Category Archives: Business, The Economy and The Markets

Pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it?

Calculated Risk

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Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Scott Johnson from Powerline has a column explaining why Trump’s tariffs are calculated incorrectly and are therefore too high.  He gives a formula from some academics showing that the inelasticity of trade was improperly factored into setting our new rates.
Missing the point, Scott.  The point is foreign governments have been taking advantage of our generosity for years and it’s time to fix that. Yes, we’re a party to GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) but renegotiations have been stalled for decades – too many rice bowls at stake – so Trump’s unilateral new tariffs are a way to break the stalemate.
 
The specifics of Trump’s tariffs don’t matter, 10% on penguins or 90% on Vietnam, these numbers are just the opening round of negotiation.  It’s like the guy selling sombreros on the beach in Mazatlan, or the guy selling rugs in the souk in Marrakech.  His opening offer is ridiculous because you are expected to bargain with him. That’s the accepted practice in that culture.  So, too, in every real estate deal, which is where Trump learned his lessons.  You always set the listing price high to give yourself room to negotiate down.  And now we’re seeing it’s also true in setting foreign trade policy, as more than four dozen countries have already lined up to renegotiate their trade policy with us.
 
Scott’s column is so typical for RINOs. The other side can state any lie and it’s accepted at face value while our facts are scrutinized and debated endlessly, with the result that the opposition’s policies get enacted but ours get nibbled to death by ducks quacking around our ankles.  With friends like that . . . . . . .
 
Joe Doakes
 
Gonna reject the premise that Scott’s a “RINO”.  
 
Might he be guilty of, as Selena Zito once said, “taking Trump literally but not seriously?”  Perhaps.  It’s easy to do.

Just Like Shakespeare Said; All Them Marketers Oughtta Be Dead

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Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

I get lots of spam emails but never see them.  My spam filter works fine for real spam.  It’s spam-ish emails that get through.  “Legitimate” spam, so to speak.
 
Marketing people will tell you that the best source of business is your existing customer list.  They already know the way to your door. They paid you money in the past. The trick is to get them back in the door again to spend more money in the future.  How to do that?
 
Keep your name in front of them.  Email a quarterly newsletter.  Email monthly specials.  Email “Happy Birthday!” greetings.  That way, when the customer thinks “I should buy . . . ” they already know who to buy it from.
 
Except I HATE SPAM.  Pelting me with spam emails is far more likely to annoy me than to make me grateful.  Do businesses gain more repeat business from spam than they drive away?  I wonder.
 
And it’s everywhere.  The grocery store wants my email before I can get the BOGO on green grapes but that means receiving weekly coupon emails.  The oil change place wants to send me a three-month reminder in addition to holiday greetings. The dentist, health care provider, insurance agent, Congresscritter, drugstore, discount warehouse . . . STOP SENDING ME THIS CRAP!
 
But I can’t tell them that, or they will take my name off the list, and the next time I shop there, they will say my account has been closed at my request.  
 
Marketing majors take note: it’s people like you what cause civil unrest.  My next “mostly peaceful” protest may be at your office.  And not a soul would blame me.
 
Joe Doakes
 

Point taken – although I’m going after the people (or “people”) that design phone trees first. 

(Title reference):

Ripping Off The Bandaid

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OK, so work with me here [1].

I’m not especially a fan of tariffs. Some of the arguments against them aren’t much better, though. If they go through, they are taxes, yes indeed. And if they don’t – if they are leverage, used to successfully change trade policy, or in some cases safeguard an industry we *don’t* need getting offshored [2], then not so much.

But this goes way beyond tariffs, so again, bear with me [1].

Our economy has extremely healthy fundamentals – and some incredibly nasty endemic problems:

  • – National debt that will crush the economy if we don’t do something useful
  • – inflation that was down from four years ago, but still way higher than it should be, especially for working-class Americans (because the inflation rate for food, fuel and housing was and remains *way* higher than the economy at large)
  • – A stock market that was very overvalued at the beginning of the year (with profit to earnings ratios almost double the rate of a healthy market), with a major bubble caused by federal spending and the AI bubble.
  • – A Federal Reserve whose only answer is cutting rates (which will increase inflation, given all the loose money that’s already out there) or hiking them (strangling economic growth).
  • – Four years of uncontrolled immigration, which depressed working-class wages (and artificially kept some prices down while raising other costs, economic and social).
  • – A Congress that *can* and *should* fix all these problems, and *could*, at least to start by means-testing Social Security and Medicare, except that they have to win popularity contests every two years, and the noise machines of both sides have made being *honest* about the impending entitlement time bomb political suicide)
  • Oh, yeah – Europe is closer to general war than it’s been in 85 years, and experts are predicting China will, not may, either invade or strangle Taiwan before the end of the decade. ]

So – what to do?

