Category Archives: news

February 9, 2009 · 8:35 am

News Day – February 9: Stimulus and sabotage; Fletcher’s cops go to jail; St. Paul pays protester; Milking the consumer, screwing the farmer; Holocaust-denying bishop in MN; and more

Stimulus and sabotage If you want to understand the depths of the country’s economic trouble, and what to begin doing about it, Nobel Prize-winning economist Pau Krugman is must reading. He has a regular column and a blog at the New York Times. You can subscribe to either or both through a variety of RSS feeds. A sample from last Friday’s really scary column:

It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world. …

Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

As you think about Republicans’ attempts to sabotage the economic stimulus package, remember how well they did with with the bank bailout, per the AP report published in the Strib

The Bush administration overpaid tens of billions of dollars for stocks and other assets in its massive bailout last year of Wall Street banks and financial institutions, a new study by a government watchdog says.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a report released Friday, said last year’s overpayments amounted to a taxpayer-financed $78 billion subsidy of the firms.

There’s much more, if you can bear to read it. (Or you can read the official report.)

More wrong answers in MN T-Paw’s broadband committee decided that MN should not use stimulus money for ready-to-go broadband projects in MN. Steve Alexander writes in the Strib that the Pawlenty’s Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force’s rejection of the funds came after Comcast and other private providers objected.

The list of ready-to-go broadband projects in Minnesota included a $27.5 million municipal broadband system in Monticello, a $5.4 million Minnesota Department of Health plan to expand rural health care, and a $2,500 project to extend high-speed Internet service to a library in Worthington. Other projects included a $19.6 million plan to provide high-speed Internet to 11 Minnesota communities, including Cannon Falls, Zumbrota and Lake City, and an $18.5 million Internet-TV-telephone system in North St. Paul.

And in another area, Met Council chief Peter Bell says he wants to use stimulus money to pay off the operating deficit, rather than to expand metro transit. MPR reports:

Bell’s suggestion for how the money could be used for something it isn’t intended for, illustrates a dilemma facing stimulus supporters — that money will be moved from account to account to keep everything legal, but in the end nothing gets done that wasn’t going to get done anyway.

Milking the consumer, screwing the farmer MPR forwards a brief report from the West Central Tribune about plunging milk prices, which fell from about $20 a hundredweight last fall to half that now. Farmers are losing money — nothing new there — and consumers haven’t even noticed. I’ve been working on an article on the food industry recently, so I can offer a little more detail.

The farmer sees very little of the consumer food dollar — about 17 cents for the wheat in a loaf of bread or ten cents for the corn in a box of corn flakes. All the rest goes to processing, marketing, advertising, and everyone else’s profits.

Milk provides the most dramatic example. There are approximately 12 gallons in a hundredweight of milk. (Farmers get paid by the hundredweight, consumers pay by the gallon.) At the tip top of the farm price cycle, the farmer got $1.71 per gallon of milk. That same gallon of milk cost $3.80 in the supermarket. The farmer’s price for milk at the beginning of 2009 had dropped to about 92 cents per gallon. The price in the supermarket? Still over $3.80.

Quote of the day Remember that Holocaust-denying Catholic bishop, who also thinks that “Judeo-Masonry brought about the first two world wars”? Turns out he headed up a seminary in Winona, and lived there from 1988-2003, according to a long and interesting article in the Winona Daily News. But the quote of the day, from a September 2001 letter written by Bishop Richard Williamson, came to me last week, courtesy of my web-surfing partner:

…[A]lmost no girl should go to any university! The deep-down reason is the same as for the wrongness of women’s trousers: the unwomaning of woman… [S]ince she is not respected and loved for being a woman, she tries to make herself a man. Since modem man does not want her to do what God meant her to do, namely to have children, she takes her revenge by invading all kinds of things that man is meant to do..…[O]nly in modern times have women dreamt of going to university, but the idea has now become so normal that even Catholics… may have difficulty in seeing the problem. […A]ny Catholic…recognizes that women should not be priests – can he deny that if few women went to university, almost none would wish to be priests? Alas, women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God’s Nature [of] our times. That girls should not be in universities flows from the nature of universities and…girls.

(You read it here, and you might have trouble finding it elsewhere – the bishop or his Society of St. Pius X have removed his papers from the web.)

MN Job Watch As PiPress union employees reluctantly voted to accept management’s proposal for a one-week unpaid furlough between now and April 30, Strib employees got minimal good news, reports David Brauer in MinnPost. A bankruptcy judge reversed the Strib’s earlier position, and said that the newspaper must pay 43 workers who accepted buyouts between April and September 2008 the full amount of their buyout contracts. The Strib had asked the court for permission to make the payouts. On the other hand, Strib publisher Chris Harte warned that revenue continues to slide, and axed many benefits for non-union employees while asking union employees to accept a double-digit pay cut.

