As we get into the primary and general election season it is clear that U. S. citizens are a particularly ungrateful lot. Voters are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. They are angry that the economy…
Minnesota’s farmers might be escaping the worst of pricing realities
When I saw the headline this week that crop conditions in the United States were good and those in Minnesota unprecedentedly favorable, my first reaction was sympathy for my friends and relatives who farm. ‘Well, that’s too bad,’ I thought.…
Target’s politics may sink to the bottom line
Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel and the controversy over the retailer’s corporate donations to a business group trying to elect GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer may help move us back to an earlier era, one in which people considered beliefs and…
Digging ditches, pondering free trade
The young farmer who rents our pasture hasn’t studied economics, or he wouldn’t have offered to spell me doing hand-shoveling recently. His offer was generous on a sweltering day, but it ignored the vital economic principle of “comparative advantage.” That…