Let me take you back.

It’s 1982. I was still a Democrat. Probably kind of an obnoxious one, come to think of it.
And the economy had been a basket case for much of my childhood, and all my teenage years and adulthood to that point. The Oil Embargo led to the mid-seventies recession, which led to Stagflation, which led to the Malaise, and of course the Federal Government was spending money like crazy on the “war on poverty”, so inflation crushed economic activity; inflation peaked at over 12% when I was in high school.

President Reagan’s Fed chief, Paul Volcker, cranked the federal funds rate to *20%*. Mobbed up loan sharks said “dial it back, bub”. It SLAMMED inflation to the mat – but unemployement *soared* to 10.8% [3]. It triggered a VERY sharp recession in 1982 – one that’s still “the big one” to a lot of us.

The Democrat majority in Congress grew by 26 seats to a majority of *over 100 seats*. IF there’s been a Presidential election in 1982, Reagan would have lost by a landslide.

But here’s the thing about recessions – if the fundamentals of the economy are healthy, then the sharper the downturn, the sharper the recovery, if you let it [4]. In a year, the economy was gaining almost 500,000 jobs *a month* (and the population was 34 the size it is today), and the longest peacetime boom in history, almost 25 years, kicked off.

And Reagan rode that economy to the biggest landslide in history. And I made my first Republican vote, for Reagan (and my last Democrat one – for my Mom).

So – what about last week’s orgy of tariffs?

Maybe it just means Trump is stupid. Could be [5].

Or maybe the whole thing is:

  1.  A sharp kick in the market’s teeth, to get those valuations down to size, AND…
  2. … burn off some of that excess capital that Biden (and yes, Trump in 2020) pumped into the economy with no growth to eat it up, AND…
  3.  Throw a stun granade into the international trade market to exert leverage on other countries to cut the tariffs that *are* there [6] AND…  Start creating demand for American blue-collar labor, to replace all the cheap foreign labor that the cartels aren’t walking across the border, AND…
  4.  To force China into a recession that they can just not afford (if their exports are strangled, they are screwed blue), which might have the salutary effect of helping prevent WORLD WAR F**KING THREE in the Taiwan Straits, AND…
  5. Unleash the Growth Fairy, which – let me put this as gently as I can – IS THE ONLY WAY THIS COUNTRY’S ECONOMY ISN’T GOING TO COLLAPSE in the next decade or so. Literally, those are the two choices – out of control growth, or collapse. There is no option C. Taxing billionaires don’t do it. Confiscating every dollar of wealth over a Billion, or a million, won’t do it. ONLY the greatest explosion of growth the world has ever seen will do it.

It’s not just me thinking this: my (Facebook) friend Glenn Reynolds wrote this [7]…

And HIS friend and my one-time rhetorical fencing partner Steven Green had this to say:

Decide for yourself. [1].

[1] Or don’t. I don’t care. But if you disagree, shoot for intelligent disagreement, OK? I’m kind of tired of the other kind.
[2] Germany is kind of starting to regret outsourcing the production of its army’s tanks to Greece, for one example.
[3] Yep, Millennials, almost a point worse than 2008. You didn’t survive the worst of all possible times.
[4] Which is why the 2008 recession, and the Great Depression for that matter, dragged on so long – government “recovery” efforts prolonged the economic trouble that caused the whole thing in the first place.
[5] We’ll see, one way or the other. I’ve been wrong about Trump before, and so have you. Anyway, hear me out [1].
[6] Both sides are wrong about trade, by the way; Trump’s largely wrong about the trade deficit (it’s mostly from us buying cheap stuff from poor countries, and the middle class has grown in the past 40 years) and his opponents are wrong about foreign countries’ policies (they DO hamper lots of American exports in the “free market”). We can discuss it [1].
[7] I eschew “appeal to authority” and other logical fallacies, and I hope you do too [1], but let’s be honest; he’s smarter than me, and probably smarter than you, too.

 

Missing The Forest For The Dust

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Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

I notice a common theme running through Berg’s Third Law (disasters) and Mother Jones Corollary to the Tenth Law (vicious lies) and 18th Law of Media Latency (48 hour rule): the media rushes to lie about Conservatives, so thoughtful readers will wait for the dust to settle an the truth to be revealed.

I wonder if a similar principle should apply to President Trump?

