Bob CollinsIs it possible in America for people to get ahead without someone falling back? Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Economy
Just in the time between when Forbes released its annual ranking of billionaires today, and lunch time, Glen Taylor’s worth increased by another $100 million, according to Forbes. And he’s not even close to being the richest man in Minnesota. Read more →
Rare is the day when some entrepreneur doesn’t reveal some plan to open up a tap room and rare is the day when some city doesn’t see it as a path to revitalize a city block. There have been amazing success stories and the beer drinkers of the Twin Cities have never had it better. Still, one does have to wonder how many different beers the Cities can support. Read more →
People vote with their feet and big chains continue to squeeze the life out of communities because that’s the choice people have made. Years from now, they’ll remember how great things used to be and wonder how it is those times disappeared. Read more →
A cemetery in Worthington won’t be able to cover payroll this month. It’s running out of money because people are living longer and the banks don’t pay much interest anymore. Read more →
Madeline Price really stirred things up a couple of years ago on the campus of the University of Queensland to educate people about Australia’s pay disparity.
She held a bake sale and charged men more. Why not? They make more.
Read more →
The identity of small towns is disappearing in a cloud of regional newspaper mush intended to ‘relevant’ to an audience across communities. Read more →
The stock market and the working stiff rarely are on the same page and today’s nearly 600-point decline in the Dow, capping its worst week in two years, comes because workers finally — finally — started getting a piece of the pie.
Investors hate that. Read more →
Housing officials in Eau Claire says more people are going to be sleeping in cars and on the streets now that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has pulled funding from two agencies in the region that find housing for the homeless. Read more →
You’ll be shelling out more money to use some Wisconsin state parks, including one of the most popular ones near the Twin Cities. Read more →
In these parts, thin ice is an economic boost to some sectors. Take Anderson’s Towing & Recovery in Grantsburg, Wis. A driver who ignored the thin-ice warning on Big Wood Lake a few weeks ago provided some overtime work on Sunday because the cold snap came in after the incident, encasing the truck in a tomb. Read more →
Please stand by while Baby Boomers completely lose it over NPR Weekend Edition Sunday host Lulu Garcia-Navarro’s interview with Michael Hobbes, who insists that millennials aren’t ‘entitled’, they just have it harder than anyone else.
Read more →
Tim Hortons — the Canadian coffee shop — is now the face of the debate over a higher minimum wage now that the children of the founder have taken Ontario’s increase in the minimum wage out on employees. Read more →
Christie Gingles, of Duluth, says she has a new understanding and compassion for the homeless; being homeless will do that to a person.
Read more →
Check back in 364 days for a full evaluation of all the predictions for 2018 but — spoiler alert — most of them will be wrong.
Probably included on that list is Loup Ventures’ Gene Munster, an analyst who predicts Amazon will buy Minneapolis-based Target this year.
Read more →