Wisconsin Sports Stadiums Cleaner Than Minnesota’s

“ESPN’s Outside The Lines published an exhaustive report on food safety at every major North American sports venue. None of the four Twin Cities sports venues on the list fared well,” wrote the Star Tribune. None of the four Twin Cities sports venues on the list fared well. The worst of the bunch, per OTL’s reporting and methodology, was U.S. Bank Stadium — home of the Vikings, which opened in 2016. High-level violations were found at nearly 60 percent of inspection points, ranking U.S. Bank Stadium 90th out of the 107 venues. In contrast, the facilities in Wisconsin fared much...

Minnesota’s economic news, w/e 12/14/18

A round-up of the last week’s economic news stories in Minnesota.

German Co2 Emissions Remain Stubbornly High

A lot of people I talk to about renewable energy in Minnesota think of Germany as a great example what we should be doing here. Green groups in the U.S. constantly characterize Germany’s aggressive attempts to increase the amount of electricity generated by wind and solar as a smashing success, but unfortunately, these accounts fail to tell the whole story. In reality, Germany’s “energy transition” has stalled, according to YaleEnvironment360. “Today, the Energiewende finds itself stalled and floundering. Germany’s carbon emissions have stagnated at roughly their 2009 level. The country remains Europe’s largest producer and burner of coal, which generates more than one-third of...

AMERICAN EXPERIMENT BOOK SHELF

81% of economists agree that rent controls are bad policy

As the economist Assar Lindbeck put it, "In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing."

Fred Barnes: Three ‘Easy’ Steps to a Trump Re-election

Fred Barnes has written a smart, welcome piece in the Weekly Standard that gives President Trump an “easy” path to win re-election in 2020, if only he can do three things. President Trump is in deeper political trouble than he thinks. And I’m not talking about whatever special counsel Robert Mueller has up his sleeve. Trump has real-life re-election trouble. The midterm results were clear about this. Millions of voters whom Trump needs to win a second term in 2020 expressed their disdain for him in the only way they could—by voting against Republicans. Those GOP candidates were his surrogates,...

How big is government in your county?

New data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis breaks county GDP down into the share derived from Private goods-producing industries, Private services-providing industries, and Government and government enterprises. Which of Minnesota's counties lead and lag in these categories?

Tempering the Alarm About Sea Level Rise

This article was written by Judith Curry, a climate scientist who was formerly a Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. New report on Sea Level Rise and Climate Change challenges the alarming predictions of 21st century sea level rise. “Antarctica meltdown could double sea level rise”. “The planet could become ungovernable”. Such headlines reflect the growing alarm over sea level rise. How worried should energy companies be about sea level rise? There are 287 energy facilities in the U.S. at coastal locations that are within 4 feet of typical high-tide level. More than half of...