Daily Thoughts 06/10/2014

Susan B. Anthony, Seated, Facing Left, Reading.
Daily Thoughts 06/10/2014

On the way to work, I read some more of Capital In the Twenty First Century.  One of the things which the author describes is that countries that develop quickly invest in their own people first improving their skills and knoweldge before reaching out to outside capital. Also, it is people who invest in skills and knowledge then become high level managers who earn the most.  This is because high level managers tend to control their own pay structures.  I find myself thinking about some of the ideas in the book in terms of my own personal finances.  Somehow, Thomas Piketty is able to express very abstract concepts in simple terms.

I also read a little more of Are Libraries Obsolete?  I am reading about e-books.  Mark Y. Herring is describing how scholarly books tend to be the last material to become e-books.

I checked the Twitter and Facebook for the library this morning.  I also checked the displays. I spent some time working on the oversize book collection.  There are some things which need shifting.

I also spent some time working on programs and printing up flyers.  Our Adult Summer Reading program is coming soon and we need to be prepared for it.

I finished reading War and Gold A 500 Year History of Empires, Adventures, and Debt by Kwasi Kwarteng.   The last part covered the "fiscal cliff" in the United States and the Greek debt crisis with the Euro.  The book is quite political and international in its observations.  I found it quite readable and accessible.

The book successfully showed how governments went from gold to paper money backed by gold to floating currencies controlled by the political machinations of government banks.  It gave me a better understanding of how money works in the political sense.  Money and politics are not separate.

Web Bits

Paris Review Interview No. 39 The Art of Fiction Jorge Luis Borges

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4331/the-art-of-fiction-no-39-jorge-luis-borges

A New Vision of Advocacy Reflecting Upstream and Downstream
http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/article/new-vision-advocacy