffes, lions and elephants. The fascinating wild life.

The second one is not as fascinating, and that is the one of war, poverty and diseases. The latter is the images promoted relentlessly by NGO’s across the world to raise funds, and has in reality done tremendous damage to the image of Africa.


Most people don’t realize there is a third Africa. The urban Africa, which is dynamic, very creative, entrepreneurial and tech savvy. The world’s most expensive city last year was actually an African city, Luanda in Angola, to the surprise of most people.

The absence of images of the urban Africa can actually be a good thing because it opens up the opportunity for cities on the continent to position themselves as the new urban Africa, which should be taken serious by the world.

Thebe Ikalafeng:

Growing up in a then isolated apartheid South Africa and still colonized continent, we all yearned for places beyond our borders. They represented an escapism and influenced our daily expressions: We even dressed ‘Italian’. Living in a former English colony, I was surrounded by English symbolism – Queen Elizabeth Bridge, Port Elizabeth, King Edward Hospital, for example. In freedom songs, we yearned for Fidel Castro of Cuba to help liberate us.

We romanticized about America and Hollywood – a place to realize dreams – and for black Africa, a place that represented ‘free’ Africans (despite the history of slavery). We may not have called it ‘branding’ anything, but each place had a unique position, reputation or symbolism in our minds.

Today you see global brands, such as Balmain, Burberry and Louis Vuitton, using African-inspired design in their ranges. A country such as Botswana is now the center for the complete value chain in diamonds – having repatriated that role from England.

The transformation of Rwanda from the genocide that nearly destroyed a nation over 20 years ago, South Africa after 48 years of apartheid, and most recently the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, have shown the better side of Brand Africa.


Africa is standing up and out for itself, against traditional superpowers. Africans no longer go to the G8 for allocations of ‘free’ AID, a meal and international flight – but are going there as equals, with an African agenda.

There’s a long way to go but this is not the same Africa – it is growing, confident and increasingly independent – and finding its voice and muscle.
Sustainable Tourism as Branding and Economic Development Opportunity

Mike Fabricius, South Africa:

Having tracked the growth and development of tourism marketing on the continent for more than 20 years, it is wonderful to see how countries and local destinations in Africa are increasingly recognising tourism as a potential force for economic growth and job creation. Organisations like the European Union, World Bank, UNWTO and others are responding positively to such recognition by providing technical support to governments and private sector organisations for development and promotion of sustainable tourism.

Destinations like Namibia, Botswana, Tanzania and others have made good strides in embedding sustainable management practices in their economic development strategies.


The time has arrived for the ‘next surge’ in destination marketing – for Governments to not only pay lip service to tourism as an economic force, but to practically place it high on the agenda through resource allocation, political power, public-private partnerships etc.

The only way in which true, sustainable tourism development can be achieved is through a solid partnership between government and the private sector. I have been privy to the power of such partnership marketing initiatives while working at senior level in post-apartheid Government service in South Africa, and have since been a strong proponent of a partnership approach in destination marketing.

Americans Widely Support Paid Family and Medical Leave, but Differ Over Specific Policies

Personal experiences with leave vary sharply by income

By Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Kim Parker, Nikki Graf and Gretchen Livingston

Jump to a section of this report:

A growing share of working parents and an aging population have put pressure on more American workers as they balance family caregiving responsibilities and work obligations. Amid these changes, the issue of paid family and medical leave has captured the attention of policymakers and advocates across the political and ideological spectrum.

A new study conducted by Pew Research Center finds that Americans largely support paid leave, and most supporters say employers, rather than the federal or state government, should cover the costs. Still, the public is sharply divided over whether the government should require employers to provide this benefit or let employers decide for themselves, and relatively few see expanding paid leave as a top policy priority.

While majorities of adults express support for paid leave for mothers and fathers after the birth or adoption of their child, as well as for workers who need to care for a family member with a serious health condition or to deal with their own medical issues, support is greater in some cases than in others. About eight-in-ten Americans (82%) say mothers should have paid maternity leave, while fewer (69%) support paid paternity leave. And those who favor paid maternity and paternity leave say mothers should receive considerably more time off than fathers (a median of 8.6 weeks off for mothers vs. 4.3 weeks for fathers).

There is also broader support for paid leave for workers dealing with their own serious health condition (85% say workers should be paid in these situations) than there is for those caring for a family member who is seriously ill (67% favor paid leave for these workers).

The wide-ranging study of public attitudes about paid family and medical leave also included nearly 6,000 interviews with Americans who have recently taken leave (or were unable to take leave when they needed or wanted to do so), in order to reflect direct personal experiences as well as policy views. The survey finds that 64% of those who took leave in the past two years say they received at least some pay during their time off. A large majority of them (79%) say that some or part of that pay came from vacation days, sick leave or paid time off (PTO) they had accrued prior to their leave. Only 20% of those who got paid – or 13% of all “leave takers” – say they had access to family and medical leave benefits paid by their employer.

Note on terminology

Throughout this report, when referring to attitudes toward paid leave policies, the terms “family and medical leave” or leave from work for “family or medical reasons” refer to time off following the birth or adoption of one’s child, to care for a family member with a serious health condition, or to deal with one’s serious health condition.

In order to distinguish between the experiences of those who took time off from work (or who needed or wanted to take time off but were unable to do so) under different circumstances, the term “parental leave” refers to taking time off from work following the birth or adoption of a child; “family leave” refers to taking at least five days off from work to care for a family member with a serious health condition; and “medical leave” refers to taking at least five days off from work to deal with one’s own serious health condition.

The study reveals a sharp income divide in the way workers navigate these situations. Middle- and higher-income leave takers are much more likely than their lower-income counterparts to have access to paid time off – whether through a specific employer-provided paid leave benefit or by using accrued time off. Six-in-ten leave takers with household incomes between $30,000 and $74,999, and an even higher share (74%) of those with incomes of $75,000 or more, say they received at least some pay when they took time off from work for family or medical reasons. In contrast, only 37% of leave takers with annual household incomes under $30,000 say they received pay. Many lower-income leave takers say they faced difficult financial tradeoffs during their time away from work, including 48% among those who took unpaid or partially paid parental leave who say they went on public assistance in order to cover lost wages or salary.

The need for family and medical leave – whether paid or unpaid – is broadly felt across the United States. Roughly six-in-ten Americans (62%) say they have taken or are very likely to take time off from work for family or medical reasons at some point. Among adults who have been employed in the past two years, about a quarter (27%) say that they took time off during this period following the birth or adoption of their child, to care for a family member with a serious health condition, or to deal with their own serious health condition. In addition, 16% of Americans who were employed in the past two years report that there was a time during this period when they needed or wanted to take time off from work but were unable to do so.

Those who weren’t able to take leave when they needed or wanted to tend to be among the nation’s lower-income workers. Among adults employed in the past two years with annual household incomes under $30,000, three-in-ten say they were unable to take leave when they needed or wanted to at some point in the past two years. By comparison, only 14% of those with incomes of $30,000 or more fall into this category. Across income groups, those who didn’t take time off when they needed or wanted to cite financial concerns more than any other reason when asked why they didn’t take time off from work when they needed or wanted to; about seven-in-ten (72%) say they couldn’t afford to lose wages or salary. This is also the reason cited most often by those who were able to take some time off but wish they had taken more.

These findings are based on two nationally representative online surveys conducted by Pew Research Center with support from Pivotal Ventures: one a survey of 2,029 randomly selected U.S. adults conducted Nov. 17-Dec. 1, 2016, and the other a survey of 5,934 randomly selected U.S. adults ages 18 to 70 who have taken – or who needed or wanted but were unable to take – parental, family or medical leave in the past two years, conducted Nov.17-Dec.14, 2016. 1

The study also finds that adults who are employed or looking for work value flexibility as much as they value having paid family or medical leave. When asked what benefits or work arrangements help them most or would help most personally, about as many cite being able to choose when they work their hours (28%) as cite having paid family or medical leave (27%); about one-in-five (22%) say having flexibility to work from home would help them the most.

However, among those who have taken leave in the past two years or have needed or wanted to do so, having paid leave for family or medical reasons is cited as being the most helpful more than any other benefits or work arrangements. About four-in-ten (38%) in this group point to paid family or medical leave, while the second-most cited item – having flexibility to choose their schedule – is seen as most helpful by 24% of those who have taken leave or needed or wanted to do so in recent years.

The changing demographic landscape in the U.S.

