• THE LAST WEEKS OF YEAR-END PRESSURES TYPICALLY CONFLICT WITH HOLIDAY ‘SPIRIT’ and together can distort the effectiveness of Owners & Leaders who find themselves juggling tasks rather than achieving meaningful outcomes by managing the time & energy of employees toward prioritized goals.  A few practical strategies to limit distractions are: (1) Setting boundaries on excessive meetings, unnecessary emails and low priority requests; (2) Delegating responsibilities that best align with specific strengths of each employee; (3) Encourage time-blocking with dedicated periods for focused work, admin tasks, and breaks for downtime which respects workers need to recharge; (4) Doing your best to maintain a gentle and smiling attitude. [VIVIAN CAMPBELL]
• ROUGHLY 20% OF 160,000 PEOPLE AGED 16 TO 65 IN 31 RICH COUNTRIES (OVER 25% IN THE U.S.) performed no better in tests of reading, math & problem-solving than kids completing 5^th grade. While literary and numeracy peak at around age 30, cognitive skills have been consistently stagnating, impacting skills necessary to hold a job, participate in civic life, and generally thrive in the real world (like even making sense of warnings on back of prescription meds). Adults who do badly in the OECD-administered tests “earn vastly less, are poorer in health, less satisfied with their life, less trusting of others, and more likely to feel they have no voice in politics. Increased migration and language skills accounts for some of this, and people with the weakest skills tend to have the least time for self-improvement through adult classes or training. But in America, it’s the education system which is failing, while ‘educators’ are simply ‘junking’ tests that were in the past used to determine who graduated from high school, and while Grades inflate unchecked, and TikTok gets blamed.”  [ECONOMIST – 12/14/24]
• CONTINUOUSLY ADVANCING ‘AGI’ – Artificial General Intelligence – “could develop conscious motives independent from and potentially dangerous to human interests, could pose an existential threat to humanity, and we need to ‘seriously think about unplugging it,’ says Google’s former CEO. While AGI would have many benefits to humanity, it could have just as many bad things like weapons and cyberattacks, with systems used to engineer crippling biological and nuclear weapons, particularly by terror groups like ISIS. While AGI systems are inevitable, this will require massive cooperation among both corporate interests and government to avoid potentially devastating consequences.”  [EPOCH TIMES – 12/16/24]
• “IT’S A NEW ERA OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS —a new order. Realism is vindicated, its urgency even more eloquently exposed by its detractors than by its proponents.  The transnational, indeed anti-national, liberal establishment that has in recent decades ruled over us—has presided over an unprecedentedly fast transfer of power away from the West and towards its main geopolitical competitors. Four years ago, the election of Joe Biden as America’s commander-in-chief was celebrated by the left-wing press as the return of sanity to the White House, with Biden using his capital of experience to rebuild global tranquility. The opposite happened—and dramatically so. If the Democrats had wished to preserve the so-called ‘rules-based international order’—that is, the hegemony of the United States under the ideological cloak of liberal internationalism—they can, rather, pride themselves in accelerating its demise. Biden’s strategy of speaking loudly and carrying a small stick has failed to deter; it has emboldened and solidified anti-Western coalitions. It has brought Europe—and, indeed, the entire human species—to the brink of thermonuclear war.”   [https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/realism-vindicated/]
•                         THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:
• California’s gas tax is already highest in the nation (as well as it’s consequence being some of the highest fuel prices), but be ready for more to come. The tax is projected to increase up to another 90 cents per gallon next year, according to USC analysis – just another reason why some 87,000 professionals left the state in the past three months, most for Texas & Arizona.

• “We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress…”  [WILL ROGERS]

• “The secret of a good speech is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.”  [GEORGE BURNS]