Bob CollinsHow horrible is the open office? People would rather be in their soulless cubicles, the Boston Globe says. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Economy
They had to liven up Kiester, Minn., a bit to make an ad for Preparation H a little more lively. That’s the way things are in Kiester these days; it takes a hemorrhoids ad to get it some action. Kiester, population 501, needed some ringers for the ad, Mankato Free Press reports. It showed, for Read more →
A St. Cloud lawyer wants Minnesota’s two U.S. senators to get behind a push that would allow student loan debt to be wiped out in bankruptcy. Read more →
Economics, they say, is an inexact science and nobody proves it on a regular basis like economists.
Read more →
Should we try to make a living at what we love? Or should we just concentrate on making a living? Read more →
Christos Greek Restaurant folded last week after Ramsey County said it wanted a restaurant that has full catering operations and opens seven days a week.
But the Depot is at ‘nearly full occupancy,’ Finance & Commerce reports, now that a coffee shop is opening in the Depot. The last one closed in 2009. Read more →
Grocery stores in smaller communities have struggled in recent years and there’s real concern that they won’t be able to make it.
Many of them have tried everything. Almost everything. Most haven’t tried what Paul and Kendra Rasmusson have created in New Prague — a staffless, round-the-clock, self-checkout grocery store. Read more →
It’s the first time in the ‘modern era’ — about 130 years — that the age group was more likely to be living with parents than with a spouse or partner in their own home. Read more →
One in eight college graduates is ‘underemployed.’ And for most young graduates, wages are no higher than they were for the grads in 2000.
Know a 2015 graduate? How did things turn out Read more →
She was married off by her family at 18 to a man in Hong Kong she’d never met and didn’t like. They eventually moved to the white, Scandinavian enclave of Minnesota, her daughter, Katie, recalled. And she didn’t even speak English. Read more →
The continuing fight between Public Radio and developing technology spilled into the open again today when an Indiana station said it will stop carrying This American Life because Ira Glass has cut a deal with Pandora to provide exclusive on-demand streaming. Public Radio stations can still stream the shows live on their websites.
Read more →
The Metropolitan Airports Commission has now submitted plans for expansion of Lake Elmo Airport, a plan which has drawn the ire of airport neighbors.
MAC wants to relocate and lengthen the airport’s smallest runway, which would require a “safety area” that crosses what is now 30th Street. That would require moving 30th Street. Read more →
Companies of more than 50 people would be required to have policies establishing the hours during which employees would not send or answer emails.
Read more →
Maybe if workers at a hog processing plant were white, Mason City, Iowa would have embraced a plan that would have brought close to 2,000 jobs to the city, an official with the company proposing the plant is suggesting.
Read more →
When the last of the strip clubs close, an oil boom is officially over. In Williston, N.D., the oil boom is officially over. Read more →