The long-term rise in U.S. women’s labor force participation, particularly among mothers, has led to an increasing share of infants living in homes where all parents are working. In 2016, 50% of children younger than 1 year of age were living in such an arrangement – 40% with two working parents and 10% with a single working parent. Thirty years earlier, this share was 39%; and in 1976, just 20% of infants were living in a home where all parents were working.

Meanwhile, as the elderly population in the U.S. continues to grow, the number of people involved in informal caregiving of older adults is expected to rise. About 15% of the population was ages 65 or older in 2015, and projections suggest that by 2050 about one-in-five (22%) Americans will fall into this category. These older people are more likely to be employed than in the past; in 2016 almost one-in-five people ages 65 or older were still working, up from 12% in 1980, according to Pew Research Center analysis of Current Population Survey data.

In recent years, 25 million working people reported that they provided unpaid care to someone with an aging-related condition in the previous three to four months – 16% of the employed civilian population in the U.S., according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) American Time Use Survey data. And for some people family caregiving is a multigenerational endeavor. A 2015 Pew Research Center survey found that about half (47%) of adults ages 40 to 59 had at least one parent ages 65 or older, and were also either raising a child younger than 18, or had given financial support to an adult child in the past year.

More than ever, caregiving responsibilities extend to both women and men. While in 1965 married fathers living with their children spent about 2.5 hours a week on child care, that number rose to seven hours a week by 2015. In comparison, moms spent about 15 hours a week caring for their child in 2015. And when it comes to providing care for older adults, men and women are similarly likely to have done so in the prior three to four months. Among the employed civilian population, about 15% of men say as much, as do 18% of women, according to the BLS.
Most supporters of paid leave say pay should come from employers rather than from state or federal government

About three-quarters of Americans who support paid leave for mothers (74%) or fathers (76%) following the birth or adoption of a child say pay for time off should come from employers, and a similar share (72%) of those who favor paid medical leave for workers with a serious health condition say the same. When it comes to who should cover the cost of paid leave for workers when they take time off to care for a family member with a serious health condition, a smaller majority (59%) of paid-leave supporters say pay should come from employers, while about two-in-ten say it should come from federal (22%) or state (20%) government.

The majority of paid-leave supporters across the political spectrum are more likely to look to employers rather than to government to cover the costs of providing this benefit, although Democrats express more support for government-paid family and medical leave than do Republicans. For example, about a third (32%) of Democrats who say workers should have paid leave from work to deal with their own serious health condition say pay should come from either the federal or state government, compared with 21% of Republican supporters of paid medical leave. And while 45% of Democrats who support paid leave for workers who take time off to care for a seriously ill family member say the government should pay for this benefit, 31% of Republicans who support paid leave for this reason say the same. More modest but still significant partisan differences are also evident on views of who should pay when mothers and fathers take leave.

Overall, Democrats are more supportive of paid leave than are Republicans and independents, though at least three-quarters of each group say mothers should have access to paid maternity leave and that workers should be able to take paid leave to deal with their own serious health condition. Democrats, Republicans and independents are less supportive of paid leave for fathers and for workers who need to care for a family member with a serious health condition than they are of paid maternity and medical leave. Still, most Democrats and independents – and just over half of Republicans – express support for paid leave in each of these two situations.

Women and young adults also generally express more support for paid leave than do men and those ages 30 and older. For example, 82% of adults ages 18 to 29 say fathers should be able to take paid leave following the birth or adoption of their child, compared with 76% of those ages 30 to 49, 61% of those 50 to 64, and 55% of adults 65 and older.

Despite the broad support for paid leave, a Pew Research Center survey conducted Jan. 4-9, 2017, about the public’s policy priorities for President Donald Trump and Congress in the coming year finds that relatively few Americans (35%) see expanding access to paid family and medical leave as a top policy priority. In fact, expanding access to paid family and medical leave ranks at the bottom of a list of 21 policy items, along with improving transportation and dealing with drug addiction.
Most see at least some benefits for employers that provide paid leave

While Americans tend to favor employer-paid over government-paid leave for family or medical reasons, there is no consensus when it comes to a federal government mandate: About as many say the government should require employers to provide paid leave (51%) as say employers should be able to decide for themselves (48%). Opposition to a federal mandate is highest among those who oppose paid leave; among those who support paid family or medical leave, including those who say employers should pay, more say the government should require employers to offer this benefit than say it should be the employers’ decision.

Still, regardless of whether they support a federal government mandate, most Americans think employers stand to benefit from providing paid family and medical leave. About three-quarters (74%) of the public says employers that provide paid leave are more likely than those that don’t to attract and keep good workers; 78% of those who favor a government mandate and 70% of those who say employers should decide for themselves share this view.

Assessments of the overall impact of paid family and medical leave on employers are more mixed: 53% say universal access to paid leave would have a positive impact on employers, while 46% say the overall impact would be negative. When asked specifically about the impact on small businesses, the balance of opinion is decidedly negative. Roughly six-in-ten Americans (58%) say that universal access to paid leave would have a very or somewhat negative impact on small businesses, while 41% think the impact would be generally positive. By comparison, there is significant consensus around the potential benefits to women and families, with about six-in-ten Americans expecting “very positive” results. Overall, about two-thirds or more say the impact of universal paid leave on families (94%), women (93%), men (88%) and the economy (65%) would be at least somewhat positive.

The public also makes a distinction between employers in general and small businesses in assessments of the trade-offs they may need to make in order to provide paid family and medical leave. About six-in-ten (59%) say most employers that provide paid leave can afford to do so without reducing salaries or other benefits. In contrast, a majority (69%) say most small businesses that offer paid leave have to cut back on salaries and other benefits in order to do so.

There’s no public consensus on the best policy approach for providing paid family and medical leave. In general, the public has a more positive view of policies that incentivize employers or employees rather than those that create a new government fund to finance and administer the benefit.

Some 45% of Americans say they would strongly favor the government providing tax credits to any employer that provides paid leave. And roughly four-in-ten (39%) express strong support for allowing workers to set aside monthly pretax contributions into a personal account that can be withdrawn if they need to take leave from work.

There is less support for a program where the government would provide paid leave to any worker who needs it using funding from new or higher taxes on wealthy people or corporations – 28% strongly favor this approach. Similarly, 24% strongly favor the establishment of a government fund for all employers and employees to pay into through payroll contributions that would provide paid leave to any worker who needed it.

Support for new government programs that would provide paid family and medical leave to all workers that need it is far stronger among Democrats than among Republicans or independents. Some 44% of Democrats say they would strongly support a government paid leave program funded by new or higher taxes on wealthy people or corporations, compared with about a quarter (24%) of independents and just 11% of Republicans. And while about a third (34%) of Democrats express strong support for a government paid leave fund that all employers and employees would pay into through payroll contributions, smaller shares of independents (20%) and of Republicans (15%) say they would strongly favor this approach.

Democrats are also more likely than Republicans or independents to say they would strongly support the government providing tax credits to employers that provide paid family and medical leave: About half (53%) of Democrats express strong support for this approach, compared with about four-in-ten Republicans (37%) and independents (41%).

The vast majority of Americans (85%) say that, if the government were to provide paid family and medical leave, the benefit should be available to all workers, regardless of their income, rather than being more narrowly targeted to those with low incomes. When it comes to paid parental leave specifically, about three-quarters (73%) believe that if the government were to provide this benefit, it should be available to both mothers and fathers.
About seven-in-ten fathers who take paternity leave return to work within two weeks

Most Americans (63%) believe that mothers generally want to take more time off from work than fathers after the birth or adoption of their child, and more say employers put greater pressure on fathers to return to work quickly (49%) than say mothers face more pressure (18%) or that both face about the same amount of pressure (33%) from employers.

The survey of adults who took leave or who needed or wanted to take leave but weren’t able to do so finds that among fathers who took at least some time off from work following the birth or adoption of their child in the past two years, the median length of leave was one week; about seven-in-ten (72%) say they took two weeks or less off from work. In contrast, the median length of maternity leave was 11 weeks. Among mothers with household incomes under $30,000, however, the median length of leave was six weeks, compared with 10 weeks for those with incomes between $30,000 and $74,999 and 12 weeks for mothers with household incomes of $75,000 or more.

For the most part, mothers and fathers who took parental leave in the past two years say taking time off did not have much of an impact – either positive or negative – on their job or career; 60% say this is the case. Still, women are about twice as likely as men to say taking time off following the birth or adoption of their child had a negative impact (25% vs. 13%, respectively).

