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Stats in the middle with you
Nate Silver provides a fascinating look at the importance of the middle class in our economy today. It has the appearance of being boring but it simplifies some large concepts very well, explaining how incomes are related to stability in the housing sector and how both are related to the policy that emerges from Washington.…
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In the Info Age, facts are the new oil
By way of the Politics in Minnesota morning report, I found this story from the St. Paul Legal Ledger about the massive workload of Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor. From the state’s health care system to the JOBZ economic development program, the OLA staff has exhaustively investigated many important aspects of state government, saving…
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Steel bottom?
Check out how steel industry stocks leveled off last week after a huge price drops over the year. They’re not exactly up, but the free fall is more like a gentle roll. Nate Silver contends this has to do with high hopes for the Obama stimulus/infrastructure plan. Spending on bridges, roads and technology across the…
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Silver: Labor’s ‘existential’ session crisis
Nate Silver has earned fame in political circles for his spot-on statistical analysis of polling and election projections during the 2008 cycle. His site continues to explore current events and political issues with an eye toward statistics and trends. On Monday, Silver’s site Fivethirtyeight.com explored the issue of unions and the Employee Free Choice Act.…
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Loans, taconite and forbearances, oh my! (UPDATE)
The Iron Range Resources Board met Thursday on a variety of topics, summarized here in a post by Lee Bloomquist at the agency’s blog Rangeviews. News stacking is always a judgment issue, so I’ll note that the non-agency WDIO TV (Duluth’s ABC affiliate) led its 6 p.m. Thursday news with Minorca Mine announcing it had…
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GOP’s LaHood, not Oberstar, leading SecTrans field
Hey, here’s a message for everyone preparing a campaign in the event Jim Oberstar gets called up to be Secretary of Transportation: Crack a cold one and enjoy the status quo. Obama’s team is vetting a congressman, but not ours and not even a Democrat. The Hill, which I found through PoliticalWire, reports that Rep.…
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OMG! Pat Buchanen knows about the Iron Range
Check out this transcript from a recent broadcast of the MSNBC program “Morning Joe” featuring host Joe Scarborough and commentator Pat Buchanen, both conservatives, along with other commentators and co-hosts of various ideologies and affiliations. I used to watch “Morning Joe” regularly but gave it up for the same reason some people give up vodka.…
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Rukavina proposes Perpich program as possible cure for economic ills
State Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia) hearkens a Rudy Perpich job creation program from the 1980s as one potential way to address job losses and the bad economy in this Mesabi Daily News letter to the editor from a few days ago. Related posts: No related posts.
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Shoe mashups grow stronger with each passing day
This concept started showing up on Twitter shortly after the “Bush vs. Shoes” incident in Iraq. I went to You Tube to see if anyone followed through and, sure enough, here’s a 25 second clip that makes the magic happen. I also found a mashup of the incident over the strains of MC Hammer’s “U…
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The fed haze standard and the Iron Range
The EPA has backed off its efforts to eliminate two laws that developers say discourage clean-coal power plants. One of them has huge implications here in Northern Minnesota. Pro-coal EPA officials were trying to undo the federal haze standard that limits pollution near national parks before President-elect Obama takes office. Essentially, there is only so…
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Bailout balk BS (or "You can’t scare me, I’m sticking with the union")
Think what you will about the auto industry bailout. There are two main perspectives: a bailout would help stabilize the industry and economy OR it won’t and is just wasteful. That’s a perfectly good debate and I’m not sure I’ve picked a side yet. But if the auto industry bailout indeed failed yesterday because the…
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Moving pictures: My first vLog goes national
I wrote last month about my invitation to join PurpleStates, a public policy project that is collecting viewpoints and reports about the national economy and sharing them in short video segments. They found a blogger from each of the 50 states and are running their vLogs over a 50-day period. I was selected as Minnesota’s…
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Blagojevich: Despite name, not an Iron Ranger
So maybe you’re wondering if disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is a Serbian or a Croatian. He’s a Serbian. You know how I know? A reliable source called me to tell me that “Croatians don’t get mixed up in this sort of thing.” I love living on Minnesota’s Iron Range. Serbs and Croats are still…
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Pave 169! Say what? Pave 169!
You have to understand something about how my political identity was formed. Sure, my upbringing on the labor bastion of the Iron Range mattered, as did my experiences in the local DFL organization as a teenager and the vociferous reading I did back then. Being the son of a liberal mother and libertarian father also…
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Clean coal conundrum
Here’s an interesting take on “clean coal” technology. Even if you could capture all the carbon from coal, the cost involved in doing so would make nuclear, natural gas or even renewable sources the more economical choice. Coal should only be used as a transition fuel as we move into a new energy system and…