He proposes a course of action, the media loses its mind, Democrats and RINOs panic, the feared apocalypse does not occur. It happens over and over. He wants fair trade with Canada; Canada threatens to punish every American; tariffs are proposed; media, Democrats and RINOs panic; Canada backs down. If everybody had waited a week or two before setting their hair on fire, it all would have blown over.

Generally takes longer than 48 hours so how about a two week rule?

Joe Doakes

The committee is taking it under advisement. 

Resolution

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I confidently predicted Trump would force a government shutdown to compel real cuts in spending, which is why he had the D0GE team hunting for a trillion dollars of fraud, waste and abuse.  But Trump supports a continuing resolution which increases defense spending by $6 billion, cuts other spending by $13 billion, and leaves the rest of the spending in place, financed by borrowed money.  

Shaving a lousy $7 billion off $7 trillion won’t balance the budget. We will still have a $2 Trillion dollar deficit and interest on the debt will still be more than we spend on defense.  This continuing resolution is like claiming to be dieting by eating one less french fry in your Happy Meal.  It’s worse than a joke. It’s an insult.  I’m insulted. 

My buddy claims I just don’t understand Trump’s strategy and the scope of everything he’s dealing with.  He wanted Congress to do a real budget before he was seated.  He wanted them to do the cuts under Biden.  But of course Congress simply kicked the can and made the problem come due a few weeks into Trump’s term.  

My buddy says Trump’s not giving up the fight, he’s merely pushing it out a few months while inflation tames; while the fraud and waste gets identified and publicized; while he gets the Hawaiian judges’ orders overturned; while he ends the money laundry in Ukraine; while he knocks some sense into Mexico and Canada; while he secures the border; while he gets the rest of his cabinet installed; while he claws back billions, if not trillions shoveled out the windows just before he took office ….

I sure hope he’s right.  Otherwise, it looks as if the Democrats and RINOs won this round, dragging us one step closer to the fiscal cliff.  Dang, and I was so hopeful.

Joe Doakes

 

Until someone has the guts to go after the big entitlement programs, it’s all performance.  The best case is that Trump curbs the chaos long enough for the economy to switch to “puree”, which might forestall but not prevent the inevitable reckoning. 

Can we get to that without getting to this?   Or will events and Democrats stall Trump long enough that a recession tanks Trump in the. mid-terms, and sparks a leftist backlash?

Battlespace Preparation IV

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Joe Doakes formerly of Como Park emails:

We know there’s a battle coming.  Congress’s funding resolution runs out March 14.  If Trump and Congress don’t reach a deal on a new budget, the government shuts down with all the angst and drama we recall from earlier battles, with all the political risks that have made some Republicans unwilling to fight the battle again.  So in the upcoming fight over the budget, what’s our view, the Conservative view?

Personally, I’d like to see something akin to Constitutional government. Article I, Section 8 enumerates the powers given to Congress.  Go read it. It’s worth remembering that those are the ONLY powers the Founders wanted Congress to have.  To get back to that, we’d have to cut about 80% of the federal government.  I concede that’s not realistic in today’s political climate. 

What is realistic?  How about living within our means?  How about balancing income and outgo, revenue and expenditures, same as every family and small business must do?  What would it take to get there? 

We would have to cut about 2 Trillion dollars of annual spending. Is that possible?

First, let’s remember the last budget was 2019 when Trump was in office.  Starting in 2020, Congress ramped up spending to cover the extraordinary costs of fighting a world-ending epidemic of Covid.  Leaving aside the possibility  that Covid was merely an excuse to promote absentee ballots to steal the election, the spending never stopped.  Every year since 2020, Congress passed a continuing resolution which keeps spending the same amount of money as before, plus a little extra for inflation, including the emergency money for Covid and lately, money for Ukraine to the tune of a third-of-a-trillion dollars.  Surely some of that can go.

Second, let’s remember that Congress gives money to agencies to promote vague policy objectives like “safe food” or “transportation.”  What, specifically, the agency does with that money is up to the bureaucrats.  That’s why we get drag queen shows on military bases. Surely some of that can go. 

Third, let’s remember that every bureaucrat knows the first rule of budgeting is “spend it or lose it.”  They will hide behind a “hostage puppy” to protect the rest of their funding (so named for the famous National Lampoon cover). They will insist that if we cut the funding for drag queens, the puppy will die, the child in Ethiopia will starve, the meat will not be inspected, the Washington Monument will be closed, and Grandma will have to eat dog food to survive. We have heard it all before, surely they can’t expect us to fall for it again?