In Owatonna, SPX is laying off 100 workers, about 14% of its workforce. The cuts are part of 400 layoffs nationwide for the NC-based company, which makes tools, shop equipment and automotive components.

The Recount grinds on On MinnPost, Jay Weiner captures the mind-numbing tedium of the recount trial, without losing sight of the weight of the decisions being made. Is an end in sight? No.

We, the People “The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?” That’s just one of the questions on the new on-line citizenship study guide being piloted by the Minnesota Literacy Council. Katherine Glover writes in MinnPost that the new citizenship self-study materials are part of a larger project called Learner Web, which is developing programs includeing GED prep, computer skills and family literacy for eventual release to the public in the form of open source software. The MLC decided to go with citizenship prep software because of “Teacher Ron,” Ron Mazurowski, who has been teaching citizenship for more than 10 years and helped to put together the material. Check out the materials on-line.

St. Paul pays protester The city will pay $5,000 to anti-war activist Mick Kelly, who sued the city after he was arrested while passing out leaflets outside a Barack Obama rally at the Xcel Energy Center in June. The leaflets promoted RNC protests, and Kelly was later shot by police with a non-lethal weapon during the RNC. Kelly plans a second lawsuit over that incident. City Attorney John Choi emphasized that the settlement did not include any admission of wrongdoing by the city, reported Laura Yuen on MPR.

Ramsey County Sheriff’s employees sent to jail Two employees caught taking money in an FBI corruption sting were sentenced to nearly three years in prison on Friday, reports David Hanners in the PiPress. The two were close friends and confidants of Sheriff Bob Fletcher. Their attorney continued to insist that the two had only taken the $6,000 as a joke, writes James Walsh in the Strib, but U.S. District Judge Patrtick Schiltz “told the men that their actions were no laughing matter, but a violation of the public trust.” Fletcher declined to comment.

Leave a comment

Filed under news

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

February 6, 2009 · 10:42 am

News Day – February 6: Real unemployment numbers, Ford and PiPress jobs, early grad proposal

Unemployment — 7.6% or 15.4%? Federal figures released today show 7.6% unemployment in January, up 0.4% over December. Jobs lost during January numbered 598,000, according to the official count, for a total of 3.6 million jobs lost since the recession officially began in December 2007. Of course, those figures are not final, since job losses are revised monthly. Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised December job loss figures upward, from 524,000 to 577,000.

The numbers are mind-boggling, but what do they mean? Official unemployment counts only those people actively looking for work. So-called discouraged workers (who have given up), and people who are underemployed or, in the parlance of BLS, “marginally attached,” don’t count. The official unemployment rate of 7.6% is called U-3 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A far bigger number, called U-6, measures

Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers

That number is 15.4 percent in January, up from 13.5 percent in December.

The Washington Post reported new jobless claims of 626,000 in January, a 25-year high and much larger than the previously-predicted 591,000. About 4.8 million people are currently collecting unemployment compensatoin.

MN Job Watch In St. Paul, Pioneer Press Newspaper Guild workers will vote today on a management request that they take five unpaid days off between February 9 and April 30, reports David Brauer in MinnPost. Without the furlough, workers may face more layoffs, in addition to the eight workers laid off in January. (Of course, the furlough proposal offers no guarantee against future layoffs.) According to MPR, the furloughs would affect 307 union employees and a little more than 400 workers in all.

Also in St. Paul, Ford Ranger plant workers will have another two weeks of lay-off (next week and a week in March), reports Liz Fedor in the Strib. The new lay-off announcement came shortly after workers returned from a six-week lay-off in December and January. For Ranger sales dropped by 49.3 percent in January, and the plant is scheduled for closure in 2011.

Ametech Inc., a New Ulm plant that makes electrical servo motors, will leave MN for locations in Pennsylvania and North Carolina by September. The company has 80 employees in New Ulm, and about 11,000 employees worldwide, according to AP.

Get out of high school early GOP Rep. Pat Garofalo (Farmington) wants to pay high school students to graduate early, reports the Strib via AP. He proposes to give a scholarship of $2500 per semester for students who graduate up to three semesters early, thereby saving the state money because per pupil funding is greater than that amount. DFL Rep. Mindy Greiling says this might be a bad deal for students, who could earn credits for even less money by taking PSEO or College in the Schools courses. Questions about whether the scholarship would have to be used in MN or within the U of M/MNSCU systems or all in the first year or prorated over four years remain unanswered, as the bill has not been formally introduced yet.

Farming by the numbers As a former farm girl and a long-time wonk, I find the new federal ag census fascinating. Here are some of the numbers for MN and the nation.