Just over half (56%) of parental-leave takers say they took less time off from work following the birth or adoption of their child than they needed or wanted to, while 7% say they took more time off and 36% say they took about as much time off as they needed or wanted to. Some 59% of fathers and 53% of mothers say they wish they had taken more time off from work than they did following the birth or adoption of their child.

Smaller but substantial shares of those who took time off from work to care for a family member with a serious health condition or to deal with their own health issue also say they took less time off from work than they needed or wanted to take (40% and 38%, respectively).

Financial concerns top the list of reasons why those who took leave for parental, family or medical reasons say they took less time off than they needed or wanted to. About seven-in-ten (69%) leave takers who returned to work more quickly than they would have liked to say they couldn’t afford to lose more wages or salary. About half (47%) say they thought they might risk losing their job, while 41% say they felt badly about co-workers taking on additional work. About a third thought taking more time off might hurt their chances for job advancement (34%) or felt that no one else was capable of doing their job (33%). And about a quarter (23%) of those who took less time off than they had needed or wanted to say their employer denied their request for more time off.
Many leave takers take on debt or use savings in order to cover lost wages

Most Americans who took time off from work in the past two years for parental, family or medical reasons report that they received at least some pay during this time, with about half (47%) saying they received full pay; 16% say they received only some of their regular pay and 36% say they received no pay at all. Lower-income leave takers, as well as those without a bachelor’s degree, are particularly likely to say they received only some or no pay. For example, among leave takers with household incomes of $75,000 or more, roughly six-in-ten (58%) say they received the same amount as their regular pay, while 15% received partial pay and about a quarter (26%) were not paid. In contrast, just 22% of those with incomes under $30,000 report that they received full pay, while 14% received only some of their regular pay and a majority (62%) received no pay during their time off from work.

Leave takers who did not receive their full wages or salary when they took parental, family or medical leave say they had to make sacrifices, such as cutting back on spending, dipping into savings, or cutting their leave short, to compensate for the loss of income. Some, particularly those with lower incomes, took more consequential measures, such as taking on debt, putting off paying their bills, and going on public assistance.

Roughly six-in-ten (57%) parental-leave takers with household incomes under $30,000 who did not receive their full pay when they took time off from work following the birth or adoption of their child say they took on debt to deal with the loss of wages or salary; about half say they went on public assistance (48%) or put off paying their bills (46%).
Views of gender and caregiving are related to support for paid leave for new fathers

While most Americans are supportive of mothers and fathers taking leave from work – and receiving pay – following the birth or adoption of a child, many see mothers, and women in general, as more apt caregivers. The survey finds that a majority (71%) of Americans think it’s important for new babies to have equal time to bond with their mothers and their fathers, while about a quarter (27%) think it’s more important to bond with their mothers and just 2% say it’s more important for them to bond with their fathers. But when it comes to caring for a new baby, more say that, aside from breast-feeding, mothers do a better job than say both mothers and fathers do about an equally good job (53% vs. 45%); only 1% say fathers do a better job than mothers in caring for a new baby.

The public offers more gender-balanced views when asked who would do a better job caring for a family member with serious health condition – 59% say men and women would do an equally good job. Still, four-in-ten say women would do a better job in this situation (1% say men would).

Older adults and Republicans – especially those who describe their political views as conservative – are particularly likely to say that it’s more important for new babies to have more time to bond with their mothers than with their fathers and that mothers do a better job caring for a new baby.

Attitudes about gender roles and caregiving are linked, at least in part, to views about the impact of paid leave on men, as well as to support for paid paternity leave. Generally, adults with more gender-balanced views about mothers and fathers as caregivers for new babies are far more supportive of paid paternity leave than are those who say mothers are better caregivers. Those with more gender-balanced views are also more likely to say universal paid leave would have a very positive impact on men.

For example, among those who say mothers and fathers do about an equally good job caring for a new baby, 78% express support for paid paternity leave and half say universal paid leave would have a very positive impact on men. By comparison, among adults who say mothers do a better job, these shares are 61% and 37%, respectively. Significant differences remain when controlling for factors such as gender, age and political ideology, which are associated with support of paid leave for fathers and the impact of universal paid leave on men in general as well as with attitudes about gender and caregiving.

The remainder of this report examines in greater detail the public’s views about paid leave as well as the experiences of workers who have taken parental, family or medical leave in the past two years. Chapters 1-4 focus on findings from the survey of the general public. Chapter 1 looks at the public’s evaluations of different paid leave policies, including who Americans think should be covered as well as who should pay. Chapter 2 explores assessments of the impact of paid leave on families, the economy, employers and employees. Chapter 3 looks at workers’ assessments of the benefits they receive from their employers and how family and medical leave fits in to the broader benefits landscape. Chapter 4 explores views of gender and caregiving.

Chapter 5 examines the experiences of those who took leave and those who weren’t able to take leave when they needed or wanted to do so. It looks at whether or not those who were able to take leave received any pay during this time and how they coped with the loss of income if they did not receive full pay. It also explores reasons why some people return to work sooner than they wish to after taking parental, family or medical leave, and why some aren’t able to take time off from work at all when they need or want to do so. Finally, Chapter 6 provides some quotes from eight focus groups of recent parental- and family-leave takers to illustrate the diverse and complex experiences of leave takers.
Other key findings
Americans express some concern that paid family and medical leave benefits can be abused. Some 55% think it is at least somewhat common for workers who have access to this benefit to abuse it by taking time off from work when they don’t need to; 44% say this isn’t particularly common.
Most workers are at least somewhat satisfied with the benefits their employer provides (69%) and believe their employer cares a great deal or a fair amount about the personal well-being of their employees (66%). These assessments vary considerably by income, however; only about half of workers with household incomes under $30,000 express some satisfaction with their benefits and say their employer cares about their employees’ well-being, compared with majorities of those with higher incomes.
Three-in-ten leave takers say it was difficult for them to learn about what leave benefits, if any, were available to them when they needed to take time off from work for parental, family or medical reasons, and this is particularly the case among those with a high school diploma or less and with lower incomes. Leave takers with lower incomes and those without a bachelor’s degree are also less likely to say their supervisor and co-workers were very supportive when they took leave from work.
Among those who took time off from work to care for a family member with a serious health condition in the past two years, women (65%) are far more likely than men (44%) to say they were the primary caregiver. Family-leave takers ages 65 and older were more likely than those who are younger to say they were caring for their spouse or partner during this time, while those ages 50 to 64 were particularly likely to be caring for one of their parents.