So what do we do?  First, we don’t fall for the  hostage puppy, we stand firm. If bureaucrats would rather let the Ethiopian kid starve than give up their drag queen shows, on their heads be it.  Second, we empower someone to look through agency budgets to cut out silliness to focus on core functions.  Musk’s team is doing that now but it ought to be a full time job for somebody. Third, we insist on real cuts now, not gimmicks like “out year” reductions 10 years down the road.  And most importantly, we get tough – we harden our hearts – so we can ride out the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the rending of garments, the accusations of every -ism imaginable. 

Why this fight?  Why now?  Because we’re nearly at the end of the road. We’re short about $2 Trillion a year which we borrowed to get by, but that’s been going on for so long we now owe $36 Trillion dollars which is more than the entire Gross Domestic Product of $26 Trillion. Do you realize what that means?  It means we owe more on the national debt than the value of all the goods and services produced in the entire nation.  

We pay more for interest on the national debt than the entire defense budget.  

By every reasonable measure, the United States is bankrupt.

It comes down to surgical cuts now or default on our debts later and then everything collapses into complete anarchy.  Choose wisely.  And demand that your elected representatives do the same. 

Joe Doakes

 

One of the upshots of Americans (induced) economic illiteracy is that if they’ve gotten any education in economics at all, it’s been in Keynesianism. As such, they think the natural, effective response to an economic downturn is to pour taxpayer money into the situation.

Which merely stretches out the natural recovery, as it did in 1933, and in 2008. 

In an economy with healthy fundamentals, a sharp downturn in a free market serves to kill off a whole lot of bad ideas – unsustainable dotcoms in 2001, subprime mortgages in 2008, and probably a whole lot of bubble-like irrational exuberance over AI today.   

Now – are we as a society smart enough to know this?   The fact that the Obama regime went back to subsidizing subprime mortgages after the ’08 recession (which their policies dragged out for years) indicates “probably not”. 

 

Battlespace Preparation III

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Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Why is Trump in such a frantic rush to issue executive orders, fire employees, deport people, surrender Ukraine to Russia?  Is he out of his mind?

No, he’s out of time.  Congress’ most recent continuing budget resolution runs out March 14th. Trump has three more weeks to set the stage for the budget showdown. He knows every Democrat will vote against spending cuts to balance income against outgo. He knows at least some Republicans will join them.  He needs to act fast to get public support on his side so he can stand up to Congress and say,  “No more.”

Elon Musk and his team of auditors continue to find examples of fraud and waste that piss off normal people. Why are we paying for stupid stuff like that?  The judges who refuse to let the auditors do their job and who halt layoffs, piss off normal people. Why are you leaving the thieves in charge of the checkbook?  The politicians screaming about deporting illegal alien criminals piss off normal people.  Why are you putting scum ahead of citizens?  Why not put Americans first?

And it’s working.  Trump has extraordinary approval numbers. He is going to need that public support when he tells Congress, “No more,” and when he tells Ukraine, “No more,” and when he tells rogue federal employees (including some judges), “No more.”  

It’s all coming to a head in a few weeks. The media will scream. Democrats will scream.  Europeans politicians, Catholic bishops, liberal judges, and Hollywood celebrities will scream. Let them. Elections have consequences. It’s our turn now. 

Get ready.  

Joe Doakes

More tomorrow.

Battlespace Preparation II

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Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

A federal government shutdown is coming in three weeks.  Democrats and the media will have a meltdown and will try to frighten the public, claiming the sky is falling and we are all going to die. Get ready for it. The shutdown will be tough but it is neecessary.  

The federal budget is … unknown. We don’t have a budget. We haven’t had an actual budget where expenditures are debated and prioritized since 2019, when Trump was last in office. Every year of the Biden administration, Congress simply spent money without caring what it was spent on or how much was spent.  The money runs out March 14.

The federal government spends about $6 Trillion but only takes in about $4 Trillion so it borrows the other $2 Trillion. That’s the deficit – the amount we are short – $2,000,000,000,000. That is how much fraud and waste Elon Musk is hoping to cut, just to get income and outgo to break even.  That’s how much Democrats (and, to be fair, some RINOs, too) are trying to protect.

Come March, Trump must either cave in to Congress and continue to let them have a blank check, or he must stand up to Congress and refuse to sign more blank checks. If he refuses and Congress does not come up with a budget acceptable to him, the government shuts down until an acceptable deal is made.

Trump is a deal maker but he is not a quitter.  The showdown is coming and the shutdown is his only leverage.  Get ready for it.  

