Category Archives: Business, The Economy and The Markets

Pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it?

Labor Day

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Hope you’re enjoying your long weekend dedicated to a movement that mistook “two decades of inflated wages when the US was the world’s only functional economy, while Japan and Germany and South Korea were bombed flat and India and China were busy with socialist noodling and starving themselves back to the 1800s and unable to manufacture anything more complicated than motor scooters” for an eternal entitlement.

And they still do:

Senator (gag) Smith: go ahead. Put a bunch of workers – with or without union cards – in an open field. See if a factory or a workshop or, since you’re a DFLer and it’s your only perspective of the private sector, a coffee shop springs up around them.

We’ll wait.

Well, tomorrow I’ll wait. I’ve got labor day plans.

Dubious Motivations

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I saw this tweet from Governor Klink, and it brought me back in time almost (cough cough) years, to when I was trying to decide what to do after college:

And I clearly remember my thought process when figuring out where to move, and why:

  1. If a condom breaks, will my future nonexistent girlfriend be able to abort it even up until birth?
  2. If we have a kid, and get divorced, and that kid decides to transition genders, will I be able to get the custody order ignored?
  3. Can I afford the rent…not now, per se, but at some indeterminate point in the future, when a hodgepodge of government programs have some promised effect, whatever it is?
  4. Can I get paid leave from the job I neither have nor, honestly, have really figured out what it’ll be, yet?
  5. Will other kids coming after me be “prepared” for the jobs I’m trying to get?

Kudos, Governor Klink. Nailed it.

Is it just me, or was that tweet about coaxing young people to move to Minnesota – something they’re not doing – written by someone who’s never been a young person thinking about moving to another state?

Ambiguous

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So we’re reliably informed that Downtown Minneapolis is back.

But that it desperately needs Target to force its workers back into the office.

Reporter Brianna Kelly spent months talking to downtown Minneapolis businesses about the flexible hybrid approach of downtown’s largest employer, and the impact it is having on the local economy.

“You know, everyone wants Target to be back; we need Target to be back,” Kelly said. “They’re a huge part of the entire ecosystem downtown.”

The story behind the story is this: if the wellbeing of Downtown Minneapolis is that dependent on a single employer, that whole “Minneapolis is a Cold Flint” comparison is looking better and better, and I don’t say that with any great joy.

Bidenomics And That “Top Five” Ranking

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The Shutterfly warehouse in Shakopee is going to close.

A picture products and service company has decided to close its facility in Shakopee, costing around 250 employees their jobs.

Shutterfly said in a notice to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development that it plans to permanently close its location on Deen Lakes Boulevard near the end of June 2024.

A friend of the blogs, right, saying the closing “couldn’t be the new laws just passed”, could it?

The list of possibilities is so rich:

  • “Bidenomics” – three years of inflationary government spending combined with falling output as companies and capital consolidating with both fists.
  • The end of the tax increment financing that Shakopee implemented to get the warehouse in the first place
  • Minnesota’s owners, new laws and taxes.

Take your pick.

Things I’d Do If I Had A Time Machine

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Speaking for myself?

I”d go back and try to show…

…well, not “the idiots who shut down nuclear power”, so much as the mushy minds that believed them, how much trouble and misery they would eventually cause around the world.

Of course, destroying cornucopia in general is a goal of the totalitarian left. Poor people don’t solve problems – but they do demand strongmen to solve the problems for them.

Ever Notice…

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… how iconic brands in Minneapolis never find buyers? They always go from humming along to closing up shop for good?

Psycho Suzies tiki lounge may have been one of the most distinctive bars/restaurants in the city, that, for its many faults, as always been pretty creative on the food front.

It’s been a while since I’ve been there – although one of my most treasured memories is cleaning Bridget Cronin‘s vomit off my shoes during one of her birthday parties there. But every time I was ever there, it was packed, especially on gorgeous summer nights, where you could sit and look across the Mississippi River at the sparkling of gunfire from North Minneapolis.

You think it would be a hot property, including its branding, for someone.

But nooooo…

Psycho Suzie’s Motor Lounge announced it will permanently close on Aug. 19.