Technology Silicon Valley sends ambassador to Trump's coal country 'The election was a wakeup call,' says Rep. Ro Khanna, who came to eastern Kentucky to see what the tech industry and Appalachia can offer each other. By Nancy Scola 03/26/17 07:19 AM EDT Updated 03/27/17 10:50 AM EDT Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) Co-Chair Earl Gohl chat as they head from the Big Sandy Community and Technical College main building in Paintsville, Ky. to the Interapt coding bootcamp across the street. Interapt has partnered with the state and county to train people and families of the coal industry to be computer coders in an effort to create a "Silicon Hollar". Rep. Ro Khanna and Appalachian Regional Commission Co-Chairman Earl Gohl chat as they head from the Big Sandy Community and Technical College main building in Paintsville, Ky., to the Interapt coding bootcamp across the street. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Facebook Twitter Google + Email Comment Print Most Read Congress may stiff Trump on wall funding Schumer headed for epic clash with McConnell Trump tweets: 'Russia story is a hoax' Swalwell on Nunes fallout: ‘This is what a cover-up to a crime looks like’ Trump signs order to end ‘crushing attack’ of Obama climate legacy Pruitt takes fire from conservatives in climate showdown Mar-a-Lago can't release visitor logs — because it doesn't keep them Graham: Nunes is running ‘an Inspector Clouseau investigation’ How Bill Nelson shook up the Gorsuch confirmation fight Trump won’t throw first pitch on Nationals opening day Politico Magazine 15_donald_trump_44_ap_1160.jpg Four Things Trump Could Do Right Now To Fix Obamacare By Michael Grunwald 170328-vladimir-putin-ap-1160.jpg How the Sanctions Are Helping Putin By Andrey Movchan georgeWbush_gty.jpg What George W. Bush Can Teach Trump About the Press By Matt Latimer 170326-Donald-Trump-AP_842193980079.jpg Trump’s a Dictator? He Can’t Even Repeal Obamacare By Francis Fukuyama PAINTSVILLE, Kentucky — President Donald Trump won this state by a landslide after promising to reopen Appalachia’s coal mines and put its miners back to work. But here, along the banks of Paint Creek in eastern Kentucky’s legendary coal fields, some displaced workers are pinning their hopes instead on Silicon Valley. And the celebrity of the moment is California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who came from the Valley’s deep-blue heart last week to see what this emptying corner of coal country might have to offer the technology industry — and how Appalachia can reap its benefits in the form of jobs and tech training. "It's just exciting for them to think what we're doing is interesting enough to make the trip," former coal worker and budding app developer Steve Bowling said in a cinder-block classroom in Paintsville — referring to Khanna and, by extension, the tech industry itself. "That means a whole lot to us." The 40-year-old freshman congressman and son of Indian immigrants might seem an unlikely ambassador to a conservative region: He supports what he calls “common-sense” gun laws, not to mention the Obama-era energy regulations that the coal industry blames for shuttering dozens of coal plants in the past decade. But he hopes that by expounding upon the Silicon Valley success story across the U.S., he might help boost the economic prospects of places like Paintsville. And if he can convey the woes of non-coastal regions to leaders back home, the tech industry might find a way to steer where the country goes from here. “The election was a wakeup call about how much discontent there is from technological progress and globalization, that it’s not just all a clear good thing,” Khanna said in his still-bare Capitol Hill office just before his trip, where he visited a training program for mobile app developers at Big Sandy Community & Technical College. And it’s time, he said, for an industry that has played a role in shedding American jobs — by advancing artificial intelligence, among other things — to invest in helping communities like this one share in the upside. “There’s got to be greater empathy among those in Silicon Valley for some of the pain that has been caused,” he said. At the same time, he’s looking to spread Silicon Valley’s aspirational spirit around a country in need of big thinking. “It's just getting people to dream that they can go try to be like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs,” Khanna said. The 43-room mansion of John C. Mayo, a teacher-turned-entrepreneur regarded as the father of the eastern Kentucky coal industry, is now the home of Our Lady of the Mountains School. The 43-room mansion of John C. Mayo, a teacher-turned-entrepreneur regarded as the father of the eastern Kentucky coal industry, is now the home of Our Lady of the Mountains School. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Khanna came here at the invitation Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers¸ a 79-year-old Republican who joined Congress the year Ronald Reagan moved into the White House. Rogers' sprawling district is among the poorest in the country — ranked 432nd out of 435 in median per-capita income according to the Almanac of American Politics — and the setting for the best-selling guide-to-Trump-country "Hillbilly Elegy." By contrast, companies including Apple, Intel, eBay, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Tesla are all stuffed within Khanna’s overwhelmingly Democratic, wealthy and compact district; Google, while headquartered in nearby Mountain View, has offices there, too. Republican Gov. Matt Bevin and Megan Smith, the Google executive who served as Barack Obama’s U.S. chief technology officer, also came to the event, giving speeches and chatting over foam-containered chicken salad sandwiches and potato chips. But for the crowd of about 150 people, Khanna's attention was what they craved. Rogers was eager to have him in what he calls “Silicon Holler,” because Khanna has quickly become a one-man proxy for a swath of glitteringly brand-name and geographically concentrated Silicon Valley companies. “It’s a chance for us to sell him, and therefore them, that this is a place to look at," said Rogers. That he's actually come, joked Earl Gohl, co-chairman of the Appalachian Regional Commission — founded in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy — makes Khanna his “new best friend.” Still, shortly after he stepped off stage with Khanna, Rogers fielded a question on whether he holds any bad feelings over the tech industry’s growing disdain for coal, such as Facebook’s new hydropowered data center in Luleå, Sweden. His answer? If the goal is keeping Appalachian people in the rolling hills of Paintsville and Pikesville and Harlan County, not fleeing to places like Ypsilanti and Cincinnati, America’s tech boom might be the last best hope. “We can't afford to be too resentful," said the Republican. “We'd rather sleep here.” Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), former U.S. CTO Megan Smith, Rep. Ro Khanna and Appalachian Regional Commission Co-Chairman Earl Gohl chat March 13 before a round table luncheon on developing Eastern Kentucky from a coal based economy to a "Silicon Holler." Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), former U.S. CTO Megan Smith, Rep. Ro Khanna and Appalachian Regional Commission Co-Chairman Earl Gohl chat March 13 before a round table luncheon on developing Eastern Kentucky from a coal based economy to a "Silicon Holler." | John Shinkle/POLITICO Khanna, a lawyer and former official in the Obama-era Commerce Department, came to the tan-bricked, 1950s-built community college, where every other car in the parking lot is a hulking, mud-spattered American-made pickup truck. Founded in 1790 as Paint Lick Station, this is a town that honors its coal history. The bricked-and-columned 43-room mansion built on the cusp of World War I by John C. Mayo, the teacher-turned-entrepreneur regarded as the father of the eastern Kentucky coal industry, stands a block over. It’s now Our Lady of the Mountains School. But gone are the days where you could get a $70,000 job in the mines with a ninth-grade education and buy one of the lovely homes dotting the hills here. Since 2008, coal jobs in eastern Kentucky have dropped from more than 14,000 to fewer than 4,000. And even the jobs still available don't look like a smart long-term bet, making scraping out a living underground even less attractive than it's ever been. The event on display here, convened more or less in Khanna's honor, amounted to speeches, a roundtable discussion and demonstrations about a program called TechHire Eastern Kentucky, or TEKY — pronounced, conveniently, "techie." The program, backed by $2.75 million in federal funds, trains a crop of would-be mobile app developers for four months and puts them in a four-month paid internship with a Louisville software company called Interapt. (That money flowed through the Appalachian Regional Commission, which Trump, in his first budget, included on the list of agencies he’d completely defund. Rogers called those cuts “draconian, careless and counterproductive.”) TechHire, begun as a federal program in the Obama White House in 2015, was inspired by the tech industry's complaint that it has 600,000 job openings it can't fill, a major drag on its bottom line and ambitions, and part of its justification for seeking more visas for specialized workers from overseas. But the people who have brought Khanna argue that this crunch exists partly because the industry simply doesn’t hirethe sort of people sitting in cinder-block classrooms in eastern Kentucky. The former coal worker Bowling, 41, said his wife found out about TEKY on Facebook after he’d beenlaid off from a job in a coal mine filling blasting holes with ammonium nitrate. He chose the Android app training track over the more structured Apple iOS trackbecause his instructors "described it as, 'It's the Wild Wild West.'" Others have come to the program to avoid coal. Sean Crowl, 29, says he lost his job when the Kmart in town closed. Crowl sat at a roundtable of young men — the class of 35 trainees, from a pool of 800 applicants, is overwhelming male and white — who came from a bank, a school, a restaurant or unemployment to build apps like one for a local nonprofit that helps track elementary school students' reading progress. The $400 a week was appealing, as a two-bedroom apartment can be had here at that price. (One trainee says it was so good he thought it was a "scam" until he heard about the paycheck.) All six said four months was plenty of time to learn how to build apps good enough for the Google Play marketplace or Apple's App Store. Interapt CEO Ankur Gopal and Rep. Ro Khanna speak with trainees in the TechHire Eastern Kentucky coding program at the local campus of Big Sandy Community and Technical College on March 13. Interapt CEO Ankur Gopal and Rep. Ro Khanna speak with trainees in the TechHire Eastern Kentucky coding program at the local campus of Big Sandy Community and Technical College on March 13. | John Shinkle/POLITICO The pitch Rogers and others are making here is that Silicon Valley hiring managers would be smart to open their eyes to places beyond San Francisco and New York — and they’re pitchingeastern Kentucky as the type of undervalued investment that venture capitalists love to go on about. They argue that the internet erases some of the region's traditional limitations, such as a dearth of well-maintained roads in many places, as well as of flat ground for building factories. The people say they are hard-working and open to low wages. And unlike, say, Bangalore, it's in a reasonable time zone. But for all the tech industry’s talk of meritocracy, "when employers say they can't hire people with skills, what they're really saying is that they can't find people with a certain pedigree," said Byron Auguste, a former deputy director of the White House National Economic Council who helped create TechHire. Auguste is now president of Opportunity@Work, the non-profit group administering the program. The result, he said, is that people from places like Paintsville don't get access to the enormous sums that companies like those in Khanna's district invest in training. "People are on the outside looking in, forever," Augustesaid. “People say, ‘How many former coal miners can learn to code?’ And my answer is, it’s too early to tell. Only a handful have been given an opportunity, and they’ve done pretty damn well.” Of Khanna, Auguste said: “We want him to be able to go back to Silicon Valley and his constituent companies and say, ‘No joke, there’s really a lot of talent here.’" Being taken seriously is, in fact, a recurring theme. Interapt CEO Ankur Gopal wants Khanna to see that what's going on here isn't some “cute thing.” Jared Arnett, executive director of Shaping Our Appalachian Region, quotes a colleague saying he wants to prove “we're not just a dancing bear.” Khanna said he's listening. "The tech companies and tech industry have an incentive to rethink their own labor practices so that they aren't just hiring in Stanford and Santa Clara, but are broader about what their hiring practices are and the skills they need," he said. That said, Khanna told the crowd in Paintsville, "it has to be a partnership. I don't think it's an act of Silicon Valley's charity. It's in their interest to harness the talent, the energy and the spirit here. That's going to make their companies better. That's going to make our country better." And that, says Khanna, is what he's going to go back and tell the tech industry. khanna rogers silicon valley chart (002).jpg The event includedno talk of Trump, his campaign pledge to “bring those miners back” or the attackshe's heaped on the tech industry for everything from manufacturing its products abroad to refusing to open up its consumer products to law enforcement. But Auguste said the warm feelings for the tech industry evident at Big Sandy Community College aren't widely distributed across the U.S. “The country should love Silicon Valley. It’s a gem and a treasure,” he said. “But when push comes to shove, in a lot of parts of the country, it’s difficult to find people who’d say, ‘Silicon Valley has done much for me.’” Khanna said he also wants to help his own home-district industry expand its thinking on Silicon Valley’s role in society. “What I want to do is to help shape the thinking of the Valley to start caring more and engaging more in policy that's not narrow,” Khanna said. “You get almost the same talking points about [tax] repatriation, encryption, patent trolls. I say, ‘What an impoverished vision for a place that literally believes it wants to change human civilization.'"

