These days the so called news comes so fast and furious. Last week’s news seems like a distant memory. Even a dream. So it’s easy to miss the fact that Populism is a growing factor in US politics. Get some background in Populism In America-Heading Down A New Path-Election 2018 Coverage-Podcast 713.
Moreover all media seizes on the news of the day to predict the future. Especially relevant here is the tendency to advocate and take partisan positions. Sometimes this is the only way to be ‘break through’ and be heard.
As a result the average person ends up having to be a detective to get any facts. Now, the experts say our politics have become ‘tribal’. Is this really the problem? Or, is the problem a particular brand of politics called Populism?
In conclusion few analysts are talking about the influence of populist ideas being becoming the law of the land and a symbol of how the US conducts business with the rest of the world.
Life is a journey and a process. These days there’s so much noise we forget how our experiences change our attitudes. Time for an easy talker about the challenges, changes and benefits of being an entrepreneur in How Owning Small Business Changes Views About Money-Podcast 682.
In How Owning Small Business Changes Views About Money-Podcast 682 one of the key turning points in the life of a small business person is the transition from an employee mindset and the mindset of an entrepreneur. Moreover there’s also a change in how the business person thinks about service to clients and in the case of communications, the audience.
Freedom Isn’t Free
Most Americans these days grew up in middle class families. We were taught to work hard, tell the truth and to follow the rules. For the most part these are bedrock lessons we all need to learn. However one of the first lessons one learns in business is the heady freedom of being your own master. This turns out to be a great challenge. We’ll talk about it in How Owning Small Business Changes Views About Money-Podcast 682.
Take The Risk
Considering making the leap from employee to business owner? How Owning Small Business Changes Views About Money-Podcast 682 might give you some thought starters and things to consider. I am not one to read primers on business or ‘how to’s’. In some ways I wish I was, but then the journey of learning to sail on rough seas wouldn’t be part of the experience. For me, that’s what it’s all about.
Have you been to downtown Minneapolis lately? These days some don’t feel safe there. In Friday Night On Mean Street Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis-Podcast 648 we run the gauntlet on Hennepin Avenue.
After Billions Spent, New Questions About Safety Downtown
The Crisis in American Cities has been grabbing headlines for a hundred years. From The Gateway District to Mayo Square it’s the same formula. Use taxpayer dollars to Demolish. Rebuild. Repeat. Has it been worth it?
Robert Moses and Richard Daley Would Be Proud
Light rail and mixed use condos. Expensive restaurants and Hipster art districts. Bike paths. Safe spaces. Higher Minimum Wages. Political fights about redevelopment and economic inequality. Tax Increment Financing to bring in big retail and big companies.
When these efforts produce mixed results, the process starts all over again. More money. Newer stadiums. More buildings. More condos that are sold as ‘affordable’ but cost at least two hundred thousand dollars. Higher rents. Traffic Jams. Crime.
Downtown Minneapolis was never a ‘thing’
The neighborhoods and retail business were located in North Minneapolis and North East, Uptown, Lake Street in South Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s ‘Midway’. Sure, Hennepin Avenue always featured bars and hotels, places to eat and entertainment. But downtown was for warehouses, light industry, office buildings, city and county government. And drunks.
Want to start a business downtown? Want to buy a condo downtown? Better be juiced into the money or have a lot of money. No wonder people are concerned about the nitty gritty nature of Hennepin Avenue. Walking down this street you’re mixing with the great unwashed. Unruly, scantily clad, vulgar, of different races and often from the poor side of the cities. And it’s really, really fun.
Is the solution really more cops downtown. Another Light Rail line? Subsidized office space? Another redevelopment of Nicollet Mall? More incremental taxes added to the bills at the Smack Shack? Who lives down here? Not the servers. Nor the kids hanging out at the LRT station.
Spend Daddy’s Money Downtown
Downtown Minneapolis is a place for trust fund babies, lawyers and corporates relocating. People who are used to having things their way. No wonder they think it’s unsafe. Sadly, they’re making everyone else pay for their own personal Epcot Center. It’s a con.
When you think about how much of the taxpayer’s hard earned dollars they’ve spent, one wonders when the Downtown Council and the real shadow power in Minneapolis will be held accountable.
