The Bob Davis Podcast

Podcast 334

Target Layoffs. While there’s a lot of news — or is that noise — about Hillary Clinton’s email, the iWatch from Apple and more nonsense than you can stand about the 2016 election cycle, some real news hits home in the Twin Cities as the crown jewel of Minneapolis Downtown, Target Corporation lays off 3100 people, mostly from the downtown headquarters. Target says the jobs will not be coming back. Of course the rah rah Minneapolis-Saint Paul media goes for the emotional angle; the human cost of layoffs and so forth, complete with soothing public relations from Governor Mark Dayton and the Target CEO. These people get 15 weeks of severance, we’re renewing our commitment to Minnesota and so on. Just last week General Mills, another Twin Cities mainstay let hundreds of middle managers go. When you look at these two big companies, you have to wonder if there’s something going on, despite rosy scenarios about the US Economic ‘recovery’. Over the years there’s been a lot of cheerleading and downtown boosterism from the biggest booster of them all, The Star Tribune. The ‘Trib’ is constantly promoting the Minnesota Miracle of Public-Private Partnerships and the wonders of what government can do for people. Is it a miracle?  Or becoming a bloated, bureaucratic, crony-capitalist cartel benefitting the rich sports team owners and companies big enough to benefit from the tax breaks? Is it too soon to start asking whether the template – the whole philosophy – of development in the urban centers of this state, is really an outdated, early twentieth century vision? The boosters say Millennials will move in to these downtown areas in droves, you’ll see. This week a new study shows that while some millennials are moving into dense urban centers with hipster apartments, bike trails and light rail, built and subsidized at enormous expense to taxpayers, not enough of them are moving into those downtown areas to be significant, when considering metro areas as a whole. Meanwhile, the tax bill in close ring suburbs goes higher and higher, as does a hamburger and a beer in downtown or uptown. And the same vision is pushed for the first ring suburbs like Saint Louis Park, Hopkins, Eden Prairie, Bloomington, and Richfield, to name a few. More and more big companies are using new technology to downsize and eliminate jobs in the vast middle level management job categories, especially in their ritzy downtown headquarters. 50 years ago Moore’s law established the integrated circuit as one of the most explosive forces in history. Today Moore’s law is back with a vengeance as we pass 25 billion transistors on one chip, we’re seeing exponential redoubling of capabilities, and the arrival of a very disruptive new age. Autonomous machines, robotics, drones, advanced communications, the Internet of things, and more, suggest the future imagined by the central planners in Saint Paul, The Met Council, the Capitol and at Minneapolis’ City Hall might be a dystopia after all. Live from the deck on the first Spring night 

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Podcast 327

Right To Work. As Wisconsin’s Assembly considers Right To Work legislation amid controversy, Minnesota conservatives wonder what’s wrong with Republicans in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. The Washington Post this week ran a piece decrying the decay of the organizational power of unions in the Badger state since ACT10 was passed in 2011. The reader is left with the idea this isn’t such a bad thing for local and state budgets, or the employees of counties, towns and the state either. Was this the intent? 24 states have passed right to work legislation, and Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker made history with legislation limiting the power of government unions. A brief history of collective bargaining for government workers suggests why the democrats and the left are terrified by Walker. At least two of the landmark government acts establishing unions in the public sector were executive orders. Given President Obama’s precedent setting use of executive orders and executive memoranda, think what a President Walker might do with the existing executive orders dating back to Nixon, regarding Federal workers and collective bargaining arrangements. Wisconsin is the home of AFSCME, and was the first state to pass a law allowing its public workers to unionize. How things have changed. The reality is collective bargaining in state and local governments created a gordian knot that must be cut, if authorities want to be able to get control of their budgets. The state cannot offshore its work, or move to a right to work state in the south, to cut costs. As the media tries to cover right to work laws negatively it is inadvertently showing how governors in democrat and republican states are able to cut that knot and get control of their budgets. Now, Minnesotans want to know why what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t happening in Minnesota. Minnesota Republicans seem content to play small ball; Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt is thrilled to act a peacemaker between warring democrat Governor Dayton and Senate Majority leader Bakk, and in the Senate, minority leader Nienow is thrilled to announce more spending for education than the Governor wants, which is saying something. Small Ball, indeed. Some might characterize it as small balls in fact. What should be advocated? What’s working in other states? Why are Minnesota’s Republicans unable to take a lesson from Wisconsin’s Republicans, who are having a better time of it. Sponsored by X Government Cars. 

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Podcast 297

Tea Party as Third Party? Word is some people in the Tea Party think it should become a Third Political Party. What’s involved in creating a so called Third Party, how successful have they been, how successful might an actual ‘Tea Party’ be? Some tea party groups have been criticized lately for making a lot of noise, but not controlling much money, or votes; Things that matter to politicians. It has been suggested what is needed is political organization at the grass roots: Podcast 287. Some people think that means starting a so called Third Party, or constituting the Tea Party as a Third Political Party. Judging from history, if Tea Party groups aren’t able to organize their neighborhoods and precincts, what’s necessary to build a viable third political party, is beyond them. There are many so called ‘third parties’. The largest among them is the Libertarian Party which is present in about 45 states and the District of Columbia, the Green Party is present in 37 states and the District, and the Constitution Party is present in 37 states. There are many other so called ‘Third Parties’. So far, they have not been able to elect representatives or senators, although there has been some success here and there in local races. Most recently in US History, Ross Perot created the Reform Party to support his independent presidential candidacy in 1992 and 1996, garnering something like 18 percent of the vote in 1992, and no electoral votes. In essence, third parties don’t have a very good track record. So, is this the right way to organize votes and have influence in Saint Paul or Washington. It might be fair to suggest that this is yet another effort at denying what needs to be done in order to gain so called ‘street cred’ with Saint Paul and Washington Politicians; Generate a lot of money and votes and scare the daylights out of them. Making a lot of noise, so far, hasn’t seemed to accomplish this. (Editor’s Note: I spoke with a couple of Tea Party leaders this week, and they don’t seem too thrilled with this idea.) Back to work! (Join Bob Davis at the SD61 Chili Dinner January 25th to talk this out, and eat chili.) Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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