Leave a comment

Filed under news

Tagged as , , , ,

February 5, 2009 · 11:18 am

News Day – February 5: DHS and MN Somalis, Snyder closing stores, World/National notes

Maybe more news later … working to finish a freelance article today, in addition to the usual TC Daily Planet editing, so I’m in even more of a time crunch than usual.

Homeland Security “engages” with MN Somalis The Department of Homeland Security has an Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. (Who knew?) That office is coming to MN to “engage” with the Somali community, reports Laura Yuen on MPR. The feds will talk to key local government officials this week, and plan a community roundtable for some time in March.

The FBI has recently suggested that about a dozen young MN Somali men may have gone to Somalia to fight with the Islamist Al Shabab militia. According to BBC Al Shabab “are the youth and military wing of a group of Sharia courts known as the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) – who controlled Mogadishu and much of southern and central Somalia in 2006.”

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, but the UIC stopped much of the violence, crime and banditry in the areas they controlled. They were driven out by an Ethiopian invasion, supporting a Somali transitional federal government with the political backing of the United States.

Abdullahi Yusuf served as president of that transitional federal government for four years, but resigned in December as Ethiopian troops pulled out of Somalia. Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein has attempted to reach a peace agreement with Islamist militants, and a former leader of the UIC, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, was elected president in January. During its six months as the effective government of most of Somalia, the UIC was seen as comprised of moderates and hardliners, and Ahmed was identified with the moderates.

MN Job Watch Minnetonka-based Snyder Drug Stores will close 19 of its 47 corporate stores in Minnesota in March, reports MPR. Thirty independently-owned Snyder store will not be affected. The closings will leave “hundreds” of Snyder employees jobless.

GOP legislators are pushing legislation mandating a wage freeze for all public employees, according to Mark Brunswick in the Strib. The two-year freeze would apply to lump sum and cost-of-living adjustments as well as salaries for state, local, MNSCU, and school district employees — which sounds like no collective bargaining for two years and nullification of contracts already in place.

WORLD/NATIONAL NOTES – Gaza, DTV, Children’s Health Care, Half a Million?

Gaza aid intercepted by Israel Israeli military forces stopped a Lebanese ship bearing medical supplies, food, clothing and toys for Gaza, along with ” eight activists and journalists, as well as the former Greek-Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem, Monsignor Hilarion Capucci, who had served time in an Israeli jail in the 1970s for his membership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO),” reports BBC. Yesterday, in Gaza, UN officials said that Hamas seized “thousands of blankets and food parcels that were meant to be distributed to Palestinian civilians in Gaza” that the UN was preparing to distribute to civilians.

DTV on hold until June–mostly The House agreed to delay DTV implementation until June 12, removing the last barrier to delay. Despite the delay, some broadcasters may still turn off their analog signals on the original February 17 date, as they are not required to continue broadcasting on analog, reports Julio Ojeda-Zapata in the PiPress. In other media-tech news, the Minnesota Daily reports that Minneapolis wi-fi should be completed by the end of March. The Daily report recalls earlier promises that the system would be complete by April 2008.

“Only” half a million dollars The Obama administration plans to cap exec salaries at half a mil for those companies receiving new federal bailout money. That’s more than the presidenet of the U.S. makes, but not enough, according to a business salary experts quoted in the NYT:

“That is pretty draconian, $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. … Mr. Reda said only a handful of big companies pay chief executives and other senior executives $500,000 or less in total compensation. He said such limits will make it hard for the companies to recruit and keep executives, most of whom could earn more money at other firms.

The Daily Kos puts the case for salary caps succinctly:

Remember, it was the guys making $20 million and more per year who created this mess.

So, what’s required to get competent managers in these positions? Remember that McCaskill pegged her maximum CEO salary to the salary of the President of the United States. Are we to believe that a CEO making $20 million per year is 50 times more impressive and talented than the President of the United States? (OK, granted, the answer to that question is different today than it was three weeks ago.) And are we to believe that the only reason anyone does a job, in particular these high profile, very powerful jobs, is for the money?

Score one for the children President Obama signed the children’s health bill yesterday, expanding coverage for uninsured children, reports the NYT:

The Congressional Budget Office says the bill will enable states to cover more than four million uninsured children by 2013, while continuing coverage for seven million youngsters. The bill will increase tobacco taxes to offset the increase in spending, estimated at more than $32 billion over four and a half years.

In a major change, the bill allows states to cover certain legal immigrants — namely, children under 21 and pregnant women — as well as citizens.

