Unemployment up even more than expected national unemployment figures jumped to 8.1%, even more than expected, rising half a percent in the last month, with the economy shedding 651,000 jobs. Rates for blacks (13.4 percent) and Hispanics (10.9 percent) continue higher than the average, while the jobless rate for teen-agers continues at a whopping 21.6 percent.
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Tag Archives: economic crisis
News Day: Unemployment / Bad news for bus riders / Nick speaks! / Pigs flying? / Viking stadium / Outrage of the day / Wonk alert / more
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An Immodest Proposal
Rep. Tom Hackbarth (R-Cedar) proposed a new twist on the old link between professional sports and gambling this week. He wants to build a metro-area casino and use the income from the casino to build a new stadium for the Vikings. What a charming idea! We could encourage gambling in a time of general recession and job loss, siphon off the revenues of Indian-owned casinos, and stuff the pockets of Zygi Wilf and company, all at the same time.
Vikes spokesman Lester Bagley said they are not advocating gaming, but “if that’s what the state leaders want to use, then let’s sit down. At least someone is thinking creatively.”
My husband suggested an even more creative idea, and one perhaps more in keeping with the manly sport of football. Why not establish the first legal brothel in Minnesota, and use the proceeds to support the Vikings?
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News Day: More on MN deficit and recession
March 4: Back to school / MN Job Watch / TCF and TARP / TOP SECRET no longer / Sudan, Afghanistan, Mexico and more
Budget deficit: Day 2 In the aftermath of the revelation that the economic stimulus will keep the red ink from rising higher, lawmakers and the governor are back to sparring over how to make up the $4.6 billion deficit. A trio of MPR reports gives context: State Finance Commissioner Tom Hanson warned that the long-term problem will get worse, with a $5.1 billion deficit forecast for 2012-13, and that the economic stimulus is a one-time rescue that does not solve the structural problem.
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News Day: Feds rescue MN budget deficit
March 3: More news — Coleman asks for new election / Cut, cut, cut / Medicare paying off insurance companies / City Council putting brakes on Central Corridor plans? / Lock ’em up / MN Job Watch
MN budget deficit: better news MPR reports that the budget projections due out later this morning will show good news for Minnesotans, with federal stimulus money riding to the rescue. Without the federal aid, the two-year deficit was projected to grow to $6.4 billion, but with the aid, it will shrink to $4.57 billion (from the previously-projected $4.8 billion.) That’s about the only good news, with unemployment up, tax revenues down, and the Guv stlll insisting on balancing the budget by slashing LGA and other state expenditures and refusing to consider tax increases.
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News Day: It’s the economy (and the budget deficit and the CitiGroup and AIG bailouts)
More March 2 stories: The weather! / Facebook and Lent / Recount / Scam alert / Momos and pizza / Head scarves and gangbangers? / Some good news! / Welfare freeze / Miss North Dakota arrested in Iran
Stormy weather ahead Billions in bad news is expected when State economist Tom Stinson issues the next state budget forecast on Tuesday, writes Bill Salisbury in the PiPress. In December, Stinson forecast the $4.85 billion deficit that has had everybody from the capitol to city hall scrambling to slash budgets, and the betting is that the new prediction will be $6 or $7 billion.
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The budget: Obama’s ten-year plan
The White House released a 10-year, 134-page budget plan yesterday, projecting a record $1.75 trillion deficit by September 30, and pledging to cut that in half by the end of his term. According to NPR:
The deficit would remain near $1 trillion over the next two years before dropping to $581 billion in 2012 and $533 billion in 2013, the year that Obama has pledged to cut in half the deficit he inherited.
News Day 2/25/09: Carstarphen still coy / Govt funds for MSM / Mueller and the mosque / MN Job Watch, recount, more
Carstarphen still coy St. Paul schools superintendent Meria Carstarphen still isn’t talking about whether she is a candidate for the Austin, TX superintendent’s position, reports Doug Belden in the PiPress, and she’s also not answering questions about whether she has applications in anywhere else.
Meanwhile, a consultant report on SPPS physical plant got mixed characterization, with Doug Belden in the PiPress quoting the report as finding that the district’s 79 buildings are in “average” shape, while Emily Johns in the Strib gave SPPS “an ‘A’ for upkeep.” Find the Powerpoint presentation from the consultants to the board of education on the SPPS website.