“For the past two decades we’ve welcomed you through our tiki laden jungle to enjoy tropical drinks, pizza pies, waterfront seating, and the company of new and old friends… but all good things must come to an end and this Psycho Suzi is ready to hang it up and put on her retirement hat,” said owner Leslie Bock, in a Facebook post.

So what Minneapolis social tradition will be next? City government has drawn a line in the Sand around the first Avenue, clearly – that place is escaped the apathy of the market. Thanks to city intervention a number of times.

The Dakota? God forbid.

With More “Victories” Like This…

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I’m sure Senator Hauschild – or the DFL comms goon managing his account – thinks this story looks like a victory:

Minnesota: the state where you need to have a state senator in your bullpen to rebuild a business that burned down.

Not even starting a new business.

Wonder what that’d take?

Lesson Learned? Deferred?

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Anheuser Busch, reeling from its epic self-inflicted shot in the foot, is laying off workers.

And they’ve belatedly learned…well, something (emphasis added):

In a statement to The Associated Press, the beer maker said the layoffs will impact less than 2% of its workforce. Anheuser-Busch’s website says the company employs 19,000 employees nationwide. Warehouse staff, drivers and other frontline employees will not be affected, the company said.

After throwing their key, blue-collar clientele under the bus in the first place, it’s probably a relief to know someone at InBev knew better than to make the working stiffs pay for their suits’ hubrus.

Well, at least pay first for it…

Participation Trophy

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Minnesota DFLers are giving themselves rotor-cuff issues patting themselves on the back…

…over, uh, this:

Minnesota came in one slot of Texas. I’m old enough to remember when Minnesota was overwhelmed with New York City. Plus ca change…

But what is the rationale for this list, from always-Democrat-friendly CNBC?

I’ll add some emphasis:

To determine its rankings, CNBC factored in metrics across 10 categories, listed here in order of their weight: workforce; infrastructure; economy; life, health and inclusion; cost of doing business; technology and innovation; business friendliness; education; access to capital; and cost of living.

So – according to a list that ranks stuff HR cares about well ahead of stuff Accounting cares about, Minnesota beats Texas…

…by one.

Wheeeeeee.

Congrats, DFL.

The DFL Owns This

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Parts of the Twin Cities housing market are doing very well.

Others…not so much:

“Nowhere have home prices fallen more in the past year than in Uptown Minneapolis — specifically the 55408 ZIP code that includes Lyn-Lake and part of Whittier — where closing prices last month were almost 51% less than what they were in April 2019.”

Amazing what three years of crime, ongoing “civil disturbances” and endemic disorder will do to stability.

I’m Old Enough To Remember…

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…when “Cultural Appropriation” was considered a bad thing.

Realtor markets to gays who are hysterical about Texas laws about…

…checks notes…

…restrictions on chemical neutering of mentally-ill minors, by calling his marketing ploy “the Rainbow Underground Railroad”:

When someone goes to the website FleeRedStates.com, a message reads, “As LGBTQIA+ citizens in Red States, many of us feel at risk. Current laws are highly discriminatory against trans youth and their families. Our marriages, our families, and even our safety are at risk. If you feel the need to leave the jurisdiction of a Red State, let us help you sell your property here and connect with you an LGBTQIA+ or ally agent in a better location of your choice. We are licensed in Texas and we have affiliates in all 50 states and several countries.” People can share their contact information to create an account and start the process of connecting with a real estate expert.

“We’re calling it kind of the ‘rainbow Underground Railroad,’” McCranie said. “We’re trying to get people out quietly and get them to someplace where they feel safer.”

And if you are more than two months old, you’re old enough to remember it, too.

A Simple Proposition

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To: Calvin McDonald, CEO, Lululemon
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Business Stuff

Mr. McDonald,

Last week, a couple of employees at a Lululemon store were axed after they tried to react like a normal law-abiding human when someone robbed their store.

You defended this response:

Lululemon’s CEO stands by his decision to axe two employees who called the police while three masked men robbed a Georgia outpost, citing the company’s “zero-tolerance policy” for intervening with a robbery as reason for firing the workers.