1 Comment

Filed under news

Tagged as , , , ,

February 3, 2009 · 10:56 am

News Day – February 3: Let them eat arts, RNC mistrial, undercounting the homeless, and more

Let them eat arts T-Paw’s plan to turn the Perpich Center for Arts Education into a charter school may have bipartisan support, writes Norman Draper in the Strib. Make that bipartisan support for killing the Perpich Center, which has been a proud national model of a statewide arts school and a center for arts education that sends staff to assist in arts education across the state and provides training sessions and resources for arts teachers from across the state. This is not a slam on charter schools – the fact is that the Guv’s move means cutting all the funding that enables Perpich to provide arts education for students and teachers, leaving it with state funding that pays only a per-pupil allotment equal to the funding formula for every other public school student. “Converting to a charter” in this case means taking away state resources, with no way to replace them. The Strib quotes Rudy Perpich, Jr.: “As my parents said, ‘Arts are always the first thing to be cut.”

Free–at last, sort of, at least for a while The jury deadlocked in the federal trial of RNC protester David McKay, accused of Molotov cocktail making and possession. While a March 16 retrial date has been set, the judge let McKay go free on bail. Writing in the PiPress, David Hanners reported that jurors apparently deadlocked over McKay’s claim that he would never have had anything to do with Molotov cocktails, but for the goaoding of federal informant Brandon Darby. McKay’s attorney said he was “a kid who came here to throw trash in the street,” not a bomber.

First-hand history recovered Almost a century after Lakota Chief Martin White Horse dictated stories about his community to Florence May Thwing, the typewritten document detailing 100 years of Lakota (Sioux) history has been re-discovered in a trunk by Thwing’s great-granddaughter. The winter count includes an entry for each year from 1790 to 1910, reports MPR:
(1835) In the year of stars moving in the sky.

(1845) In this year the Sioux Indians were starving and dying for lack of food because there had been no buffalos in their country for a long time. So they took the head of an old buffalo and painted it red, and placed it in a tepee and worshipped it with much singing and other things, and asked this buffalo head to send them buffalos to where they are located inside the boundary line. Their prayers were successful and many buffalos came to the place where they were camped, so the Sioux had again plenty of food.

MN Job Watch Macy’s announced Monday that it will cut 7,000 jobs, about four percent of its workforce, AP reports in the Strib. According to the Strib/AP report, Macy’s is centralizing, and its central buying, merchandise planning, stores senior management and marketing functions will be located primarily in New York. No word yet on any job cuts in MN, but Macy’s already closed its regional HQ in Minneapolis last year, cutting about 950 jobs, and announced the closing of its Brookdale store last month.

In Eden Prairie, ADC Telecommunications announced a general hiring freeze and plans for unspecified layoffs, reports Leslie Suzukamo in the PiPress. ADC announced layoffs of 160-190 MN workers in October as part of a global reduction in force. The Eden Prairie-based company has about 10,500 workers worldwide, and announced a quarterly loss of 17-23 cents per share.

TPM says RNC Chair Michael Steele is coming “straight outta Hooverville,” with his bogus claim that: “Not in the history of mankind has the goverment ever created a job,” saying “This is such transparent nonsense it’s hard to know where to start … Has Steele every heard of government road building? Defense spending? … ” Ann Markusen writes in MinnPost that “Few elements of the forthcoming stimulus program would pump money into the economy faster and more efficiently than the funds to states to refresh depleted unemployment insurance, social safety nets, and college aid programs.”

(Under)counting the homeless January is the wrong time to count homeless people, reports Madeleine Baran in the TC Daily Planet, but that’s the time mandated by the federal government. In a related article, Session Weekly reports that one in eight Minnesota households spends more than half its income on housing, and that the average cost for rentals is now higher than $900/month. All that, as Twin Cities home values fell 10 percent last year, according to Jim Buchta in the Strib.

Leave a comment

Filed under news

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

February 2, 2009 · 9:13 am

News Day – February 2: Health at risk, MN not-so-nice for minorities, Punxsatawney Phil and more

Health at risk No, not salmonella this time — the bigger health risk comes from lack of money. Kathlyn Stone, writing in the TC Daily Planet, tells the story of Jean Bender, who “is worried about the next round of Health and Human Services cuts that will make it harder to afford the care needed by her developmentally and physically disabled child.” Chen May Lee reports in the Star Tribune that more than a thousand local health care employees have been laid off since last year, and big construction projects have been postponed as the recession means people just can’t pay for health care.

“In the past, people were delaying vacations or new automobile [purchases],” said Steve Hine, director of labor market information at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. “This time around, they’re even cutting back on their health care.”

Meanwhile, the Daily Planet reports on the debate in the legislature over single-payer health care reform.

Minnesota not-so-nice “Economically, Minnesotans are blessed with a Lake Wobegon, above-average life. As long as they’re white,” writes Richard Chin in the PiPress. In appalling and statistically-backed detail, he goes on to describe a state where whites are better off than the rest of the nation as measured by income, unemployment and poverty levels, and black Minnesotans are worse off, and where the gaps between white and black Minnesotans continue to grow. Read the whole article for an alarming wake-up call.