Obama nails it In a rousing 52-minute speech, President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail again, declaring energy, health care and education the top priorities for America. Full text here. Minneapolis got a mention: “There are 57 police officers who are still on the streets of Minneapolis tonight because this plan prevented the layoffs their department was about to make.”
MN funds for private biobusiness park The MN Department of Employment and Economic Development granted another $1.2 million to complete infrastructure projects for the Elk Run Biobusiness park north of Rochester, bringing total state money for the project to $1.8 million. Sea Stachura reports on MPR that investors have been meeting with state officials and an announcement on the project is expected soon.
Them that has MN has seen a big crop of lively on-line media growing up in the past few years, including the Twin Cities Daily Planet, which I edit, so I won’t brag about it here; The Uptake, with dramatic RNC footage and gavel-to-gavel coverage of the recount; the Minnesota Independent, offering intensive political coverage and much more; and MinnPost, which looks a lot like an online version of the Strib that Joel Kramer once edited, which is to say among the best of the mainstream media back in the day. All of these on-line and non-profit media organizations (and others) are scrambling for funding.
So now comes the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership program, with a $238,000 grant of government funds to the U of M School of Journalism and Mass Communications and the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Duluth News Tribune to retrain newspaper staffs for “a mix of learning new computer programs to help sell advertising and tell news stories, and fundamentally rethinking how to deliver news and advertising.”
Rob Karwath, executive editor of the News Tribune, said he envisions money going toward rethinking how to sell new products that deliver news and advertising to readers, and setting up methods to increasingly receive feedback from customers.
Guess the Duluth News Tribune needs more reporting, as David Braure reports all of the Strib’s coverage of MN will now take place from its Minneapolis office. The Strib is pulling Larry Oakes out of Duluth and back to Minneapolis.
MN Jobs Watch AP reports that Cliffs Natural Resources plans cutbacks and temporary shutdowns at its taconite plants, possibly laying off 83 HibTac workers for more than six months. MPR says that Northshore Mining’s 557 workers will be laid off during April as that plant closes for a month.
MN-based Medtronic is cutting its global workforce, reports the Strib. About 8,000 of Medtronics 38,000 employees work in MN. Last year Medtronic cut 1100 jobs worldwide, with about 350 of those in MN. Execs took a five percent pay cut.
41 percent drop in profits – could be worse I had to read on when the Strib said targets 41 percent drop in earnings during the 4th quarter was really not so bad. Part of my confusion is that the headline said profits dropped and the first paragraph said earnings dropped — two distinctly different measures. Halfway through the article, some hard numbers appeared. Target revenue (earnings) was down $19.56 billion, 1.6 percent below 2008’s fourth quarter. Its net income (profits) “fell about 22 percent to $2.85 billion, or $2.86 a share,” while annual sales (earnings) grew 2.3 percent.
The reason that Target’s bad news is not so bad is that all retailers — except low-end leaders WalMart, Costco and Dollar Store — are seeing gigantic drops in earnings, reflected in fourth-quarter reports released yesterday. In other business news, Home Depot reported a 4th-quarter loss of $54 million, which is bad but better than previously expected,
And now … Pawlenty gets to decide on the Senate race? If the three-judge panel awards victory to Al Franken, will he get to go to Washington at last? Maybe not, warns Tom Scheck on MPR. The governor and the secretary of state sign an election certificate when there is a “final determination” of the contest, but Norm Coleman will almost certainly appeal any adverse decision, and T-Paw could say that nothing is final until all appeals are exhausted. Exhausted is the way that most Minnesotans feel about the whole process, but Pawlenty has previously said that he thinks Coleman has a good chance of winning an appeal, so he’s not likely to sign until the MN Supreme Court rules on an appeal. And then, there’s the possibility of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court …
Mueller and the mosque FBI director John Mueller said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations that a Minnesota Somali man carried out a suicide bombing in Somalia after Shirwa Ahmed “was radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota.” Mueller gave no details on how the alleged suicide bomber was “radicalized,” but his remarks ramped up hostility to Somalis and Muslims in Minnesota once again, reports Laura Yuen on MPR.