'The election was a wakeup call,' says Rep. Ro Khanna, who came to eastern Kentucky to see what the tech industry and Appalachia can offer each other.

By Nancy Scola




Rep. Ro Khanna and Appalachian Regional Commission Co-Chairman Earl Gohl chat as they head from the Big Sandy Community and Technical College main building in Paintsville, Ky., to the Interapt coding bootcamp across the street. | John Shinkle/POLITICO



PAINTSVILLE, Kentucky — President Donald Trump won this state by a landslide after promising to reopen Appalachia’s coal mines and put its miners back to work. But here, along the banks of Paint Creek in eastern Kentucky’s legendary coal fields, some displaced workers are pinning their hopes instead on Silicon Valley.

And the celebrity of the moment is California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who came from the Valley’s deep-blue heart last week to see what this emptying corner of coal country might have to offer the technology industry — and how Appalachia can reap its benefits in the form of jobs and tech training.



"It's just exciting for them to think what we're doing is interesting enough to make the trip," former coal worker and budding app developer Steve Bowling said in a cinder-block classroom in Paintsville — referring to Khanna and, by extension, the tech industry itself. "That means a whole lot to us."

The 40-year-old freshman congressman and son of Indian immigrants might seem an unlikely ambassador to a conservative region: He supports what he calls “common-sense” gun laws, not to mention the Obama-era energy regulations that the coal industry blames for shuttering dozens of coal plants in the past decade. But he hopes that by expounding upon the Silicon Valley success story across the U.S., he might help boost the economic prospects of places like Paintsville. And if he can convey the woes of non-coastal regions to leaders back home, the tech industry might find a way to steer where the country goes from here.

“The election was a wakeup call about how much discontent there is from technological progress and globalization, that it’s not just all a clear good thing,” Khanna said in his still-bare Capitol Hill office just before his trip, where he visited a training program for mobile app developers at Big Sandy Community & Technical College. And it’s time, he said, for an industry that has played a role in shedding American jobs — by advancing artificial intelligence, among other things — to invest in helping communities like this one share in the upside.

“There’s got to be greater empathy among those in Silicon Valley for some of the pain that has been caused,” he said.

At the same time, he’s looking to spread Silicon Valley’s aspirational spirit around a country in need of big thinking. “It's just getting people to dream that they can go try to be like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs,” Khanna said.



The 43-room mansion of John C. Mayo, a teacher-turned-entrepreneur regarded as the father of the eastern Kentucky coal industry, is now the home of Our Lady of the Mountains School.

Khanna came here at the invitation Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers¸ a 79-year-old Republican who joined Congress the year Ronald Reagan moved into the White House.

Rogers' sprawling district is among the poorest in the country — ranked 432nd out of 435 in median per-capita income according to the Almanac of American Politics — and the setting for the best-selling guide-to-Trump-country "Hillbilly Elegy." By contrast, companies including Apple, Intel, eBay, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Tesla are all stuffed within Khanna’s overwhelmingly Democratic, wealthy and compact district; Google, while headquartered in nearby Mountain View, has offices there, too.

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin and Megan Smith, the Google executive who served as Barack Obama’s U.S. chief technology officer, also came to the event, giving speeches and chatting over foam-containered chicken salad sandwiches and potato chips. But for the crowd of about 150 people, Khanna's attention was what they craved.

Rogers was eager to have him in what he calls “Silicon Holler,” because Khanna has quickly become a one-man proxy for a swath of glitteringly brand-name and geographically concentrated Silicon Valley companies. “It’s a chance for us to sell him, and therefore them, that this is a place to look at," said Rogers. That he's actually come, joked Earl Gohl, co-chairman of the Appalachian Regional Commission — founded in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy — makes Khanna his “new best friend.”

Still, shortly after he stepped off stage with Khanna, Rogers fielded a question on whether he holds any bad feelings over the tech industry’s growing disdain for coal, such as Facebook’s new hydropowered data center in Luleå, Sweden. His answer? If the goal is keeping Appalachian people in the rolling hills of Paintsville and Pikesville and Harlan County, not fleeing to places like Ypsilanti and Cincinnati, America’s tech boom might be the last best hope.

“We can't afford to be too resentful," said the Republican. “We'd rather sleep here.”




Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), former U.S. CTO Megan Smith, Rep. Ro Khanna and Appalachian Regional Commission Co-Chairman Earl Gohl chat March 13 before a round table luncheon on developing Eastern Kentucky from a coal based economy to a "Silicon Holler."

Khanna, a lawyer and former official in the Obama-era Commerce Department, came to the tan-bricked, 1950s-built community college, where every other car in the parking lot is a hulking, mud-spattered American-made pickup truck. Founded in 1790 as Paint Lick Station, this is a town that honors its coal history. The bricked-and-columned 43-room mansion built on the cusp of World War I by John C. Mayo, the teacher-turned-entrepreneur regarded as the father of the eastern Kentucky coal industry, stands a block over. It’s now Our Lady of the Mountains School.

But gone are the days where you could get a $70,000 job in the mines with a ninth-grade education and buy one of the lovely homes dotting the hills here. Since 2008, coal jobs in eastern Kentucky have dropped from more than 14,000 to fewer than 4,000. And even the jobs still available don't look like a smart long-term bet, making scraping out a living underground even less attractive than it's ever been.

The event on display here, convened more or less in Khanna's honor, amounted to speeches, a roundtable discussion and demonstrations about a program called TechHire Eastern Kentucky, or TEKY — pronounced, conveniently, "techie." The program, backed by $2.75 million in federal funds, trains a crop of would-be mobile app developers for four months and puts them in a four-month paid internship with a Louisville software company called Interapt.

(That money flowed through the Appalachian Regional Commission, which Trump, in his first budget, included on the list of agencies he’d completely defund. Rogers called those cuts “draconian, careless and counterproductive.”)

TechHire, begun as a federal program in the Obama White House in 2015, was inspired by the tech industry's complaint that it has 600,000 job openings it can't fill, a major drag on its bottom line and ambitions, and part of its justification for seeking more visas for specialized workers from overseas. But the people who have brought Khanna argue that this crunch exists partly because the industry simply doesn’t hirethe sort of people sitting in cinder-block classrooms in eastern Kentucky.

The former coal worker Bowling, 41, said his wife found out about TEKY on Facebook after he’d beenlaid off from a job in a coal mine filling blasting holes with ammonium nitrate. He chose the Android app training track over the more structured Apple iOS trackbecause his instructors "described it as, 'It's the Wild Wild West.'"

Others have come to the program to avoid coal. Sean Crowl, 29, says he lost his job when the Kmart in town closed.

Crowl sat at a roundtable of young men — the class of 35 trainees, from a pool of 800 applicants, is overwhelming male and white — who came from a bank, a school, a restaurant or unemployment to build apps like one for a local nonprofit that helps track elementary school students' reading progress. The $400 a week was appealing, as a two-bedroom apartment can be had here at that price. (One trainee says it was so good he thought it was a "scam" until he heard about the paycheck.) All six said four months was plenty of time to learn how to build apps good enough for the Google Play marketplace or Apple's App Store.