“We have a zero-tolerance policy that we train our educators on around engaging during a theft,” Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald told CNBC during Friday’s “Squawk on the Street.”

“Educators” are what Lululemon calls its workers…

Ferguson said that once a robbery occurs, workers are instructed to “scan a QR code. And that’s that. We’ve been told not to put it in any notes, because that might scare other people. We’re not supposed to call the police, not really supposed to talk about it.”

However, McDonald said that the policy is in place “because we put the safety of our team, of our guest, front and center. It’s only merchandise,” he told CNBC.

Question : Since it’s “only merchandise”, why even charge for it?

That is all.

De-Evolution

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120 years ago, when you went into a general or dry goods or grocery store, you went to the counter, got hold of a clerk, and gave or related a list of what you wanted. That clerk would then run around the shelves in back and bring the order up front, ring it up, and send you on you way.

The bottleneck is obvious. Shopping speed is limited by the number and speed of the clerks available.

So a little over 100 years ago, when the chain now known as “A&P” rolled out a model where the customer could walk through the aisles and “pick” the order themselves, and get it rung up by dedicated cashiers when they were good ‘n ready, removing the bottleneck? It revolutionized shopping. The old fasioned “Warehouse PIcker” model pretty much disappeard.

Until now.

A new Walgreens concept being tested in Chjcago brings back the “General Store” model, with a thin veneer of technology to cover that 19th century smell:

In what was once a typical Walgreens, there are now just two short aisles of so-called “essentials” where “customers may shop for themselves.” If you want anything else—a bottle of booze, a deodorant brand deemed “non-essential”—you’ll need to order it at a kiosk and pick it up at the counter.

After undergoing a few weeks of construction, the store reopened on Tuesday. The pharmacy is in the back and to the left, equipped with a fancy new kiosk system of its own. An employee will teach you how to use it.

To the right, gated by anti-shoplifting devices to protect the inventory, two rows of low-rise shelves offer a very limited selection of those so-called “essentials.” Unlike the tall shelves you’re used to seeing in your neighborhood Walgreens, this store’s shelves are no more than five feet tall, giving everyone a clear look at what everyone else is up to…After placing your order, a plastic-framed sign next to the computer instructs, you should “relax while we shop for you.” When your order is ready, head to the pickup/FedEx/Western Union counter to claim your goods.

It’s because of crime, of course.

Democrat governance – dragging us back to the middle ages, a century and an industry at a time.

There Is No Target But Target

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To: Target Corp
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporouis Peasant
Re: Your Descent Into Totalitarianism

Target,

I started boycotting you a couple weeks ago, over the whole “grooming little kids” thing.

Truth be told, it’s been pretty easy.

And it just got easier:

I’d be creeped out of a company required employees to be Christian conservatives – but nobody, not even the dreaded Chik-Fil-A, actually does that.

Forcing political compliance on employees?

Yet another reason Minnesota needs to suck it up and elect an actual Attorney General.

Oh, yeah – not spending a dime with you for the duration.

What is the duration? That’s up to you.

That is all.

UPDATE: A friend of the blog emails:

The only significant difference between working for Target and joining a cult is that Target doesn’t kill you if you try to leave (Yet)

I was thinking something more like the French Catholics chasing the Huguenots out of the country

Off Target

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It’s not a good week to be a Target shareholder.

Target’s stock price has taken a hit amid the backlash over its LGBT-themed products.

The New York Post noted on May 17 the retailer’s stock closed at $160.96 per share, giving it a market value of $74.3 billion.

But as of Thursday morning, its stock price was hovering around $140 a share. And its market value was down roughly $10 billion and around $64 billion.

Target is…

…I was about to say “pushing back”.

But it’s more “trying to deflect”: This piece is called “Target is being held hostage by annti-LGBTQ campaign”.

No word if any “pouncing” was also involved.

But here’s the part were I have a question. Target accepts a certain amount of “breakage”; shoplifting, vandalism, even people opening containers to see what’s i before they buy unopened ones. They accept it as part of the cost of doing business – even more so today, when their urban stores are plagued with rampant theft and vandalism.