Jessica Zikri, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota chapter of the Council on Islamic-American Relations. Zikri said many Somalis are living in fear as federal authorities continue their investigation into the missing.
“They’ve already been receiving phone calls and were stopped by the FBI,” Zikri said. “And then hearing these allegations vaguely connected to Minnesota just add fuel to the fire.”
That fire continues in Minnesota streets, with hostility expressed toward both Somalis and Muslims. To combat misunderstanding and prejudice, As-Saddique Islamic Center will welcome neighborhood residents and organizations for a community dinner intended to increase understanding about the local Somali Muslim community and mosque tonight. Organizers have invited FBI director Robert Mueller to attend.
Mardi Gras marchers protest police Mardi Gras marchers went from the State Capitol to St. Paul City Hall to file notice-of-claim forms based on events during the RNC, reports John Brewer in the PiPress. Meanwhile, over in the Ramsey County court, prosecution and defense attorneys accused each other of trying the case in the press, and prosecutors complained that too much secret police information was becoming public.
Writing with less The Loft Literary Center cut two full time employees, and everyone else is taking pay cuts,
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Obama speech hits another home run
“What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.” With that declaration, President Barack Obama delivered another ringing call to action, devoting nearly all of his February 24 address to a joint session of Congress to what the country needs to do to rebuild and recover. The 52-minute speech was interrupted 50 times by applause.
The full text of the 52-minute speech includes international policy, tax cuts and promises to cut the deficit. En Español
Declaring that the country’s agenda “begins with jobs,” Obama thanked Congress for passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which he said will save or create 3.5 million jobs, more than 90 percent in the private sector, and will give tax cuts to 95 percent of working households. He insisted on the importance of re-starting lending and promised more stringent oversight of bailouts to banks.
Turning from plans for recovery to a vision for the future, Obama said the nation has three priorities:
Energy: “[T]o truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.” that means transformation of the auto industry, as well as doubling the nation’s supply of renewable energy, and increasing energy efficiency.
Health Care: “[T]he cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.”
Education: Obama called the mismatch between fast-growing occupation sectors that require education and “the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation,” a “prescription for economic decline, because we know that countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.” He called for both increased funding and reform, gave a ringing endorsement to the charter school movement, and warned that “dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American.”
President Obama held up a banker, a student, and a town as examples of hope:
• “Leonard Abess, the bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. ”
• “Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community.”
• Ty’Sheoma Bethea, a student from a South Carolina school “where the ceilings leak, the paint peels off the walls, and they have to stop teaching six times a day because the train barrels by their classroom.” She sent a letter to Congress asking for help, writing: “We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina but also the world. We are not quitters.”
Echoing her words, Obama said that Americans are not quitters, that “even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres; a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.”
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News Day 2/20/09: Recession-Depression? / Embarrassing MN / MN Job Watch / World news / more …
Downbeat goes on “Who’ll stop the pain?” asks Paul Krugman, but finds no answer as a meeting of bankers at the Federal Reserve predicts high unemployment through the end of 2011. Krugman says this isn’t your father’s recession (think 1981-82), but more like your grandfather or great-grandfather’s Great Depression.
Over at Politico, Matthew Dallek debunks the debunkers, notably Amity Shlaes, whose Forgotten Man claims that the New Deal failed to employ people or stimulate the economy. He cites historians to show the fallacies and outright deceptions in the popular right-wing screed:
Shlaes cited unemployment figures that excluded Americans who had New Deal-generated jobs, and she virtually ignored what Rauchway calls “the authoritative reference work Historical Statistics of the United States.” That reference book shows that during FDR’s first term, the real GDP grew by some 9 percent annually; and after the 1937-38 recession, the economy grew at an annual clip of 11 percent. By the fall of 1934, another New Deal historian, William E. Leuchtenburg, explains, “the ranks of the unemployed had been reduced by over 2 million and national income stood almost a quarter higher than in 1933.”