Joe Doakes

 

Part III coming up tomorrow. 

Battlespace Preparation I

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Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

We should start warning people now to expect bad news so they’re not upset and disheartened when it comes

We’ve known for years that Biden was senile but everybody in the establishment, administration and media lied to us to hide it.   We know they tried to blame the price of eggs on Trump when they are the ones who killed all the chickens. We know they are liars. Keep that in mind.

Every quarter the Biden administration triumphantly released figures showing the Biden economy was growing and there were record numbers of new hires.  And every quarter they would quietly release a few revisions and corrections which showed that there were practically no hires and if you discount the lies, the economy was in a recession heading for depression.

 It’s going to get worse. Economists talk about gross domestic product as a measure of success of the economy but one of the numbers in the formula to calculate GDP is government spending. Take out the 2 trillion dollars of fraud and waste that Elon Musk’s team has identified and the problem will be obvious. We’re definitely in a recession and have been for years, probably a depression. 

 Get ready for headlines screaming Trump depression, Trump ruins economy, worst economy in years.  No, it’s an honest look at the economy.  And now that we have the real figures, we can start making changes necessary to fix it. 

Get ready.  It’s coming.

Joe Doakes

 

Two more parts to come.  I’ll save my comments for after Part III.

Hear Me Out

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On the one hand, it’s amusing to see that suddenly “cultural appropriation” – in this case, a bunch of rhythmically-challenged Argentine leftist “Karens”

But I think this is a good thing. 

Hear me out.

Until the mid 1940s, Argentina was a wealthy first-world country, with a per capita GDP competitive with the US. 

Then, the “Argentine leftists” sold Argentine voters on “Rizz” and “Brat Vibes” with the Perons and a series of socialists, which gutted the economy and led to a series of coups and counter-coups, which also gutted the economy, which led to a war to restore pride that led to humiliating defeat that further gutted not only the economy but national pride, which led to further see-sawing back and forth, finally leading to a complete economic collapse 20 years ago, which has largely been met by further waves of center-to-far-left governments spending money they don’t have (or borrow from the IMF) to keep programs afloat at the expense of, well, everything.

So now the growups, led by Milei, are in charge, and they are showing the world the actual potential of the Argentine economy and people. 

So perhaps after his past 70-80 years, it’s best that Argentine leftists stick with club-footed cultural appropriation and dancing with all the rhythmic authority of Swedish disco dancers.  They cause less damage (artistic damage notwithstanding).

I Was Told There Would Be Pouncing

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While this is good – and expected – news, I feel a little cheated.

Companies are ditching DEI because it’s bad for the bottom line; they can practice equality without flogging “equity”. 

But notice how it’s framed: “under pressure from conservative activists”. 

I mean, if you’re going to “blame” companies’ rediscovering economic and social sanity on people like me, and least call it “pouncing”, for fox’s sake.

And To Think We Accuse Them Of Economic Illiteracy

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To:  “Prez”, Dim Little Progressive Social Media Bulb
From:  Mitch Berg, obstreporous peasant who passed Econ 201
Re:  Not The “Own” You Think It Is

“Prez”,

Re your sentiment expressed over the weekend:

I mean, saving more money is good for you – might make you a conservative, eventually, actually.  

And unless you save that money in a coffee can in your closet, it’ll go to a bank, which’ll circulate the money around, further helping those who are participating in the economy to grow things. 

Not sure that’s quite the “own” you think it is. 

Even less so than dumping Twitter to join “BlueSky”, really.

That is all.

Never Forget

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The Vice President of the United States actively worked to bail out rioters, convicted rapists and scads of violent goons:

Not a single national Democrat or local DFLer denounced this erosion of our legal system. Some, including much of the metro and state “progressive” power elite, celebrated and participated in it.

This needs to be held against every last one of them in tomorrow’s elections.

We’re #1!

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Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

We’re Number 1!

Viewed from the bottom up, that is.   Or you might say, “dead last.”  Potato, potahto.

It’s talking about fiscal policy and, well…

A newly released analysis of fiscal policy ranked all 50 states with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ state coming in first and Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in last.

The libertarian Cato Institute released the report, which graded states by spending, revenue and taxes. The top ten states in the rankings starting at the top are Iowa, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, South Dakota, Montana, Hawaii, Georgia, Idaho, and Vermont…

In 2019, Walz’s budget would have added ‘$2 billion more in new spending and taxes would increase by $1.3 billion to pay for it, with the rest of the money coming from an existing surplus.’ But he compromised with the legislature, and the final tax increase was about $330 million annually. Walz also pushed for higher gas taxes and higher vehicle fees to raise about $1 billion annually for transportation, but those increases were rejected.