So about this bit here:

The campaign became hostile, with threats levied against Target employees and instances of damaged products and displays in stores…In the end, Target opted to protect employee safety by removing certain items that it said caused the most “volatile” reaction from opponents.

DIsplays get damaged all the time. And Target employees are no strangers to angry, hostile customers. None of which is OK.

But Target is claiming there’ve been attacks, even violence, against Target workers.

So where are the reports of the actual acts of violence?

No video? Nothing in writing anywhere?

Call me a cynic, but it almost appears that Target is trying to deflect blame for its market bleeding away from tuck-under swimsuits for teenage boys and Satanic designers, and over to the Phantom MAGA Menace.

Someone show me if I’m wrong, here.

UPDATE 7:03 AM

Oh.

Given that the demand for “right wing violence” exceeds the supply by an order of magnitude or two, it was always a safe bet. But hate assuming

#OneAbusedSpouse

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You and your significant other each earn $60,000 a year. That’s a total household income of $120,000.

Your bills – housing, transportation, loan payments, food, everything you do – come to $10,000 a month. Your family budget is balanced.

You go out to the casino one night, and get the luckiest break ever; you walk out $80,000 ahead. 

You buy a bigger house, a newer car (and a bridge loan to finish paying off your old one), do some remodeling, put a couple of vacations and cruises and a whole lot of happy hours, on your capital one card. 

With the new mortgage, car loan, revolving credit and loans to pay for all the other goodies, your monthly expenses go up to $16,000 a month – requiring a $200,000 a year income between you and your significant other – who, remember, are still earning $120,000 a year between you. So when you’ve burned through that $80 windfall, you’ll be coming up $80,000 a year in the red.

Your options to avoid insolvency, foreclosure, and repossession are:

a. Downsize, quick – go back to a smaller house, cheaper car, etc.

b. Keep going back to the casino and hope for another big score, and hope your significant other isn’t too stupid to know what a longshot that is.

c. Browbeat your significant other into earning more money so you don’t go bankrupt, and hope he or she doesn’t leave you. As the significant other why they hate children if they don’t ratchet their income up, but fast.

That’s exactly what the state legislature and Governor Klink have done; the pandemic left the state with a one time windfall that they have spent, and much more. 

And you and I, the taxpayers of Minnesota, are the significant other. 

So what are they going to do about it?

Well, they’re going to hope that you’re a dumb spouse that thinks you can bank on casino winnings. But they are just going to hold out for option C, and demand you pony up more.

That’s exactly what just happened.

If this were a marriage, you would call the big spender an abusive spouse. 

So when you are the victim, what do you call the perpetrator? 

Unexpectedly

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With great fanfare, Minneapolis and Saint Paul raised their minimum wages to $15 an hour. 

And now, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve says the policy has done…well, exactly what every conservative said it would do:  

 Pay is up 1% among those with jobs – but 2% fewer are employed as a direct result of the policies, and that’s just scratching the surface (emphasis added):

Many economists have reached similar conclusions about minimum wage increases in the past. Still, the size of the impacts the researchers measured — by comparing Minneapolis and St. Paul to data culled from other Minnesota cities from 2017 through 2021 — were eye-popping, especially in low-wage industries.

Take Minneapolis’ retail sector, for example: The minimum wage increase led to 28% fewer retail jobs than researchers would’ve expected from a similar city during the same five-year period. By this comparison, Minneapolis also saw a 20% drop in hours worked and a 13% dip in aggregate worker earnings.

Across St. Paul’s restaurant industry, the city’s 2018 minimum wage hike was responsible for drying up nearly one-third of available jobs, the study found. In “limited-service” (fast food) restaurants, both hours and earnings fell by more than half after the increase took effect.

“Good, they’re mostly terrible jobs anyway” say the white progressives from the non-profit/government/industrial complex. They re literally spinning this as good news – or excuses for more programs.

It’s possible that Big Left isn’t pushing these minimum wages as a way to gut opportunity for entry level workers. But if it were, I’m at a loss for what they’d do differently.

Acceptable Losses

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The Good News, of a sort? The social media at Bud LIght, and its parent Anheuser Busch, have gone quiet since the Dylan Mulvaney flap.

