Survey on Buying Local in Madison -- Click Now!

The shopping madness of Black Friday is almost here—perfect time to take a survey about your local shopping habits!

This "Buy Local" survey comes to us courtesy of a team of Madisonites taking the Madison Chamber of Commerce's leadership training course. They ask some simple questions about where we shop and why we shop there.

The Leadership Madison team also asks what "What type of new business/service/product would you most like to see in Madison?" Perhaps they would like to include in their calculations the results from this January Madville Times survey, which found 38% of you eager readers craving another big grocery store, followed by 26% angling for a Wal-Mart or similar big discounter and 16% looking for a clothing store.

I picked "grocery store" on the Chamber survey, and even recommended three prime locations: right between Lewis and Montgomery's Furniture, between the Bethel home and Doug's auto lot, and that old farm lot across from Pizza Ranch at the 34-81 intersection. Another dream retail development: bring in a Hy-Vee or Wal-Mart to finally come in and get serious about developing the gravel lot where Nicky's, the bowling alley, and the movie theater sit. Those establishments have sat there for over thirty years with no exterior physical improvements. Let's bring in a big retailer, pave the lot, redo those three aging buildings, add a couple new shops, and make a Lousie-Avenue-style commercial complex.

The survey also asks "Why do you enjoy or not enjoy shopping in Madison?" That's an easy one: my enjoyment comes from riding my bike to shop. My disenjoyment comes from the knowledge that my sales tax dollars are funneled to support a Chamber of Commerce and a Lake Area Improvement Corporation that face no public accountability for their use of my tax dollars and which waste my tax dollars on silly things like banners, slogans, and Dwaine Chapel's $100,000 salary.

The survey lists no closing date, so go there now and tell the Chamber and LAIC what you think of shopping in Madison!

Thanks, Barack: More Small Biz Offer Health Insurance

Repeal this, Kristi:

Some small businesses are benefiting from portions of the [health care reform] law, which includes a tax credit beginning this year that covers as much as 35% of a company's insurance premiums.

According to a report by Bernstein Research in New York, the percentage of employers with between three and nine workers and which are offering insurance has increased to 59% this year, up from 46% last year. The report relies on data from a September survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation [Janet Adamy, "Health Benefits Appear on Rise," Wall Street Journal, 2010.11.02].

The tax credit isn't a full fix: health premiums are still going up, and small businesses have to do more paperwork to get Uncle Sam's help. But in a bad economy, shops with fewer than ten employees are exactly the businesses we would expect to have the hardest time offering benefits for their workers. Yet thanks to President Obama and health care reform, more of those smallest businesses are getting a tax credit that allows them offer their workers health insurance.

Go ahead, Kristi. Tell us why you don't like that. Tell us why reducing taxes and expanding small-biz health coverage is a bad idea.

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Health care reform hasn't cut into insurer profits yet. A new report from Health Care for America Now finds that the big six insurers are insuring fewer people but allocating more money toward administrative overhead and profit:

On average, each of the six now devotes 20 cents on the dollar to non-medical services, compared to 16.5 cents last year and, according to HCAN, 5 cents in 1993.

March's healthcare overhaul will require insurers to spend at least 85 cents of every premium dollar on patient care. Those changes take effect next year [Elise Viebeck, "Health Insurance Companies Likely to Break Profit Records for 2010," The Hill:Healthwatch, 2010.11.16].

Health care CEOs also have the highest median pay in the country, $10 million.

Health care reform can't come soon enough.

Takings Clause Argument on Smoking Ban? Fire That Lawyer...

Gosh darn it! Mr. Powers over at Dakota War College appears to have misplaced a fun little post he had yesterday claiming that the indefatigable opponents of South Dakota's new indoor smoking ban would try using South Dakota's takings clause to sue the state for compensation for any business losses:

It’s in the South Dakota Bill of Rights that “Private property shall not be taken for public use, or damaged, without just compensation.” Well, certainly one’s business would be considered private property. And it’s indisputable that because of the passage of this law limiting the use of private property that they will, in fact, incur damages of an economic sort [Pat Powers, "I Think They Ought to Send Their Bill to Jennifer Stalley," deleted from Dakota War College, 2010.11.15].

Why the backpedal and delete? Perhaps the lawyers in the War College peanut gallery (I know at least one such sensible solicitor) pointed out that a takings-clause or eminent-domain suit on indoor air quality will go nowhere. The takings clause applies when the government takes private property for public use. The smoking ban takes no private property. It stops private pollution of public property, the air we breathe in public places (thanks, Bill, for the idea!). Banning smoking indoors is more like forcing a property owner to remove a sign that hangs over the public right of way or chop down a tree that has grown to obstruct the sidewalk or the view at the intersection. The takings clause has no application in such situations where the public use is already established.

