Municipal golf courses are notorious money losers for the taxpayers of most local governments that get into the game. Just four of 35 municipal courses named in the Minnesota State…
Minnesota's Individual Income Tax revenues started rising in 2011, two years before the state's hike in the top rate of income tax. If Illinois' policymakers are considering similar tax hikes…
My friend from Egypt came to our country many years ago in hopes of being a citizen. He loves America, loves the West and all it stands for: freedom and…
Pat Michaels of the Cato Institute is brilliant on the climate change issue. If you are interested in this topic and haven’t read his book, Lukewarming, I highly suggest you pick…
The University of Minnesota has proposed a $1,000 per semester surcharge for new undergraduate students in the College of Science and Engineering, supposedly to enable the high-demand school to expand. The…
“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…
A round-up of the last week’s economic news stories in Minnesota.
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.…
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 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…
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…
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…
In today’s low-unemployment environment, which demographic group is below all others in labor force participation? A recent article in Bloomberg reports the surprising answer: “Millennial males remain less likely to…
Minnesota’s accelerating talent shortage has created a mismatch in our labor market. Employers are desperate for skilled workers but are struggling to find and retain talent. Why? Why are these…
Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its prototype estimated for Gross Domestic Product by County for the years 2012 to 2015. True, they are only prototypes and cover a…
The following article originally appeared in Reason. Humanity is enjoying a world of increasingly cheap and ever more abundant mineral, agricultural, forestry and energy resources reports a brilliant new study, the Simon…
“Great Jobs Without a Four-Year Degree” has focused on young men and women, roughly between their high school years and late 20s. This emphasis will continue. But there is no…
In terms of revenue the politicians in Saint Paul have never had it so good. Why, then, are they pleading poverty and planning to take more of their citizen's money…
The following column about adoption by American Experiment Founder Mitch Pearlstein was written at the invitation of the Institute for Family Studies at the University of Virginia. The post at…
Congressman-elect Pete Stauber has a few more weeks before going to DC as Minnesota’s new Eighth Congressional District representative. But the Republican isn’t wasting any time getting behind bipartisan legislation…
Lee Schafer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote an article in the Sunday, December 9th edition of the newspaper stating that Xcel's pledge to generate 100 percent of its electricity…
With the Democrats in control of the House, nothing useful will come out of Congress in the next two years. That means that progress in domestic policy will have to…
The Associated Press had a great overview of the problem presented by the failure of Governor Mark Dayton to negotiate and sign a bill that would bring Minnesota income tax…
A headline in London’s Daily Telegraph recently read, “'Snob’ Parents to be Told Degrees are Not the Only Route to Success.” With the story going on to declare, “Britain has…