Walz pushed for more tax hikes in 2021. He proposed adding a new individual income tax rate of 10.85 percent above the current top rate of 9.85 percent, a surtax on capital gains and dividends, and a hike to the corporate tax rate from 9.8 percent to 11.25 percent. The proposals—which would have raised about $1.6 billion annually—were rejected by the legislature…

Walz hit the middle class with HF 2887, which raised taxes and fees on vehicles and transportation. The increases included indexing the gas tax for inflation, increasing vehicle registration taxes, raising fees on deliveries, and raising sales taxes in the Twin Cities area.

 

 

No choking in the finals in this contest…

Digging Into The Memory Hole

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During the last couple of legislative sessions, the DFL wrote a whole bunch of moral checks.

Since we’ve got an election coming up, how about we see how many of them bounced?

Abortion

Unrestricted abortion is one promise the DFL trifected promised and delivered on. 

Perhaps very very overdelivered.

The DFL brought a certain brusque brutality to the issue:

And delivered on it with teutonic precision, leaving no potential abortee behind:

DFL senator who supported PRO Act vowed to ‘safeguard against’ late-term abortions

And have brought a certain totalitarian panache to trying to erase all dissent

Green Energy

Was your powrer cheaper?

Why, no. It is not.


Social Security Taxes

Remember when the DFL ran on eliminating taxes on Social Security?

They are certainly hoping you don’t:

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – For the second time this month, Minnesota Senate Democrats voted against eliminating the taxation of Social Security benefits – despite a massive projected budget surplus of $17.6 billion. Five of those Democrats have also already broken promises to end the taxation of social security benefits and did so again today; Sens. Hauschild, Gustafson, Kupec, Putnam and Seeberger all voted to maintain the tax again after doing so earlier this month. The Republican Party of Minnesota issued the statement below in response:

“This latest vote shows that Democrats in St. Paul are only interested in one thing – partisan politics. Instead of voting to provide much-needed tax relief to seniors by ending the tax on Social Security benefits, the Democrats voted to kill this bill for the second time this month. Meanwhile, Democrats in the legislature along with Gov. Tim Walz continue to push tax increases and one-time political gimmicks. With a budget surplus of more than $17 billion, Minnesota taxpayers deserve more than petty partisan games. Democrats need to stop the petty politics and work with Republicans to pass real, permanent tax relief for Minnesota families and businesses.” – Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman David Hann

“Fully Funding Education”

The term was intentionally misleading – when you finally got a DFLer to admit what this little word salad starter meant, it boiled down to rolling back a Pawlenty-era accounting shift. 

Forget for a moment the flurry of teacher strikes and headlines about districts running out of money – as the DFL wants you to forget them – because it was never intended as anything but a campaign slogan to gull the gullible.

The results are self-explanatory…:

…provided you can read and do math which, fortunately for the MNDFL, more and more Minesotans can’t.

“Reducing Poverty 30%”

That was a promise they made before the 2023 session – and abruptly stopped once they started legislating.

Because while the stats aren’t in for this last few years yet…:

Statistic: Poverty rate in Minnesota in the United States from 2000 to 2022 | Statista
Find more statistics at Statista

…the leading indicators just aren’t that good.

Just want to keep that memory hole exhumed for election time.

Tortal Recall

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Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

President Biden blamed Hurricane Helene on climate change and said anybody who disagreed must be brain dead.

Formerly, hurricane were “acts of God” which Were Not covered under ordinary insurance, special  coverage was required, whereas damage resulting from actions of other people Were covered.

So .  .  .  does this mean all our insurance premiums are going up, because hurricanes are now torts? 

Joe Doakes, no longer in Como Park

Uh…lawyers?

A Little Soggy

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Governor Klink, Melissa Hortman and the Urban DFL clacque squandered a $19 billion surplus paying off the DFL’s special interests, and all we got was a broken dam.

Unexpectedly? No. Not a bit. The century-old Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River – a tributary to the Minnesota, and eventually the Mississippi – has been a problem for a long time.

And everyone who gave a, er, damn knew it:

In 2021, a study was conducted that identified two feasible solutions for the dam’s state of disrepair: repair or remove the dam. Both options have significant costs, and each has its opportunities, trade-offs, and timeframes. The purpose of the Future of Rapidan Dam project is to identify the community’s needs and concerns and use their input on the options to help the County make the best decision for all impacted by the Dam’s future.