Or maybe Pat's hypocrisy alarm went off. He's never stood up for South Dakotans or Nebraskans or Texans facing eminent domain at the hands of a foreign corporation. But let the Legislature and the voters of South Dakota impose an environmental rule that annoys his business pals despite no clear evidence of economic impact, and Pat's up in arms. I guess Pat backed down from exposing his property rights flank.

Smoking Ban Boosting Business... and Outdoor Heater Sales?

The anecdotes accumulate: Rookies Bar and Grill in Sioux Falls reports it saw an uptick in business this first statewide smoke-free weekend, as it saw more families coming in for dinner.

More families... at the bar. I think that's a victory for family values...

But let's be careful of the availability fallacy, forming a general conclusion (e.g., smoking ban won't hurt business!) on the basis of only those stories that get told more often, since surely South Dakota's notoriously liberal media only wants to tell pro-nanny-state stories, and since only liberals see any value in public health.

The smoking ban may boost some other market niches. Folks selling outdoor heaters (or barrels) may find South Dakota drinking establishments rushing to create some outdoor smoking oases. Some establishments are creating outdoor smoking shelters... but I'm not sure that's kosher. Review the text of the smoking ban:

1. "Enclosed area," any space between a floor and a ceiling that is enclosed, exclusive of doorways, on all sides by permanent or temporary walls or windows;
2. "Place of employment," any enclosed area under the control of a public or private employer;
3. "Public place," any enclosed area to which the public is invited or in which the public is permitted. [See SDCL 34-46-13.]

• No person may smoke tobacco or carry any lighted tobacco product in any public place or place of employment. [See SDCL 34-46-14.]

Contrary to the apparent action taken in the above AP story, the new statute appears to prohibit any sort of enclosed shelter, like a shed or garage, for smokers. You could maybe put up a picnic shelter—pour a slab, put up a roof or canopy—but you can't allow smoking in a four-walled building, even an outbuilding.
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Update 08:13 CST: Rapid City Journal offers more detail on how businesses are coping with the smoking ban. Not griping and moaning, but coping. Heated patios, winter beach parties... opportunities await!

Today's Farm Report: Messy, Messy, Messy...

Turning to today's agriculture report, here's the news the ag-industrial complex doesn't like to talk about:

• Remember the salmonella outbreak earlier this year caused by Jack DeCoster and his dirty Wright County Egg operation in Iowa? USDA had found all sorts of violations at the Galt, Iowa, facility prior to the outbreak but failed to report them, because "the conditions at the egg plant packing facilities were routine." Filthy, disease-ridden eggs—perfectly normal. Move along.
• Purple water came pouring from the A. J. Bos mega-dairy near Nora, Illinois, in October. Brown I can explain. But purple? An attorney for Bos says EPA has no authority to intervene.
  
• Bos is also opposing further testing of a site for a proposed dairy site near Galena, Illinois.
  
• Meanwhile, the Illinois Livestock Development Group thinks it shouldn't have to follow any regulations: "If I'm operating the way I'm supposed to, what do I need a permit for and why do you need to know who I am?" says ILDG spokesman Nic Anderson. Gee, I don't know, maybe because a single confined animal feeding operation can generate as much sewage as a small city?

The ag-industrial complex seems to think that producing food entitles them to exemption from the rules of civil society. Sorry, fellas: ag is just another business. Every other citizen has to dispose of waste properly: so do you.

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Related: The Independent Local reports that Senators Tester and Hagan are advancing an amendment to the Food Safety Modernization Act to protect small farms and folks who market directly to consumers in farmers markets from legislation that would check the abuses of the ag-industrial complex. Groups who back local food, like the Western Organization of Resource Councils and Dakota Rural Action, as well as the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, are backing the Tester-Hagan amendment.

Bankrupt Veblen West Owners Plan: Let's Lease It to Ourselves!

The Veblen Dairy shell game continues. Serial dairy wrecker Rick Millner and fourteen partners have filed a 158-page document with bankruptcy court asking for a chance to reorganize his bankrupt Veblen West mega-feedlot. The plan proposes to allow Vista Family Dairies to lease Veblen West Dairy for $140,000 a month for 15 years. It proposes to pay off all secured creditors over time without interest.

