Minnesota’s Workforce to 2050

Our new report on Minnesota's Workforce to 2050 asks what our state's policymakers can do to help alleviate the coming fall in the labor force.

Mitchell South Dakota: Home of The Corn Palace and Wind Turbine Blade Landfill Exhibit?

Mitchell, South Dakota is famous for the corn palace, but it appears the community is also known among wind companies as a place to dispose of wind turbine blades that are no longer useful. According to the Mitchell Republic: “Who will take the old, unrecyclable blades that are being replaced on South Dakota’s wind turbines? The city of Mitchell is positioning to take those in, and a Davison County board gave a Mitchell business approval to dismantle blades Tuesday. Bob Ball, who runs H&R Salvage of Mitchell, is in the business of destroying blades, something he says he’s already doing...

Finland is a high tax country because its taxes everybody heavily

Finland doesn't raise more tax revenue than the US by taxing the rich, it does it by taxing everybody as though they're rich. Even in Finland, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

AMERICAN EXPERIMENT BOOK SHELF

MN Taxpayers Would Spend $17 Million a Year to Subsidize Duluth Train

For years backward-looking bureaucrats and local officials have sought to revive the failed passenger rail line between the Twin Cities and Duluth. But a legislative hearing in Duluth this week designed to rally support for the proposed Northern Lights Express instead exposed an utter lack of justification for the boondoggle. The train offers no advantage over I-35, taking just as long to reach Duluth as going by car, roughly two and a half hours. Moreover, NLX would be operated by Amtrak, whose one line running through Minnesota–the Empire Builder–continues to lose riders and runs chronically behind schedule. Before anyone  goes ...

100 Percent Wind+Solar+Batteries= $1,036.80 Monthly Electric Bill, According to An Xcel Energy Slide Show and EIA Data

In April of this year, Gov. Tim Walz’s administration suggested the economics of nuclear power likely make it too expensive to be part of his plan to produce 100 percent of Minnesota’s electricity from carbon-free sources by 2050. Instead, the administration argued technological improvements would allow wind, solar, and battery storage technology to reliably and affordably meet Minnesota’s energy needs. A slide show produced by Xcel Energy suggests the Governor couldn’t be more wrong. This slideshow was presented to the Midwestern Governor’s Association meeting in March of 2019. One would assume someone from the Governor’s office would be at the meeting, but...

Teachers’ union calls charter school closings ‘racist’ but didn’t want them opened in the first place

When news broke on Monday that the Chicago Public Schools district was recommending the closure of two allegedly “poor” performing charter schools, the Chicago Teachers’ Union wasted no time condemning the proposal. But what's odd is that the teachers' union previously filed a lawsuit to prevent one of the charter schools from opening in the first place.

As well as looming federal tax hikes, Minnesota’s microdistilleries are threatened by antiquated state regulations

Minnesota’s microdistilleries are under threat from laws designed to protect the indefensible three-tier distribution system, an obsolete bit of rent seeking legislation which exists solely to preserve the market share of liquor distributors. 

You’re Seeing Water Vapor, Not Smoke

You probably saw billowing clouds on your way to work this morning. It’s important to know that these clouds are water vapor, and not smoke. The reason for this occurrence is because of a scientific process called condensation. When you exhale when it’s cold outside, the water vapor in your breath condenses into lots of tiny droplets of liquid water and ice (solid water) that you can see in the air as a cloud, similar to fog. The same thing occurs with the exhaust from your chimney if you use natural gas for home heating because burning natural gas produces...