You can’t buy any urban non-profit allegiances with a dam. You sure can’t carry a dam in a suitcase to Kenya.

It’s bad.

If there’s a better way of depicting the results of the DFL’s priorities, I’m open to suggestions.

Decay

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Minnesota’s gross domestic product growth – which has long run far ahead of national averages – isn’t anymore:

I’ve been observing this for a while now – when I decided to move to Minnesota, the state was simultaneously a mecca of opportunity in the Midwest, a place that Fodor Travel Guides called “The Athens of the 20th Century” in a fit of not-excessive hyperbole – that was nonetheless modestly affordable for a 22 year old guy with a BA in English, as opposed to an MBA or a software engineering degree.

And that is just not true anymore.

And it might seem rote and predictable to follow that with “and it’s the DFL’s fault”.

But, honestly, who else has been driving the ship for the past 16 years?

The Urban Doom Loop

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As we watch the back an forth between dismal demographic news and media pollyannaism in Minneapolis, it’s worth looking at other cities that are having similar post-pandemic problems.

Which is most of Blue Urban America, to be honest – there aren’t many cities outside Florida, Texas, the Carolinas and Tennessee doing well these days – but Boston is a particularly interesting case.

Boston has one advantage – a media where someone, in this case Jon Keller of Boston Magazine – will actually do serious, sober, balanced reporting on the issue, a job that normally falls to Alphanews and the Center of the American Experiment here in the Twin Cities.

Boston had the advantage of not having had a bunch of riots at the height of the pandemic. It has the overcompensating disadvantage of being ruled by a mayor who may be worse than Minneapolis’s mayor and council (so far) put together:

Disaster movies involving skyscrapers are part of America’s cultural canon—and while the situation here isn’t quite as dire as the terrorist attack on the swanky Nakatomi Plaza in the classic Christmas movie Die Hard, neither does there seem to be much hope of a Bruce Willis–style miracle rescue by our elected leaders. After scoffing at the warnings, Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration stunned property owners this spring by proposing the one idea few outside of City Hall seem to think has even a chance of fixing the problem: a tax hike on the beleaguered commercial holdings themselves (which would likely get passed on to tenants, forcing them to downsize their office footprint or flee). It’s a move arguably more intended to curry favor with voters in the upcoming election than keep Boston safe from the doom loop. Coming on top of a string of initiatives deeply unpopular with real estate owners, including an attempt to restore rent control and adopting a surtax on property sales worth more than $2 million, the tensions between Wu and local developers have never been higher.

At the same time, other immediate options for averting catastrophe seem either politically unpalatable or unlikely. Extracting more money from relatively undertaxed residential properties? A politically toxic non-starter in an election year for the mayor, who has said, “I cannot have that happen.” Seeking relief from the state? Given the traditional strain between urban and suburban priorities, good luck with that. And while officials are exploring ideas to deal with the ever-increasing office-building vacancy rate, such as converting empty offices into desperately needed housing, the economic viability of that solution is somewhere between questionable and laughable.

The parallels are seductive – and perhaps a little misleading. And the whole article is worth a read.

But if you read about Mayor Wu’s approach to the collapse of downtown Boston’s commercial real estate market and the hole it leaves in the city’s budget and think “the beatings will continue until morale improves”, you and I think just a little alike.

Oh, yeah – Chicago, too.

The Chicanes Of Leftist Economics

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If the Democrat party’s messaging machine were targeted at people who did critical thinking, I’d have a little sympathy for them.

They’d have to navigate a pretty tight logical hairpin turn.

To wit: they’d have to supervise the gaslighting of the people to believe the “experts” and not their lying eyes about the economy:

…and that workers have more buying power than they did five years ago…

…while simultaneously making them believe that public employee unions are doing less well:

As schools across the country struggle to find teachers to hire, more governors are pushing for pay increases, bonuses and other perks for the beleaguered profession.

Meanwhile, teacher salaries have fallen further and further behind those of their college-educated peers in other fields.

Remember – I said “if they had to convince people who could think critically”.

They don’t.

Steady as she goes.

America’s Abusive Spouse

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Notice how many Democrats and media people (ptr) are gaslighting working Americans about the economy lately?

The Dow Jones and the level of GDP is nice and all, but inflation is rising faster than buying power, and is going to get worse before it gets better, if it gets better.

Shut Up And Make The Biscuits, Jeb

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Joe Doakes, no longer from Como Park, emails:

Seems that Cracker Barrel is in financial trouble after inviting restaurant patrons to celebrate Gay Pride.  Go to https://ace.mu.nu/ and scroll down to “The Morning Rant: Cracker Barrel Went Woke and Now It’s Going Broke” for a nice recap. 