The filing also appears to fit Millner's pattern of using legal and financial trickery to squeeze every penny out of his assets and stave off court and state action that would hold him responsible for his bad business practices. Judge Charles L. Nail yesterday ordered a hearing on the Disclosure Statement and Reorganization Plan be held on November 18... which I take it means the filing by Millner and the Veblen West equity holders has successfully put off the bankruptcy liquidation auction, scheduled for tomorrow, for another five weeks.

And it's just a shell game. Compare the members of the petitioning Veblen West Dairy equity holders with the members of Vista Family Dairies, as listed in the Disclosure Statement and Reorganization Plan:

Veblen West Dairy major equity holders	Vista Family Dairy members
Aaron Anderson	Aaron Anderson
Duayne Baldwin
Jay Hill	Jay Hill
Jordan Hill	Jordan Hill
Rick Millner	Rick Millner
Denny Pherson	Dennis Pherson
David Viessman	David Viessman
Doug Viessman	Doug Viessman
Randy Viessman	Randy Viessman
Terry Viessman	Terry Viessman
Wayne Viessman	Wayne Viessman
Mark Wyum	Mark Wyum
Michael Wyum	Michael Wyum
Steve Wyum
Wyum Trust
	Robert Jameson
	Jeff Topp

Comparison of Veblen West Dairy equity owners
with Vista Family Dairies members
(Duayne! Steve! Why hold back?)

Somehow the court is willing to entertain the idea that the major owners of a bankrupt dairy should be able to lease that failed operation back to themselves... and be able to refinance their loans for longer terms and a lower interest rate.

What's this shell game about? Here's my read from the outside:

1. Rick Millner was able to get his buddies together to form Vista Family Dairies and float the capital to buy back Veblen East and its cattle outright for $23.1 million.
2. Millner's pals are now tapped out and can't come up with the additional $8.7 million to make a minimum bid for Veblen West.
3. Millner thus needs to put the bankruptcy auction on hold while he hustles more investors to back his scheme. Thus, the "lease it to ourselves!" plan.

And all this keeps the dairy in Millner's hands and keeps him from paying the price for his literally dirty business practices.

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The Disclosure Statement includes some other howlers:

1. True to form, Millner blames everyone but himself for Veblen West's troubles. He blames the AgStar receiver for cutting business relationships (including some of the convoluted, boundary-blurring dealings with Millner's affiliate operations in the neighborhood). He blames market conditions and the weather. What ever happened to the capitalist ethos of personal resposnibility?
   
2. Rick Millner stepped down as Veblen West managing partner in May 2010 to assuage concerns about conflicts of interest. But Millner's partners appointed Michael Wyum in his place. Wyum kept Millner's Prairie Ridge Management as Veblen West's contract manager. Wyum was also Millner's partner in the still-contested shell game that turned MCC Dairy into Veblen West.
   
3. During an evidentiary hearing in May, Cargill animal nutrition consultant Ian Woods "testified that the conditions at Veblen West are 'excellent.'"
4. The equity owners declare their belief that Veblen West Dairy "is an industry leader, is well-managed, and was operating a clean, orderly and productive dairy operation."
   

Madison Biz Opp: Downtown Corner Retail, <$100K

The Madison Daily Leader marks the retirement of longtime local pharmacist Bob Schamber. Schamber's retirement also brings the closing of Dakota Drug, a fixture of downtown retail since I was a kid...

...which brings us to this morning's underappreciated business opportunity. Go to HJN Team Realty's website, dig up Listing #2100643 for the Dakota Drug building. 6800 square feet. Two stories, including the really cool staircase and open second-floor retail space where I always looked at the puzzle books and comics when I was little. Great corner street parking and a big municipal parking lot right out back. Spectacular visibility, with a popular local restaurant right across the street. There's even an apartment included in the west side, the space where John Green used to have his studio.

Asking price: $99,900.

Less than $100K, for one of the best retail locations on Madison's Main Street.

Now if I had $100K burning a hole in my pocket, I'd still rather acquire the Masonic Temple and put a down payment on renovations. But the more sensible entrepreneurs among you, dear readers, must be able to see the potential of this prime downtown location. Perhaps Madison's bookstore could expand and open a used book emporium in the upstairs. Perhaps another electronics store could open to compete with Radio Shack across the street for the burgeoning market of technogeek DSU students. Perhaps a second coffeeshop could open and put out shady tables where we prairie intellectuals could gather to mock the tacky signs at the Stadium grill. Perhaps a frame shop and gallery could open to serve the remarkable number of artists in the neighborhood... and rent out the apartment as a rural artist retreat!