Fool on the Hill? Minnesota’s own embarrassment, Michelle Bachmann, is at it again. In an interview on conservative KTLK radio, Bachmann told one whopper after another. Daily Kos observes: “There are lies, there is stupidity, there are stupid lies, there are migraine-inducingly-stupid slanderous lies, and then there are Bachmannisms,” but for a point-by-point analysis, go to Washington Monthly. The ACORN lie is a good example: “Bachman ‘explained’ … ACORN is ‘under federal indictment for voter fraud,” but the stimulus bill nevertheless gives ACORN “$5 billion.’ (In reality, ACORN is not under federal indictment and isn’t mentioned in the stimulus bill at all.)”
Of course, as embarrassing as Bachmann is for Minnesota, we are in good company: Illinois has its own Roland Burris embarrassment in the Senate.
MN Job Watch U.S. Steel is laying off almost 600 workers at its Minntac mine in Mountain Iron, reports Jessica Mador at MPR. That’s almost half the workforce. Mountain Iron mayor Gary Skalko said the layoffs will have a massive ripple effect because most industry in the area is mining related.
Last month’s Best Buy announcement of future layoffs materialized Thursday, reports Martin Moylan on MPR, with pink slips for 250, and a posting of 210 new jobs. That’s a net loss of 40 jobs, and you can bet that the 210 new jobs pay less than the 250 that are ending. In the Strib, Jackie Crosby notes:
The company, which is the nation’s largest consumer-electronics retailer, now has slashed 13.5 percent of its corporate workforce in recent months as sales at its more than 1,175 stores have plunged. …
Best Buy in not alone in its struggles to remain profitable during the nation’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. In 2008, retailers eliminated more than half a million jobs, about 20 percent of the 2.6 million layoffs that occurred nationwide.
And AP reports that February looks like another “brutal month,” as “the number of people receiving regular unemployment benefits rose by 170,000 to 4.99 million for the week ending Feb. 7, marking the fourth straight week continuing claims have hit a record.”
Building plans in Minneapolis Bridges, scattered-site public housing, and a pedestrian mall for the Convention Center area are among the priorities for federal stimulus spending in Minneapolis, reports Steve Brandt in the Strib. It will be a while before projects and programs get sorted out, but other candidates include energy conservation and weatherization, lead abatement, job training, and law enforcement. Part of the federal money will come in a pot of $3.7 million for the community development block grant fund.
Around the world Right-wing Likud party chief Benjamin Netanyahu will form the next Israeli government, 10 days after an inconclusive parliamentary election, reported Ha’aretz. Netanyahu was prime minister before, in the 1990s, and will now have six weeks to put together a caoalition cabinet. Centrist Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni said her party won’t be part of the coalition. Likud has 27 seats in the 120-member parliament, and Kadima has 28, but smaller right-wing parties hold the balance, and Ha’aretz reports that extreme right-winger Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party will play a key role.
In DR Congo, the FDLR Rwandan Hutu militia killed more than a hundred civilians in the last month, reports BBC, as a joint Congolese-Rwandan military force hunted them down. Though Rwandan officials say the FDLR killed almost 50 people this week, the joint force says it has achieved 95% of its objectives and Rwandan troops will leave next week. The FDLR militia is estimated to number more than 6,000 and has been linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In January, Congolese Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda was arrested, and some of his CNDP militia are now being integrated into the Congolese army. BBC reports that “On-and-off fighting involving the CNDP, FDLR, the army and pro-government militias has forced more than one million people in North Kivu to flee their homes since late 2006.”
Argentina has ordered the ultra-traditionalist, Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson to leave the country, reports BBC. The Pope lifted the bishop’s excommunication (on an unrelated matter) in January. Then his anti-Holocaust and anti-women views became widely-publicized, embarrassing the Vatican. The pope ordered him to recant — he hasn’t — but so far has taken no further action.
A suicide bomber killed more than 30 people and wounded more than 50 in the Pakistani city of Dera Ismail Khan today, reports Pir Zubair Shah in the NYT. The bomber targeted the funeral of a Shiite Muslim man, and was followed by mob attacks on local security forces and shops. Sunni-Shiite strife has been frequent in the city, with six suicide attacks in recent months.