Sometimes I wonder if every big company is working from the same “How to Destroy Your Business” cheat sheet, but that cynically paints with too broad a brush.  It’s not “every big company” but “every company that ought to know its customers better.”  This isn’t a woke failing, it’s a management failing.  Figure out what the customers want, figure out how much they’ll pay for it, figure out how to sell them what they want at the price they’re willing to pay, then get rich doing it.  It’s been the business model of civilization for thousands of years.  How hard is it to understand?

I could see Target deciding to go woke.  They’ve been on the cutting edge of liberal silliness forever.  They were leaders in the trans bathroom issue.  They refuse to sell spark plugs because gas lawn mowers kill Mother Nature.  For them to put penis shorts in girls’ clothes should have made perfect sense, given the liberal woke crowd they’re marking to.  It only blew up because they failed to understand that Woodbury Soccer Moms are all in for gay rights and saving the planet when the issue is theoretical but some of them become Mama Bear protecting her little girl cubs when the issue is personal.  “Woke” is fine until their own daughter is at risk of being raped by the trannie in the girls’ bathroom at school, or shot by the vibrant kid who be jus bout to turn his life t’roun, or beat up by the diversity princess because the daughter didn’t respeck her.  Then, old fashioned law-and-order values are in hot demand.  Not enough to sustain a serious boycott to cause serious damage to the brand, but enough to be noticed.  Okay, that’s Target.

 Cracker Barrel, on the other hand, should know better.  Their customers are Southern church-goers and senior citizens.  It’s the Denny’s crowd, one economic step up from the Waffle House rabble.  They’re willing to tolerate queers and trannies but they’re not the least bit interested in celebrating them.  If you’re going queer, we’re going elsewhere, same as the Bud Light drinkers.

 Personally, I’m waiting for Remington to announce its new Rainbow Pride Rifle to completely finish off the brand forever.  Can’t be long now, can it? 

Joe Doakes, no longer in Como Park

Personally, the problem is that so many of these brands we’re avoiding are ones I haven’t patronized in forever.

Cracker Barrel? In the ’90s – when my budget made a trip to CB a treat for special occasions – it was an event. A destination. The biscuits alone were something I looked forward to.

The last time I ate at a CB – maybe 2017? – it was like eating at a Perkins that’d given up. Them going “woke” was a market anticlimax for me.

We’ve Got Good News And Bad News

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The good news: Minnesota’s new paid family leave law will cost 25% more than originally budgeted:

Minnesota’s new paid family and medical leave program will launch in 2026 with a 25% higher payroll tax than originally anticipated when the bill was passed last session, an assistant commissioner with the Department of Employment and Economic Development told lawmakers on Monday. 

Because DEED has been given legislative authority to raise the tax, the agency can do so without requiring a new law. 

“Wait, Mitch – I thought you said that was the good news?”

I did.

The bad news? The program doesn’t start until 2026. Like the Southwest LIght Rail and every other DFL spending boondoggle, this program is going to get more expensive before anyone ends up using it.

Next Time Governor Klink Yaps About The Economy

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Once the colonoscopy removes all that smoke the DFL and media have been blowing into your distal colon, the news about Minnesota’s business climate just ain’t good:

Published last week, Chief Executive’s list of 2024 Best & Worst States for Business ranked Minnesota near the bottom at No. 41. The result isn’t much different from last year when Minnesota ranked at No. 40. Over 500 CEOs and business owners were surveyed across the U.S.

Turns out you can only pay so many taxes for so few badly-allocated “services” before you start looking into that “Galt” guy.

Fishy

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Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

From Powerline:

Something strange has been happening with jobless claims numbers lately

Calling the state of the U.S. jobs market these days stable seems like an understatement considering the latest data coming out of the Labor Department.

That’s because most of the past several weeks have shown that first-time claims for unemployment benefits haven’t fluctuated at all — as in zero.

For five of the past six weeks, the level of initial jobless filings totaled exactly 212,000. Given a labor force that is 168 million strong, achieving such stasis seems at least unusual if not uncanny, yet that is what the figures released each Thursday morning since mid-March have shown.

The consistency has raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street. The only week that varied was March 30, with 222,000.

“How is this statistically possible? Five of the last six weeks, the exact same number,” market veteran Jim Bianco, head of Bianco Research, posted Thursday on X

I chalk it up to Berg’s 24th Law: Democrats know their audience just doesn’t think all that critically, so there’s no need to actually present facts.