Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - November 16, 2014

Brian Gongol


Podcast: Updated weekly in the wee hours of Sunday night/Monday morning. Subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or iHeartRadio


Please note: These show notes may be in various stages of completion -- ranging from brainstormed notes through to well-polished monologues. Please excuse anything that may seem rough around the edges, as it may only be a first draft of a thought and not be fully representative of what was said on the air.

Charities

To a large extent, I think nonprofits fail to realize they need to compete for attention and donations *as if* they are selling commercial products. Sure, the value proposition is different (I donate money and someone else gets the benefits), but I demand results. I want to *see* evidence that my donations are working. I may personally be more systematic about my donations than most (I keep a chart of causes, donate to each equally every year, and raise the amount donated consistently), but I appreciate those orgs that then use CRM tools to make sure I don't get irrelevant appeals or feedback -- but that also make it easy for me to share news of their successes with others.

This week

The American Way Germany celebrates 25 years of reunification
Capitalism won. Communism lost. And yet market economies only work if they are actively defended every single day against well-meaning idiots and malicious statists.

Threats and Hazards How serious are we about our eastern-frontier NATO allies?
Russia is aggressively showing off its military hardware around the Baltic (and elsewhere). How seriously should we take these displays, and are we deadly serious about going to war to defend our allies if they are attacked?

Business and Finance Putin says he expects a "catastrophic" lull in oil prices, but reserves can handle it
Russia has long ridden natural-resources bonanzas (thanks to the country's enormous size, it has access to more of those than most nations do). But you can't build a durable economy on natural resources without a real market strategy. Very few countries get this right.

Threats and Hazards Kurdish group says ISIS/ISIL/QSIL has 200,000 fighters
The longer the group holds its positions, the more entrenched they become in the public mindset -- and that's what the group wants

Business and Finance More signs of trouble that the Chinese economy is slowing
Big consequences could result for the rest of the world

Threats and Hazards White House intrusion incident: Everything that could have failed or gone wrong, did

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