Bud Light operates one of those fun, friendly social media accounts we see quite often from corporate giants these days. On March 30, it tweeted or replied to tweets over fifteen times, with messages on the order of “Win tickets to Stagecoach for you and a friend! Travel and hotel accommodations covered” and “Have a cold one for us.” On March 31 came twenty more tweets and replies, including “There’s still time to win beer money. Which women’s team do you think will win it all?,” and a reply to a well-wisher: “Bud Light loves you back.” On April 1 it was more of the same, but we haven’t heard from Bud Light since 8:50PM that evening, when it tweeted: “Beers on us? Must be game time. For a chance to win, cheer on your team with #EasyToEnjoySweepstakes in the replies.” That was the day that Mulvaney was revealed to be Bud Light’s new spokesdude. But isn’t Bud Light proud, like all LGBTQETC activists constantly insist they are?

It isn’t just Bud Light, either. The UK’s Daily Mail reported Sunday that “The famous beer also hasn’t posted on their main Instagram feeds since March 31 and have not posted to Facebook since March 30. Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, has also gone without posting since April 1.” This is unusual, for “while they have gone a few days without tweeting in the past, the @BudLight is typically fairly active, as are their other regular social channels.” What could account for this? It looks as if it’s because of Dylan Mulvaney.

So, “get woke, go broke”. Simple as . Bob’s your uncle, right?

Maybe. Maybe not.

As we discussed last week, Bud LIght’s chief executive, Alissa Heinerscheid, is a young, intensely “woke” woman, a product of a $60K/year prep school, Harvard and Wharton.

Now, we can joke about her background – as Dennis Prager says, “it takes an elite education to produce someone this stupid” – or the near term results of the decision.

But while Heinerscheid may not be “smart”, or “well-educated” in any holistic sense of the term, she is certainly well-schooled. And that brings us to….

The Bad News: What if Anheuser Busch knows this, and considers it an acceptable cost to build up its Environment and Social Governance (ESG) score – the American version of Red Chinese “Social Credit” score for business (and people, sooner than later, if they get their way)?

Nothing Says “Understanding The Budweiser-Drinking Demographic”…

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…like a resume that looks like this:

It’s the woman who made, uh, trans-woman Dylan Mulvaney the poster…um, person for, not Stella Artois, not even Blue Moon, but..

…Bud Light.

Beege at and our old friend David Strom at Hot Air run down the rest of the story.

Nothing says Bud Light like…well…

Thing is, I didn’t like Bud Light before this. It is barely drinkable. It isn’t even legally beer in Europe. It’s malted battery acid. Bilge drippings.

What the hell’s a guy supposed to boycott?

Things Continue To Go Just Great!

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Brooklyn Park WalMart to close:

A Walmart spokesperson said after a “careful and thoughtful review process” the company made the “difficult decision” to close the location on Friday, April 21. 

In a statement, they added that the store didn’t perform  “as well as we hoped” and didn’t meet the company’s financial expectations, but employees will be able to transfer to another store.

This follows on the heels of Target announcing they’ll be closing their Uptown mini-store. With that closing, the chain’s explanation made sense; the price of the land in Uptown was higher than the low-service mini-Target was worth.

For now.

As to Shingle Creek Crossing? It’s not land values. The shoplifting got it.

#Vibrant.

Social media droogs from Crocus Hill and Northeast are chortling, thinking the store will be turned into an abstract performance space or something.

Social Justice

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So maybe not all HR people are remedial:

I’d love to see if that is still true at companies that officially embrace “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI), or if the actual hiring managers at companies that adopt such frippery also find potential employees like that to be a complete pain in the ass, too…

Tina Smith: Filthy Liar

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Senator Smith took to Twitter to shill for “ESG“ – rules that require businesses to make decisions based on “Environment, Social Credit, [woke corporate] Governance l”practices.in other words, replacing fiduciary responsibility with “woke“ “social justice“ (read: Marxist) values.

there are really only two possibilities:

  • Smith really is this ignorant.
  • She knows she can count on a majority of her voters being this ignorant.

Given the last few elections in Minnesota, #2 isn’t the dumbest strategery .