Punxsutawney Phil: ONLY six more weeks of winter! I’ve never understood why the groundhog seeing his shadow was so bad. Here in the northland, ending winter on St. Patrick’s Day, instead of suffering through another round of March blizzards, sounds pretty good.

DTV or no TV? If the scheduled switchover to all-DTV goes ahead as planned on February 17, more than six million U.S. households will see nothing but snow on their screens, according to the latest Nielsen figures. After Senate voted unanimously to delay DTV until June, the House voted down the delay, but now is scheduled to take a second look later this week. Funds for the $40 coupon to apply toward the cost of a digital converter box ran out weeks ago. (And then there’s the whole problem of antennas and of which wall in which room of your home a converter box/antenna set-up must be situated in order to work.) Martin Moylan reports on MPR that MN broadcasters are split on whether the delay is needed, and that some think it will cost them up to a thousand dollars a day to delay the switch.

Nullifying the amendment Conservation and arts advocates succeeded in getting the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment passed to guarantee additional funding, because, they told voters, the legislature and governor couldn’t be counted on to maintain commitments to the outdoors, clean water, parks and arts projects. Now, reports Dennis Lien at MPR, they charge that Gov.Tim Pawlenty is about to slash arts adn conservation funding so that the amendment, instead of bringing new funding, will substitute for traditional funding sources. They point to a 50 percent cut for the State Arts Board and regional arts councils, a $1.9 million cut from MPCA clean water funds and $1.3 million from the DNR division of waters, along with a $5.5 million cut from the DNR’s fish and wildlife division. In the Strib, Doug Smith writes that DNR Fish and Wildlife funds will be cut, losing all of the $2.8 million general fund dollars previously allocated. That leaves the division funded “almost entirely” by hunting and fishing license fees, reducing funds for research on fish and wildlife populations and habitat, land and water habitat management, environmental review, shoreline restoration funds, and conservation officers.

Leave a comment

Filed under news

Tagged as , , , ,

January 29, 2009 · 10:00 am

News Day – January 29: Stimulus heads for MN; St. Paul “cutting the bone”

Economic Stimulus – despite GOP no votes President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package passed the House without a single Republican vote, despite his outreach efforts. Paul Krugman, Nobel-prize winning NYT economics columnist asks, “Aren’t you glad that Obama watered it down and added ineffective tax cuts, so as to win bipartisan support?” The Daily Kosexcoriates the eleven Dems who voted against the stimulus, and especially Blue Dog Jim Cooper (D-TN) for “his FU to Obama” after getting the Pres to agree to a February “fiscal responsibility summit.”

Back in MN, the Strib and both pick up an AP report saying that MN will get more than $477 million from the plan to upgrade highways and bridges, as part of the $30 billion national transportation package.

Cutting the bone “Anticipate park and library closures, and public safety reductions.” That’s the message from St. Paul, in light of reductions in Local Government Aid under the Pawlenty budget plan. The PiPress reports that city’s entire budget is about $200 million annually, and that Mayor Coleman says the city has to cut $43.8 million. That, says council member Melvin Carter, means cutting the bone. For example, closing all libraries and eliminating all 34 rec centers would save only $36 million.

And — big surprise here — Tom Scheck at MPR reports that business groups like Pawlenty’s tax cut plans, which would reduce business taxes by $268 million over the next two years.

Goodbye, Challenge The MN Housing Finance Agency said it will cut $8.5 million from the Challenge Program, which funds new affordable home construction, in response to the governor’s budget cuts. Session Daily reported that the agency plans to focus on rehabilitating existing housing stock and subsidizing rentals, and wants $1.5 million transferred from the state Disaster Relief Contingency Fund to help 80 families currently living in shelters, which would require declaration of a federal disaster.

MN Job Watch U.S. union ranks are growing, reports the Washington Post, showing “the first significant increase in 25 years.” The numbers are still small, with union membership growing from 12.1 percent in 2007 to 12.4 percent in 2008, according to the BLS. In the 1950s, union membership was about one-third of the work force. Union leaders said most of the growth came in government workers, as private employers continued to use union-busting tactics to intimidate employees. The BLS report says only 7.6 percent of private-sector employees are unionized, compared to 37 percent of government employees. According to an AP report, Minnesota union membership dropped from 16.3 percent of the work force in 2007 to 16.1 percent in 2008, with the number of union workers dropping from 400,000 in 2007 to about 392,000 in 2008.

In other MN job news, the Rochester Post-Bulletin reports that IBM laid off workers yesterday, but has not released number son how many, and may be making more cuts.

Ramstad to Harvard The PiPress reports (via AP) that former U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad is heading off to Harvard. Ramstad will be a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics.

