openpolitics.com

A remembrance of music legend Ray Charles with music producer Phil Ramone, musician Marcus Roberts, "Time" editor Christopher John Farley and "Rolling Stone" editor Anthony Decurtis.

The definition of soul (Ray Charles): "When someone listens to your voice and thinks you've been though the experience you're singing about (24:55)

What follows is an attempt to tease out the many different worldviews Americans are referring to when they invoke the word conservative -- and then to figure out which of these worldviews best describe Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul, the choices before Republicans

5) An embrace of free-market capitalism, and a belief in the legitimacy of market outcomes.

As a company and as individuals, we are defined by our values. Unfortunately some people are questioning Apple’s values today, and I’d like to address this with you directly. We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are.

For the many hundreds of you who are based at our suppliers’ manufacturing sites around the world, or spend long stretches working there away from your families, I know you are as outraged by this as I am. For the people who aren’t as close to the supply chain, you have a right to know the facts.

Because when you fire a person the wrong way — that is, without generosity and respect — you can be sure of two things.

1. You’ve hurt someone unnecessarily.
2. And you’ve set up your organization for a future relationship from hell. After all, terminated employees don’t just fade away. They usually reappear, and pretty rapidly, as customers, suppliers, distributors, or in the worst-case scenario, competitors with an ax to grind.

By the way, this is a column about Ron Paul.

.. But Paul is not really the GOP’s problem. It’s his followers, perhaps as much as 15 percent of the general electorate, many of them young, vocal and highly energized. Like Paul himself, they’re not exactly party regulars. No, Paul and his followers promise to be a lot like that fired employee who, if “handled” incorrectly at farewell, will make it his life’s work to, if not bring your organization down, at least show you how very wrong you were to cut the cord.

‘‘We cannot continue to see chief executives’ pay rising at 13 percent a year while the performance of companies on the stock exchange languishes well behind,’’ Cable told Parliament on Monday. ‘‘And we can’t accept top pay rising at five times the rate of average workers’ pay as it did last year.’’ Chilling words for the City, especially since Cable serves in the cabinet of a Conservative prime minister.

.. But the hard part is embracing higher taxes or a lower salary. ‘‘I personally believe that when it comes to policy, you shouldn’t be pursuing self-interest but the public interest,’’ Soros said. But Davos Man prefers to believe in a world of ‘‘kumbaya’’ capitalism, where self-interest and the public interest would coincide. Openly insisting that this is not always the case is how Soros really has betrayed his class.