Coleman keeps losing On Wednesday, the three-judge panel refused to hear testimony from conservative blogger King Banaian, who was set to testify about inconsistencies between counties in rejecting absentee ballots. This is what the Coleman campaign now calls an “equal protection” issue, reports Jay Weiner in MinnPost. Of course, classic equal protection arguments require some government action that adversely affects a protected class of people, not just random differences between counties. In the judges’ opinion:
“The Court will be reviewing all ballots presented according to the uniform standard contained [in Minnesota law]. It is irrelevant whether there were irregularities between the counties in applying [Minnesota law] prior to this election contest.”
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News Day 2/19/09: Housing plan in MN / “Nation of cowards” on race / Carstarphen leaving SPPS? / more …
What part of “no” don’t you understand, Norm? The three-judge panel yesterday “just said no” to the Coleman campaigns latest request to reverse a previous ruling. Writing in MinnPost, Eric Black reminds us that, like every ruling in the case, this one was unanimous.
Mortgage relief on horizon Dan Olson on MPR talked to local homeowners and U of M law school housing expert Prentiss Cox about the Obama mortgage relief plan. The plan provides some refinancing by some lenders, and extends relief to some homeowners who are “under water” — so long as the gap between their home value and amount owed is not too great. Cox faults the plan for failing to provide a “cram-down,” a provision that would make banks agree to take a loss on a mortgage when the home is worth less, and write a new mortgage for a lower amount.
Many big banks, including Wells Fargo, suspended mortgages while waiting to hear about the president’s plan. According to the NYT, one in ten home mortgages is either delinquent or in foreclosure. The plan will provide incentives to lenders to rewrite mortgages, changing the interest rate to make them more affordable. It will increase available credit through $200 billion in backing for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And it will offer some homeowners who are current on their mortgages but cannot refinance because they lack enough equity an opportunity to refinance at the current low interest rates. The plan also calls for bankruptcy rule changes to let judges reduce mortgages on primary residences to fair market value.
Take a look at the White House summary of the plan here. And for a critique that says the plan is “comprehensive, but not aggressive” enough, see Simon Johnson in The New Republic.
Over at the legislature According to AP, GOP lawmakers are proposing–and DFLers are “open to looking at” –a five percent pay cut for legislators, which would cut base pay to $29,600, saving the state a whopping $338,000 a year. Let’s see – that’s less than one percent of one percent of the $4.8 billion deficit. Hope they don’t spend a lot of time debating that one. Another bill would require MN students to stay in school through 18 or through high school graduation, rather than the current compulsory school attendance through 16, writes Jake Grovum in the Strib. Critics say it would cost a lot and that schools aren’t very good. Wisconsin, South Dakota and 16 other states already have 18-year-old attendance laws. And in what we can devoutly hope is a lost cause, the Vikes are still trying to get public money for a nearly one billion dollar stadium this year, reports Mike Kaszuba in the Strib.
“Nation of cowards” on race Attorney General Eric Holder spoke yesterday at the DOJ African American History Month program. Among his remarks:
One cannot truly understand America without understanding the historical experience of black people in this nation. Simply put, to get to the heart of this country one must examine its racial soul.
Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race. It is an issue we have never been at ease with and given our nation’s history this is in some ways understandable. And yet, if we are to make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.
Read the whole speech here. It’s well worth reading, thinking about, and responding to his call.
Sez who? A day after a study showing a 97% thumbs down on NCLB from MN principals, the Strib reports that a DC-based think tank said MN is too easy on enforcement of NCLB rules, and that WI has the loosest interpretation of all 50 states. What the press reports don’t say is that the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is a conservative think tank, led by Chester Finn, “one of the education policy gurus of the conservative movement” with ties to the Manhattan Institute, the Hudson Institute, Center of the American Experiment, and National Association of Scholars.
Carstarphen looks south St. Paul School Superintendent Meria Carstarphen is a finalist for the Austin, Texas superintendent’s job, reports Emily Johns in the Strib. She’s in her third year with SPPS, has not yet signed a new contract, and has her Summit Avenue house up for sale.
RNC 8 on Democracy Now You can hear from RNC 8 defendant Luce Guillens-Givens and attorney Jordan Kushner on Democracy Now. Not much that’s new, as the judicial process continues, except for criminal charges against one of the FBI informants.
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Mary Turck