Bad news drives bank stock prices higher That’s right. Financial stocks rose even as banks showed bigger losses. Wells Fargo stocks went up 31 percent, reported Chris Serres in the Strib, despite its announcement of “a multibillion-dollar loss, falling revenue and a doubling of bad loans.” The Strib says that investors thought the news would be even worse. And they may also be reacting to hopes for more bailout money. To be fair, Wells Fargo’s losses have something to do with a one-time event:

Wells Fargo executives, by contrast, appear to be preparing for the worst by taking dramatic steps to shore up its balance sheet after buying Wachovia, which is saddled with many exotic mortgage loans that are going soar as the housing market deflates. On Wednesday, Wells Fargo said it took $37.2 billion in credit write-downs Dec. 31 related to Wachovia’s loan portfolio. The bank also increased its allowance for loan losses — money banks set aside to cover bad loans — to $21.7 billion in the fourth quarter from $8 billion as of Sept. 30.

Leave a comment

Filed under news

Tagged as , , ,

January 23, 2009 · 9:39 am

MN Job Watch – January 23

MN Job Watch As expected, MN unemployment jumped again in December, to an official 6.9 percent. Official MN unemployment increased by 13,900 workers, which raised the total number of unemployed MN workers to 202,800. Jeff van Wychen in MN 2020 writes that is probably the highest number since the Great Depression. Employers cut 11,800 jobs in December, and November’s job loss numbers were revised upward (surprise!) to 13,366. According to the MN Department of Employment and Economic Development:

Overall, there were 2.9 unemployed workers for each job vacancy statewide. This ratio indicates that the second quarter 2008 labor market was the least favorable for job seekers during the history of the job vacancy series dating back to fourth quarter 2000.

The Strib put a hopeful headline spin on the bad news saying the report “hints slide may be nearing bottom.” Not clear to me that there’s any factual basis that conclusion.

In rare good news, despite Microsoft’s plan to cut 5,000 jobs worldwide, the software giant says it still plans to open a new software development office in the Twin Cities. Leslie Brooks Suzukamo reports in the PiPress that the office will employ fewer than the originally-planned 55 employees. It’s not clear how the worldwide job cuts will affect about 100 employees in Microsoft’s Bloomington sales office. And on another front, Session Daily reports that, “It may not be the best deal Minnesota could get, but an airline agreement will still keep thousands of jobs in the state.”

NPR’s Planet Money notes that jobless claims nationally continue to rise, with the labor market “a disaster area,” and that other indicators also point downward, with housing starts dropping and the Consumer Price Index continuing a deflationary downturn. You might think lower prices are good, but the experts say that’s not necessarily true. NPR quotes High Frequency Economics’ chief economist Carl Weinberg to explain why:

If people perceive themselves to be bogged down in a deflation, they will behave accordingly. They will defer purchases because they expect the price of a new coat or refrigerator or iPod to be lower in a few months than it is right now. Indeed, all the people in the world who are deferring house purchases rather than borrow money to buy a depreciating asset . . .are demonstrating deflationary behavior. . . . This will make the recessions in the developed market economies worse than they might have been in an environment of rising prices.

Leave a comment

Filed under news

Tagged as , ,

January 23, 2009 · 9:35 am

News Day – January 23

Cut the trees and plow under the wetlands? And this time, writes Dennis Lien in the PiPress, it’s MN House DFLers who are ready to trash the environment in order to avoid changes to the flawed “Green Acres” program. Here’s a (relatively) simple explanation.

Part One: Property taxes are levied based on land value. Farmland costs less and is taxed at a lower rate than higher-priced commercial, industrial and residential property. Near urban areas, developers and speculators are willing to pay more for farmland, driving up its value and tax burden. Farmers can’t afford to pay the higher prices, and so are driven to sell, increasing urban sprawl.

Part Two: Forty years ago, the “Green Acres” law said that farmers could pay taxes based on farmland value, rather than development value, so long as they were farming the land. Most non-industrial farms, like the one I grew up on, contain a mix of land, including woods and wetlands as well as corn and soybean fields. And then, Lien writes:

Declaring that only productive farmland qualifies for the tax break, lawmakers stripped wetlands, woods and other areas from the program. Afterward, some farmers faced with large tax increases began doing things such as bulldozing their trees to make sure they could remain part of the program.

Session Daily reports that on 1/22, House Republicans tried to suspend the rules and rush through a repeal of last year’s changes without going through hearings. DFLers refused, saying they have several bills in committee, and will hold hearings, beginning next week.

Go, Robyne! In media news, Fox9 news anchor Robyne Robinson launches “Community Commitment,” a 30-minute quarterly public affairs program, on Saturday. The show will debut at 8:30 a.m. Saturday on KMSP and re-run at 11:30 a.m. Sunday WFTC, according to the PiPress. Strangely, there’s no mention of the show on the Fox Twin Cities website, and even a search doesn’t turn up a mention of the show. It is listed in the 8:30 a.m. time slot, but without any description. Not quite the way to promote your star, folks!

