Only after a president leaves office do I start to understand how skilled and informed a person he is. (Of course I expect revelations of a different sort if Bush gives any public talks after his term ends.)Clinton's speech, live on CSPAN, kept me in the same spot on the couch for the duration. I do not usually like to listen to speeches. But this was really, really interesting.

He talked about The Big Sort, a concept written about by journalist Bill Bishop. More and more, we have "hunkered down in like-minded communities," sorting ourselves -- into right and left, white, black, Hispanic; etc, etc. We tend to live with our like. We listen to or read our news from programs which are segregated according to our beliefs. FoxNews, MSNBC, etc.

He pointed out the extreme difficulty of taking action on large problems when we're divided like this. We tend not to even talk to people who are not in our group.

The point about the news really struck me. It's true, I don't like talking to people whose opinions are right-wing. It feels like a battle to try.




Clinton's talk was very much concerned with people, not businesses; he mentioned how many poor people do not have bank accounts and as a result cash their paychecks at stores, giving up huge fees every time. While he said that immigrants, especially illegal ones, are the largest group of users of those check-cashing/payday loan stores, this is a problem all governors should want to address no matter their take on immigration, he said. The poorer consumers are, and the more poor people there are, the worse the economy, which depends on good circulation of money.

He talked about green loans, or rather retrofitting buildings to make them energy efficient.

I've read about green loans. They're a great concept and could do a lot to assist the homebuilding & mortgage industries. Too bad Fannie Mae and Freddie were the lenders behind many of the federally guaranteed ones...