Interapt CEO Ankur Gopal and Rep. Ro Khanna speak with trainees in the TechHire Eastern Kentucky coding program at the local campus of Big Sandy Community and Technical College on March 13.

The pitch Rogers and others are making here is that Silicon Valley hiring managers would be smart to open their eyes to places beyond San Francisco and New York — and they’re pitchingeastern Kentucky as the type of undervalued investment that venture capitalists love to go on about.

They argue that the internet erases some of the region's traditional limitations, such as a dearth of well-maintained roads in many places, as well as of flat ground for building factories. The people say they are hard-working and open to low wages. And unlike, say, Bangalore, it's in a reasonable time zone.

But for all the tech industry’s talk of meritocracy, "when employers say they can't hire people with skills, what they're really saying is that they can't find people with a certain pedigree," said Byron Auguste, a former deputy director of the White House National Economic Council who helped create TechHire. Auguste is now president of Opportunity@Work, the non-profit group administering the program. The result, he said, is that people from places like Paintsville don't get access to the enormous sums that companies like those in Khanna's district invest in training.

"People are on the outside looking in, forever," Augustesaid. “People say, ‘How many former coal miners can learn to code?’ And my answer is, it’s too early to tell. Only a handful have been given an opportunity, and they’ve done pretty damn well.”

Of Khanna, Auguste said: “We want him to be able to go back to Silicon Valley and his constituent companies and say, ‘No joke, there’s really a lot of talent here.’"

Being taken seriously is, in fact, a recurring theme. Interapt CEO Ankur Gopal wants Khanna to see that what's going on here isn't some “cute thing.” Jared Arnett, executive director of Shaping Our Appalachian Region, quotes a colleague saying he wants to prove “we're not just a dancing bear.”

Khanna said he's listening. "The tech companies and tech industry have an incentive to rethink their own labor practices so that they aren't just hiring in Stanford and Santa Clara, but are broader about what their hiring practices are and the skills they need," he said.

That said, Khanna told the crowd in Paintsville, "it has to be a partnership. I don't think it's an act of Silicon Valley's charity. It's in their interest to harness the talent, the energy and the spirit here. That's going to make their companies better. That's going to make our country better." And that, says Khanna, is what he's going to go back and tell the tech industry.




The event includedno talk of Trump, his campaign pledge to “bring those miners back” or the attackshe's heaped on the tech industry for everything from manufacturing its products abroad to refusing to open up its consumer products to law enforcement.

But Auguste said the warm feelings for the tech industry evident at Big Sandy Community College aren't widely distributed across the U.S. “The country should love Silicon Valley. It’s a gem and a treasure,” he said. “But when push comes to shove, in a lot of parts of the country, it’s difficult to find people who’d say, ‘Silicon Valley has done much for me.’”

Khanna said he also wants to help his own home-district industry expand its thinking on Silicon Valley’s role in society.

“What I want to do is to help shape the thinking of the Valley to start caring more and engaging more in policy that's not narrow,” Khanna said. “You get almost the same talking points about [tax] repatriation, encryption, patent trolls. I say, ‘What an impoverished vision for a place that literally believes it wants to change human civilization.'"

A Historical Perspective—The Rise of Branding in Politics



I have the opportunity to work on crafting the messaging and shaping the face of what brands look like every day—from global brands such as STX, to a start-up like Cintrifuse, to a national organization like the National Runaway Safeline and a higher education institution like SUNY. This experience has driven my personal passion for branding, as well as its role in political strategy. It’s what I wrote my senior thesis on in college. I believe politicians and their campaigns are a close relative to any brand looking to make a crucial connection with their consumer—and the similarities between the these two worlds are striking.


BEFORE BUMPER STICKERS

Since the United States’ inception, presidential candidates’ strategies for campaigning have constantly evolved to keep up with changing forms of media, the whims of their audience and the election process. It’s easy to forget that before Reagan had bumper stickers and Obama had a Twitter account, presidential candidates throughout history had carefully considered campaign strategies.

The first real presidential race in 1796 pitted Federalist Vice President John Adams against Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson (the previous President, George Washington, had won the executive position unanimously following his unprecedented leadership during the American Revolutionary War). The race between Adams and Jefferson shaped up to be a heated rivalry—despite the fact that candidates were chosen by an electorate of rich, land-owning white men by something they called “legislative choice” rather than popular vote. Campaigning wasn’t really even necessary.

In 1828, as legislative choice began to die out and the popular vote gained importance, campaigning in earnest became a necessity. Candidates were no longer speaking only to certain segments of the electorate, but to all men. To wow and appeal to their new constituencies, political propaganda and memorabilia were born.



The Democratic candidate that year, Andrew Jackson, began utilizing his nickname “Old Hickory” to portray an image of strength. His grassroots supporters even placed poles made of hickory all around the country as a campaign tactic. Republican John Quincy Adams used print media to his advantage, blaming Jackson for the deaths of American soldiers in the War of 1812, painting him as a murderer. Adams’ campaign even used coffin imagery on posters to represent each killed soldier and to drive his point home (brings a whole new meaning to attack ads, no?). Andrew Jackson prevailed, becoming the seventh President of the United States, thanks in large part to the grassroots efforts of his supporters and the use of memorabilia to deliver messaging to constituents.

MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE

A turning point in how elections were run came during the 1960 presidential campaign with the advent of the presidential debate. Now, instead of judging and forming opinions solely on the tone of someone’s voice and the content of their speech, voters began to form their opinions by watching them in action.



As a brand builder, I know that a brand is an experience and each exposure counts. Politicians began to realize this too during the 1960 election when Richard Nixon, fresh out of the hospital, found himself standing next to a young, handsome, athletic and charismatic John F. Kennedy on national television. Americans listening to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won, but viewers of the same televised debate picked Kennedy as the winner by a landslide. Kennedy’s virile image helped catapult his brand over Nixon’s, even if his ideas weren’t necessarily any better. It was quickly becoming apparent that political brands hinged on so much more than ideologies or even logos and bumper stickers.

ONE NATION, UNDER A HOLISTIC BRAND, INDIVISIBLE …

While logos aren’t new in political campaign branding, coherent and consistent communication systems are. Simple, bold wordmarks were the cornerstone for candidates’ brand messaging for decades, and they all looked the same: American. Color palettes of deep navy and bright red, icons of stars and stripes and bolded, all-caps, sans serif typography shouting the last name of the political hopeful were ubiquitous. I think Armin Vit, owner of UnderConsideration.com, put it best in 2008: “If a candidate wants to be American, they must look American.”



Political artifacts and memorabilia were forever changed when Barack Obama launched his presidential campaign in 2007. Working with designers and strategists from his home base in Chicago, Obama created a fresh, holistic communication system for his White House bid. Regardless of personal politics, the beauty and effectiveness of Obama’s brand is evident. Americans wanted hope and they got it; from the Palatino/Gotham typeface combinations, to the bright, optimistic photography—everything laddered back to the fresh, “new day in America” messaging.

The oppositional brand of Senator John McCain had been leveraging his military background with a black and silver color palette and Optima typeface (the same as what’s used on the Vietnam Veteran War Memorial). The photography was mostly black and white, depicting heroic imagery from his time as a soldier in Vietnam. Over the course of the campaign, as the gap in the polls between Obama and McCain grew, McCain’s website suddenly transformed, to exactly mirror Obama’s in a last-minute attempt to adopt a similar hopeful message. Unfortunately for McCain, it didn’t work—Obama won by a sizable margin, in large part thanks to his consistent, coherent and holistic campaign branding and strategy.



Banking on a good brand: Micro-marketing campaign seeks to spruce up Israels image

By Dan Pine |


Ido Aharoni sees his native Israel as a modern nation, friendly, creative and cutting edge. But he concedes much of the world doesn’t view Israel that way. “They see a bunker,” he says, “closed off.”

As head of brand management for Israel, Aharoni has a mission to change that. That’s what brought him to the Bay Area recently as part of a national tour sponsored by the Jewish National Fund.

His ongoing government branding project has worked below the radar to show Israel in a more positive light worldwide.

Or, to use his terminology, to improve Israel’s personality. “Every place has a personality,” Aharoni says, “like a human being. Usually it evolves naturally and organically.”

He cites Brazil as an example of good national branding. “[Brazil’s] personality is all about fun,” Aharoni says. “The samba, Carnaval, beaches, coffee. But few people will mention crime. Brazil is one of the most dangerous places for tourists.”