And in DC The economic stimulus package stumbles through Congress, and probably won’t reach President Obama’s desk until mid-February, as Republicans and Democrats debate the amount of money to put in it and how much of that money should go to tax cuts rather than jobs programs or other direct government spending. In MinnPost, Steve Berg says MNDOT “is busy figuring out how best to spend the gusher of cash soon expected from the Obama administration’s recovery plan.”

The International Herald Tribune reports that President Obama took action Wednesday on the Iraq front, quoting a presidential statement that said, in part, “I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq.”

BusinessGreen.com reported on the environmental front, “In a traditional game of political whack-a-mole, the Obama White House has moved quickly to freeze all pending regulations proposed by the former president’s administration, including president Bush’s attempts to roll back large swathes of environmental legislation.” The Bush administration finalized 157 “midnight regulations” in its final quarter, and either lengthy and onerous reverse rule-making procedures or Congressional action will be necessary to roll back any of these regs, which include controversial environmental deregulation as well as restrictions on women’s rights to medical care.

In other early moves, the NYT details President Obama’s moves to open up information flows from the White House, freeze staff salaries, and strengthen ethics rules.

What’s going on in DR Congo? There may not be much MN connection with the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I want to understand what is happening there, so I read and write about it. This blog noted a few days ago that the Lord’s Resistance Army has massacred hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The LRA is active in the northeast region of Congo, but that is only one front in Congo’s wars. Today’s major developments come in the southeast, where Rwandan and Congolese troops fight Hutu and Tutsi rebels.

BBC explains that the Congolese Tutsi rebel CNDP (National Congress for the Defence of the People), which declared a ceasefire last week, has long insisted that the Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), are targeting Congolese Tutsis. However, the CNDP itself stands accused by the United Nations of massacres and abuses under the leadership of “megalomaniacal” General Laurent Nkunda. The conflict and the militias spilled over from neighboring Rwanda after the 1994 genocide in which Rwandan Hutus slaughtered more than 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis. The Rwandan government has been accused of supporting Nkunda’s forces.

Last week the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) last week declared a ceasefire in its long-standing war with Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Some CNDP members rejected Nkunda’s leadership and left his command.

Today, the NYT reports, Rwandan and Congo troops worked together to capture Nkunda. Rwandan troops were sent into Congo to pursue Nkunda, though he, like Rwanda’s government, is Tutsi. The NYT explains:

“Rwanda and Congo have cut a deal,” said John Prendergast, a founder of the Washington-based Enough Project, which campaigns against genocide. He said Congo had allowed Rwanda to send in troops to vanquish the Hutu militants, something Rwanda has been eager to do for some time.

“In exchange, the Congolese expected Rwanda to neutralize Nkunda and his overly ambitious agenda,” Mr. Prendergast said. “Now the hard part begins.”

Now, says BBC, the “next step is for the joint Congolese-Rwandan force to tackle the FDLR Hutu rebels,” some of whom were involved in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

Signs of hope NWAF’s Horizons project is sowing hope in small towns such as Evansville, Hoffman and New York Mills, reports Echo Press in Alexandria:

Always on the lookout for ways to help her town, Muriel Krusemark, Hoffman’s economic development authority coordinator, said she and several other local residents decided to apply for Horizons after hearing about the positive impact it had on nearby New York Mills, a past program participant. …

New businesses are opening up in town, she said, and the city recently finished a Main Street Galleria with space for 23 local retailers. …

Krusemark said Hoffman residents also have plans for a community garden, a computer and communication center and a mentorship program for local youth, as well as other projects.

“If we accomplish half the things we have on our list, it will be a way better community to live in,” she said. “With the people we have on these committees, I can’t believe we won’t accomplish at least half these things.”

Leave a comment

Filed under news

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

January 13, 2009 · 9:41 am

News Day – January 13

Crime decreasing … for now Looking at FBI figures, the the PiPress reports that crime in St. Paul rose slightly during the first six months of the year, compared to 2007. “Slightly” means 0.2% or ten more crimes than in 2007. St. Paul police say that the crime figures showed a decline by the end of 2008. In Minneapolis, the Strib reported that crime fell during the first six months of 2008. Nationwide, violent crime fell by 3.5% and property crime by 2.5%. Final crime stats for the entire year will be available in the fall.

But can it last? Though crime stats show decreases, city governments across the state face major budget cuts. MPR interviewed Wadena Mayor Wolden:

Wolden said cities are struggling with Gov. Pawlenty’s admonition not to cut budgets for public safety.

