Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/lee-egerstrom/page/8/)
A special interest front organization (that we’re not going to mention) designed to scare the bejabbers out of senior citizens has turned its attention to Minnesota seniors. This is worth noting because the North Star State has been mostly spared from the group’s Superpac onslaught in recent years.
This being an election year, simplistic answers and proposed fixes for all that ails us are offered daily for real and imagined problems.
Some, like the voter ID Constitutional amendment in Minnesota, are pure distractions to cure a problem that doesn’t exist but will serve a political strategy of denying the elderly and minorities access to the polls.
While the federal fiscal year is winding down and the future of USDA programs are in doubt, rural Minnesota just got a big boost from one continuing program that should help strengthen the rural housing markets across the state.
The old saying cited above is usually limited to love and war. The spreading drought across the nation reminds us that it applies to farming as well. Some farmers get nicked by drought every year; others get lucky.
Aside from rural radio and newspapers, crop reports rarely grab major headlines. Continue Reading
Fellow Minnesotans emotionally and financially tied to the food industry are growing restless as drought conditions worsen across much of the United States while Congress appears in no hurry to pass multi-year farm and food legislation.
A Constitutional brouhaha may take shape in little Delaware, and it may offer a way for Minnesota to gain more clout in Congress as well.
Minnesotans wondering how this summer’s heat and spreading drought may affect them might peek in at Lucy and Cliff Larson Jr. and their ventures that cover nearly every cog in the food chain.
The report explores the conflicting goals that ultimately help quick profit seekers keep stakeholders divided. For example, local merchants want quality roads and infrastructure. Yet, some tend to join with big businesses in advocating for lower taxes. Globalization might enhance a corporation’s sales force, designers and engineers’ job security while their colleagues on the factory floor would lose jobs to outsourcing.Compounding competitive business pressure on stakeholders is a two-pronged legislative assault on workers’ rights and basic civil rights fueled by the business lobby, ALEC, and Citizens United. Conservative policy advocates want to keep progressives busy with social distractions, such as Minnesota’s Voter ID and Marriage amendment. Continue Reading
A growing group of Minnesota business leaders is coming out from behind closed doors to openly oppose the so-called anti-marriage amendment that will be on this November’s ballot.As with all contentious social issues served up by political strategists to divert attention from pressing economic, health and education issues, concerned Minnesotans should wonder if the current progressive stances from the business community will end with just one issue.Recent stories in both the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minneapolis Star Tribune have pointed out courageous leadership on the anti-marriage amendment from executives at General Mills, St. Jude Medical, Carlson Cos., Medtronic, Target, Best Buy, the Minnesota Twins, Ecolab and RBC Wealth Management, for starters.Most of the executives who expressed their opinion publicly stressed the economic importance for Minnesota to be a diverse, inclusive culture to help our companies attract the best and brightest employees possible. In this regard, GLBT marriage bashing here is like the anti-immigrant bashing in Arizona and several other states.Minnesota business executives from Carlson, Cargill and Ecolab, for instance, recently spoke at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast on the need for our national and multinational companies to hire talent from around the world without hindrance from rigid immigration rules.Such forceful voices are especially important this election year when carefully crafted diversions and distractions are being foisted on voters. Most of these actions are triggered by massive superpacs turned loose by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case.In a bizarre twist on First Amendment rights, campaign laws can still require public reporting of individual contributions to candidates’ campaigns but corporate funds can seed superpacs that attack candidates or public policies as long as they are loosely distanced from the candidates the negative actions would help.Millions of dollars of unaccounted and unreported funds – largely raised from business interests – are fueling attacks on the GLBT community, immigrants, public servants, unions, and, indirectly, children who need education and public services.Next week, Minnesota 2020 will release a report that looks closely at the inherent shareholder and stakeholder conflicts that surface whenever business firms rush in or are dragged into public policy disputes.It will look at how Germany, other countries of Europe, and Japan have adapted either statutory protections or cultural norms for recognizing stakeholder interests that, in theory, will help shareholder investments.Shareholders are not served over the long term when companies fund campaigns and public policies that keep chipping away at the middle class and household purchasing power. Continue Reading