In contrast, he notes, Israel’s brand is all about conflict, despite strides Israel has made in arts, culture, science, business, medicine and technology.

“Brand capital is worth a lot,” Aharoni adds. “An attractive personality means more tourists, more foreign investment, better performance by Israeli sub-brands.” (“Sub-brands” refers to Israeli companies and iconic institutions like the Israel Defense Forces and the City of Tel Aviv).

Aharoni distinguishes between his rebranding efforts and hasbarah, Israel’s long-standing overseas public relations campaign, usually aiming to present government policies in a good light.

“God forbid!” he says. “This has nothing to do with hasbarah. It is much broader and deeper. You can never thrive on crisis management. It’s very limited in what it can achieve.”

At nearly 6 feet, 6 inches tall, Aharoni cuts a commanding figure as he tries to sell the world on the Jewish state. A former public affairs consul at Israel’s Consulates General in New York and Los Angeles, and a one-time senior adviser for former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Aharoni has worked on Israel’s rebranding effort for years.

That effort began soon after 9/11, when Israeli government officials recognized the geopolitical landscape had changed. The Branding Israel Group (BIG) was formed, launching extensive research in North America, Europe and elsewhere to probe the public’s feelings about Israel.

Ido Aharoni

Group members were surprised by what the research showed: An overwhelming majority of people around the world were not in the least bit interested in the Middle East conflict, but even those who tended to side with Israel were not attracted to what the country represents.

Combine that deficit with a sensationalistic news media and the impact of the Internet on how people get their news, and Aharoni had his work cut out for him.

The brand management team decided to think small.

“Micro-marketing is the solution,” he says. “If you identify your segments [of society], then you see results.”

He cites as an example Israeli ornithologist Yossi Leshem, a leading expert on bird migration. Leshem boasts a database of 600,000 avid birders around the world, and has led numerous birding tours of Israel. In his small way, Leshem is a one-man PR machine for his country.

Aharoni wants to raise a flock of Leshems to turn Israel’s image around. He cites other goodwill ambassadors like Israeli doctors treating AIDS patients in Africa, and Israeli animal husbandry experts teaching Chinese ranchers about cattle insemination.

Those hoping to follow Aharoni’s efforts online will be out of luck. Neither he nor the rebranding effort have a Web site, which is how he wants it. He says the less attention drawn to himself, and the more directed toward Israel, the better.

He even turned down a feature story in the Economist because he feared it would have focused too much on him.

“Branding is a bad word,” Aharoni adds. “It implies this is about advertising, slogans and logos. The right word might be ‘positioning,’ so the world will see Israel’s contributions in building for the future.”

While in the Bay Area, Aharoni met with several Jewish institutions, including the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation. He says getting the American Jewish community on board with the rebranding effort is essential.

“Every successful place branding requires a partnership,” he notes. “The Jewish community is critical because the stakeholders are not just Israelis. Everyone who cares about Israel becomes a stakeholder.”

Aharoni says the Israeli government and its ministries are fully behind the rebranding effort. After 60 years of striving to prove the correctness of Israel’s political and moral stance, he believes it’s time to try something new.

Says Aharoni: “It is no less important for Israel to be attractive than to be right.”

יום שבת, 25 במרץ 2017

Sanders: Public outcry helped derail GOP health care bill




"What the American people are asking is how does it happen that we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right?" Sen. Bernie Sanders said.


Sen. Bernie Sanders cast the GOP as "out of touch" with the public on health care Friday, citing opposition to the Obamacare repeal and replace efforts at a series of contentious town halls as a driving factor behind Republicans' inability to push through the American Health Care Act.

"I think one of the reasons this legislation went down today is that all over this country we had hundreds of thousands of people coming out to rallies," the Vermont senator told CNN's Anderson Cooper several hours after a canceled vote on the Republican health care bill.



"People began the process of fighting back. We have got to continue that," he added.

Sanders, who panned the Republican bill as merely a tax break for the rich, said that while the rising premiums that have plagued President Barack Obama's signature health care law are an issue, Congress should be focused on improving it, not replacing it.

The former Democratic presidential contender also deflected questions on whether the failed legislative bid constituted a significant loss for President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan.



"Nobody really cares that it's a failure of Trump or a failure of Ryan," he said. "What the American people are asking is how does it happen that we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right?"

Sanders, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, also scoffed at the Trump administration's comments lamenting the difficulty of pushing a health care bill through Congress.

"I thought it was rather amusing that a few weeks ago President Trump said health care's really complicated," he said "Well, you know, for those of us who are on the health education committee, those of us who had dozens of hearings and mark-ups, yeah, health care is pretty complicated."

"Nobody knew health care could be so complicated," Trump said on Feb. 28 during a gathering with the nation's governors.

Tax reform next? Maybe not

The GOP was counting on repeal of Obamacare and its nearly $1 trillion in taxes to help finance sweeping tax cuts.

By Aaron Lorenzo




Speaker of the House Paul Ryan introduces a House Republican tax reform proposal during a press conference with congressional Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on June 24. |

Republicans’ spectacular failure to repeal and replace Obamacare threatens to sabotage another cornerstone of their agenda, tax reform — because of simple math.

The GOP was counting on wiping out nearly $1 trillion in Obamacare taxes to help finance the sweeping tax cuts they’ve got planned for their next legislative act. And now it’s unclear where all that money will come from.

“This does make tax reform more difficult, but it does not in any way make it impossible,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said at a news conference on Friday. “We will proceed with tax reform.”

While Obamacare taxes will remain, he said, “We’re going to fix the rest of the tax code.”

But losing the revenue from Obamacare repeal is fueling speculation that Republicans will settle for just tax cuts rather than sweeping reform.

יום שני, 20 במרץ 2017

How Much Europe Can Europe Tolerate?

DANI RODRIK
Dani Rodrik is Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy and, most recently, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science.

CAMBRIDGE – This month the European Union will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its founding treaty, the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community. There certainly is much to celebrate. After centuries of war, upheaval, and mass killings, Europe is peaceful and democratic. The EU has brought 11 former Soviet-bloc countries into its fold, successfully guiding their post-communist transitions. And, in an age of inequality, EU member countries exhibit the lowest income gaps anywhere in the world.
But these are past achievements. Today, the Union is mired in a deep existential crisis, and its future is very much in doubt. The symptoms are everywhere: Brexit, crushing levels of youth unemployment in Greece and Spain, debt and stagnation in Italy, the rise of populist movements, and a backlash against immigrants and the euro. They all point to the need for a major overhaul of Europe’s institutions.
The Year Ahead 2017 Cover Image
So a new white paper on the future of Europe by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker comes none too soon. Juncker sets out five possible paths: carrying on with the current agenda, focusing just on the single market, allowing some countries to move faster than others toward integration, narrowing down the agenda, and pushing ambitiously for uniform and more complete integration.
It’s hard not to feel sympathy for Juncker. With Europe’s politicians preoccupied with their domestic battles and the EU institutions in Brussels a target for popular frustration, he could stick his neck out only so far. Still, his report is disappointing. It sidesteps the central challenge that the EU must confront and overcome.
If European democracies are to regain their health, economic and political integration cannot remain out of sync. Either political integration catches up with economic integration, or economic integration needs to be scaled back. As long as this decision is evaded, the EU will remain dysfunctional.
When confronted with this stark choice, member states are likely to end up in different positions along the continuum of economic-political integration. This implies that Europe must develop the flexibility and institutional arrangements to accommodate them.
From the very beginning, Europe was built on a “functionalist” argument: political integration would follow economic integration. Juncker’s white paper opens appropriately with a 1950 quote from the European Economic Community founder (and French prime minister) Robert Schuman: “Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.” Build the mechanisms of economic cooperation first, and this will prepare the ground for common political institutions.
This approach worked fine at first. It enabled economic integration to remain one step ahead of political integration – but not too far ahead. Then, after the 1980s, the EU took a leap into the unknown. It adopted an ambitious single-market agenda that aimed to unify Europe’s economies, whittling away at national policies that hampered the free movement not just of goods, but also of services, people, and capital. The euro, which established a single currency among a subset of member states, was the logical extension of this agenda. This was hyper-globalization on a European scale.
The new agenda was driven by a confluence of factors. Many economists and technocrats thought Europe’s governments had become too interventionist and that deep economic integration and a single currency would discipline the state. From this perspective, the imbalance between the economic and political legs of the integration process was a feature, not a bug.
Many politicians, however, recognized that the imbalance was potentially problematic. But they assumed functionalism would eventually come to the rescue: the quasi-federal political institutions needed to underpin the single market would develop, given sufficient time.
The leading European powers played their part. The French thought that shifting economic authority to bureaucrats in Brussels would enhance French national power and global prestige. The Germans, eager to gain France’s agreement to German reunification, went along.
There was an alternative. Europe could have allowed a common social model to develop alongside economic integration. This would have required integrating not only markets but also social policies, labor-market institutions, and fiscal arrangements. The diversity of social models across Europe, and the difficulty of reaching agreement on common rules, would have acted as a natural brake on the pace and scope of integration.
Far from being a disadvantage, this would have provided a useful corrective regarding the most desirable speed and extent of integration. The result might have been a smaller EU, more deeply integrated across the board, or an EU with as many members as today, but much less ambitious in its economic scope.
Today it may be too late to attempt EU fiscal and political integration. Less than one in five Europeans favor shifting power away from the member nation-states.