“We understand that. We’re not dumb. We know that people want to dial 911 and have somebody show up at their door in 60 seconds, 24/7/365. It’s what we do. That’s why they pay taxes,” Wolden said. “We are going to try to hold them as harmless as possible. But this is forcing our hand. This may have to be the cut.”

Liberians need a pathway to permanent residence. Once again, Liberians lawfully in the United States under a grant of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) face forced departure as the latest extension of TPS expires in on March 31. TPS was first granted in 1991, and extended year to year until 2007, when President Bush changed the status to Deferred Enforced Departure (DED). Liberians who fled war and persecution, have lived here for more than a decade, starting businesses, buying homes, and raising families. Each family has its own story. MPR tells one of the stories:

The possibility of deportation would pose an immediate dilemma for Kirkpatrick Weah. He has two young American-born sons who both need special education. He’d have to decide whether to take them with him to Liberia, where the schools may not offer the programs that can help them succeed, or whether to leave them in the U.S.

Minnesota is home to about 25,000 Liberians, one of the largest populations in the United States, and many live under the threat of departure on March 31.

MN Job Watch: Hutchinson Technology, which had announced layoffs of 1100 just a month ago, increased the number to 1380, according to the Strib. The new plan calls for cutting 950 jobs in Hutchinson (pop. 13,929) and 50 in Plymouth. According to the Strib:

They are not alone. Many manufacturers are swinging the employment axe as the grip on the economy tightens. Manufacturers scrubbed 600,000 jobs and shut dozens of plants last year. In Minnesota, 3M, Andersen, Select Comfort, Pentair, Imation and other manufacturers cut 8,500 jobs in just 10 weeks. Hundreds more are coming as retailers Best Buy, Linens and Things and now Cost Plus World Market shut stores and trim corporate staff.

California-based Seagate Technology announced cuts of 800 jobs in the United States. The company employs 53,000 worldwide, about 8,000 in the United States, and about 3,300 in Bloomington and Shakopee, according to the Strib.

Ford is offering buyouts in St. Paul. “About 240 of the 771 union members working at the St. Paul Ford plant are eligible for the buyouts, said Roger Terveen, president of UAW Local 879” in the PiPress. The buyouts would take effect in January. The last round was in 2006.

Gubernatorial tease Both T-Paw and Wisconsin Guv Jim Doyle say they’ll make a major announcement of a joint initiative on Tuesday at 11 a.m., and neither is telling what it will be, AP says, except that it involves efficiency and spending cuts.

Immigrant struggles MPR reports on the struggles of immigrants, many of whom had professional degrees and practices in their home countries, to make a new life in Minnesota. For Damaris Perez-Ramirez, that meant leaving her PhD in psychology and 12-year psychology practice and starting over.

Starting from scratch meant cleaning houses, working as a translator and coordinating parenting classes for Latinos in the Twin Cities. These weren’t exactly the kind of jobs she had in mind when she arrived in Minnesota in 2001. …

A recent report by the Migration Policy Institute shows that, nationally, more than 1.3 million college-educated immigrants are either unemployed or working in jobs such as dishwashers, taxi drivers or housecleaners.

Gaza war update Yesterday the Israeli government banned Arab political parties inside Israel, and even TPM confessed to not being sure what to say or think about the decision, which may well be overturned by the Israeli courts. As casualty figures, with the death toll nearing 1,000 and the number of injured topping 4,000, Bill Moyers presented a searing indictment of the Israeli war (“Brute force can turn self-defense into state terrorism”), and Naomi Klein urged a boycott of Israel. Israel warned (promised?) continuing escalation.

And the recount saga goes on … Yesterday, MN Supreme Court Justice Alan Page appointed the three judges who will hear the Coleman lawsuits in the election/recount battle. MPR reports:

They are:
• Elizabeth Hayden of Stearns County who was appointed by DFL Governor Rudy Perpich in 1986;
• Kurt Marben of Thief River Falls who was appointed by Independent Jesse Ventura in 2000, and
• Denise Reilly of Hennepin County who was appointed by Republican Arne Carlson in 1997.

Franken also asked that the Guv and SoS issue him a certificate of election yesterday — both declined, pointing out that the law requires them to wait until after the court decides on all legal challenges.

Popular public schools Choosing a school is a mind-boggling process for parents of kindergartners. Last weekend, TC Daily Planet visited the school choice fairs in Minneapolis and St. Paul and talked to parents.

Parents at both fairs moved aggressively from booth to booth, peppering parent volunteers and administrators with questions. Many were so intent on their search that I found it hard to stop them for an interview.

“It’s definitely overwhelming,” said Caralin Dees of St Paul, who was looking for a kindergarten for her four-year-old daughter with her husband Matt. The couple said they hadn’t done much research before the fair. “We’re looking for an elementary with a math-science focus…but really, how much do we want to limit her. I mean, she’s only four!”

Leave a comment

Filed under news

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,