Optimists might say that this is due less to aversion to Brussels or Strasbourg per se than to the public’s association of “more Europe” with a technocratic focus on the single market and the absence of an appealing alternative model. Perhaps emerging new leaders and political formations will manage to sketch out such a model and generate excitement about a reformed European project.
Pessimists, on the other hand, will hope that in the corridors of power in Berlin and Paris, in some deep, dark corner, economists and lawyers are secretly readying a plan B to deploy for the day when loosening the economic union can no longer be postponed.

יום שבת, 18 במרץ 2017

'That's not how it works': Trump's grasp of Nato questioned after Merkel tweets

President’s claim that Germany owes the US ‘vast sums of money’ shows a lack of understanding, says ex-Nato representative

On the heels of a visibly awkward visit from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, Donald Trump said on Saturday that Germany owed “vast sums of money” to Nato and the US, even though the alliance does not stipulate payments to America.




Merkel and Trump can't hide fundamental differences in first visit



His remarks prompted a former US permanent representative to Nato to reply “that’s not how Nato works”, and to add that increased European spending on defense was not a “favor (or payment) to the US”.

Trump, who was at his Mar-a-Lago estate for the weekend and spending the morning at Trump International Golf Course, sent two tweets early in the day. The first denounced “the FAKE NEWS” for what he said was mistaken coverage of a “GREAT” meeting with Merkel.

Trump’s public appearances with Merkel betrayed an awkwardness between the two leaders, including during two widely remarked upon appearances in the White House. In one, the leaders failed to stage a handshake for cameras in the Oval Office, and in another Merkel looked baffled by comments made by Trump during a joint press conference. Before the visit Trump had repeatedly called Merkel’s policies “insane” and a “disaster” for Germany.



What is it with Trump and handshakes? This is getting awkward
 
Trump’s second tweet accused Germany directly of not paying enough to the security alliance.

In a joint press conference on Friday, Trump expressed “strong support” for Nato but reiterated his belief that member nations do not contribute a “fair share”.


“Many nations owe vast sums of money from past years and it is very unfair to the United States,” he said. “These nations must pay what they owe.”

He added: “During our meeting, I thanked Chancellor Merkel for the German government’s commitment to increase defense spending and work toward contributing at least 2% of GDP.”

Trump’s tweets on Saturday suggested a misunderstanding of the way Nato is funded. According to Nato’s official guidelines, member nations are expected to spend at least 2% of their country’s gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. However, only a handful of the 28 members actually meet that target.

At a 2014 summit in Wales, members pledged to increase their military spending to 2% of GDP by 2024, a goal some have said is unachievable and unrealistic for several member states.

Ultimately, members’ contributions are based on each nation’s capability. Therefore, Nato member nations do not “owe” or have to compensate any other country.

On Saturday Ivo Daalder, who was permanent representative to Nato from 2009 to 2013, respond to Trump in a series of tweets.

“Sorry, Mr President, that’s not how Nato works,” he wrote. “The US decides for itself how much it contributes to defending Nato. This is not a financial transaction, where Nato countries pay the US to defend them. It is part of our treaty commitment.

“All Nato countries, including Germany, have committed to spend 2% of GDP on defense by 2024. So far five of 28 Nato countries do. Those who currently don’t spend 2% of their GDP on defense are now increasing their defense budgets. That’s a good thing.


יום חמישי, 16 במרץ 2017

When marketing and politics collide





For brands in today’s highly polarized climate, being mentioned by a politician, whether positively or negatively, marks a radical change from traditional marketing theory.

When Samsung announces it is building a factory in the United States that is surely good for the brand in that market. But for Donald Trump to publicly congratulate the South Korean company in a tweet that will reach several tens of millions of people directly, and many more indirectly, is raises a number of questions. Does Donald Trump’s tweet help the brand? Could it increase sales among its customers or will it turn many away? Did Donald Trump talk to the company beforehand, or did he do it believing the decision reflected the success of his policies?

Last Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy personally recommended a book called “1,785 reasons why even a Norwegian would want to be Spanish”. The recommendation was, in this case, completely spontaneous, unsolicited and unexpected. Responses to the tweet, were polarized, with most negative, many of them coming from people in Catalunya who actually don’t want to be Spanish. The publisher of the book quickly thanked Rajoy for his support. Are we sure that the old quote “there is no such thing as bad publicity”, or, as Oscar Wilde puts it, “there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about” still holds true? Should we expect more book sales after the Rajoy mention?

For a marketing manager, responding to these situations is a challenge. Being seen to cozy up to a politician who divides opinion may alienate those who don’t support him or her, but in return for media coverage that in turn will only lead to higher sales if the politician in question’s supporters is a reasonable sociodemographic fit with the corresponding product or service.

Being seen to be opportunistic can also backfire, but failing to take advantage of a possible opportunity for visibility can also be a mistake. For brands, the current situation whereby some politicians are not afraid to break traditional rules and mix business with politics means writing new rules. Although some brands have been encouraged for decades to participate meaningfully in politics through advertising or statements, and some even consider it an essential part of their corporate social responsibility, this is usually the result of a carefully thought-out strategy rather than an off-the-cuff response to politician that puts the company in the spotlight with an unexpected tweet.

It is increasingly important for brands to have clear and coherent ethical principles and to decide which politicians they wish to be seen to be associated with: it is no longer enough to just have a good product or service, they also need to project a certain outlook and mind the company they keep.

We are witnessing a change in how we conceive of leadership: positioning without a powerful presence on the social networks could lead to real problems. Welcome to a whole new ballgame.

There’s a Troll Inside All of Us, Researchers Say



A study shows that even the most congenial can spew nastiness online if put under press

You probably think you’re a pretty nice person when it comes to making comments online, but new research indicates anyone can act like a troll under the right circumstances—even you.


Online harassment has been a problem for years, and it has only gotten worse, spreading from social networks like Twitter to the furthest reaches of the Internet.

So who, exactly, are these trolls? According to an experiment conducted by Stanford and Cornell researchers, it could be any one of us: they determined that being in a bad mood and seeing troll-like posts from other people on online articles made it more likely that people would then type nasty comments themselves. A paper on the work will be presented at a conference in Portland, Oregon, in late February.

The researchers say their work is meant to challenge the idea that the people spouting all this negativity are all antisocial, sitting in dark rooms writing comments on discussion forums and social networks. They also think it may be used to help predict when trolling is likely to occur.

To conduct their work, researchers first had to set the mood, so to speak. They did this by giving participants a quiz to complete in a set amount of time; some people received a trickier quiz in hopes of irritating them, researchers said, and others an easier one in hopes of making them happier. Participants then answered a list of questions meant to quantify their mood.

After that, they took part in an online discussion where they saw an article related to the presidential election that either had benign or troll-like comments tacked on to it. Researchers found the highest number of trolling posts occurred when people were in a negative mood and saw other mean comments already added to an article. Specifically, they determined that being in a bad mood raised the chances that someone would troll by 89 percent, and that seeing other people’s invective increased the chances 68 percent.

The researchers also analyzed 16 million comments on CNN’s website: a quarter of the posts flagged as abusive were written by people who hadn’t done that kind of thing in the past, and once a negative post appeared on an article, more negative posts tended to follow. They also found that the most negative behavior occurred in the evenings, and on Mondays—both times when research has already indicated that people’s moods may be worse.

But Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar, an assistant professor at Purdue University who studies trolling and online bullying, points out that just because someone makes a negative comment doesn’t always mean they’re trolling.

“I might actually feel that way. My profanity is an expression of an attitude that I hold, rather than it being something I’m trying to divert or upset you with,” she says.