Given the importance of this building as a Main Street retail anchor, it's surprising the LAIC isn't promoting this business opportunity. (Then again, the LAIC's "Available Properties" page also fails to mention Bub's Service, Kearin's Service, and Doug's Auto, three other business opportunities just waiting for progressive, ambitious buyers eager to serve Lake County's automotive needs.) But hey, don't let the LAIC's blinders keep you from seeing the possibilities. Can you find the niche (sports equipment? outdoor store? baby gear?) that lets you compete with Pamida and Lewis? Can you repurpose this building into a community cultural center? Put your thinking caps on, get out your checkbook, and think up a new use for the Dakota Drug building!

Veblen East Dairy Sold; Veblen West Dairy Next

As reported here (and so far, nowhere else) yesterday, the environmental atrocity known as Veblen East Dairy and its remaining 5000 head of cattle were sold at bankruptcy auction last week for $23,100,000. The Veblen West Dairy, also owned and driven into insolvency by Richard Millner, may be heading the same direction.

The Minnesota Secretary of State's office has posted business organization information for a new company based in Mankato, MN: Veblen West Acquisition, LLC. Nice when a company's name makes clear what it does.

Also organized the same day and at the same address: Veblen East Dairy Acquisition, LLC. I can't say for sure if this LLC is somehow connected with the high bidder in last week's auction, Vista Family Dairies, LLC.

I could pay the State of Minnesota $4 to see the detailed report, but I'm too much of a cheapskate to shell out lunch money for a lousy PDF. So I turn to the South Dakota Secretary of State's website, where our good and decent Secretary Chris Nelson lets me see those pulbic documents for free, the way they should be. Both of the acquisition LLCs have filed organization papers here in South Dakota as well. They are managed by AgStar Financial Services, the group that got Veblen West placed in receivership last March. Members of the Veblen East Dairy Acquisition LLC include FCS Financial of jefferson City, Missouri; GreenStone Farm Credit Services of East Lansing, Michigan; and M & I Regional Properties of Madison, Wisconsin. Veblen West Acquisition members include GreenStone and AgriBank of St. Paul, Minnesota.

There are still no documents in the South Dakota Secretary of State's corporate database authorizing "Vista Family Dairies LLC" to conduct business in South Dakota. So who placed that bid in court last week?

Daugaard on Education: Send Kids to Work

Among some things that catch my eye in Dennis Daugaard's just-released education plan is his focus on career and technical education (CTE) in high school. I always get nervous when folks talk about education as preparation for the workforce. In my ideal world, education is about forming a complete citizen, a well-rounded human being, not just another cog in the corporate machine. The focus on turning kids into workers is reason #347 why we plan to home-school our daughter as much as possible, to keep out her outside the walls of the factory-school.

But on CTE, Daugaard also talks about helping kids learn outside the school walls. He talks about expanding the Dakota Seeds program to find internships and job training for high school students along with the undergrads and grad students currently served. Daugaard wants kids to get high school credit for such on-the-job experiences... which is fine, assuming the kids will have time to get out and get those credits on top of the science, math, and other graduation requirements the state is fond of piling onto students.

One line I really like: "We can offer high school students valuable experiences with potential employers and save schools the expense of purchasing duplicative equipment for classroom-based training." Instead of buying a fancy auto lab or machine shop for the school district, schools could save money by sending kids out to get the same experience doing real work at Prostrollo's or Laser Cut. That's officer thinking... but I wonder: student labor for private business... does that count as a subsidy?

Circles and Customer Service: Brookings Total Eyewear Makes Me Happy

I make life difficult for opticians. When I buy glasses, I ask for circular frames. The gals (always gals—I don't think I have ever been waited on by a fella in an eyeglasses shop) invariably first show me something with rounded edges—ovals, blobs, what-have-you—thinking that's what I want. I invariably have to reiterate: "No, really, I want circles. Perfect circles. Same dimensions in all three directions: 48, 48, 48." We then turn to the catalog to track down the one or two out of thousands of designs that satisfy my criteria.

I've tried non-circular glasses twice in my 24 years of four-eyedness. Those inferior frames, including my current close-but-not-quite eggy frames, have never lasted, never made me happy. I tried the frameless, ultra-light "Silhouette" glasses—no frame means you can shape the lens any way you want—but the one spendy pair I bought broke after hardly a year of use. Plus they wouldn't stay on in a stiff wind in the Jeep.

So I keep looking for perfectly circular (and durable, and affordable) frames. I generally meet with apologies, shrugs, and the perfectly rational explanation that circular lenses can spin within the frames, turn your prescription upside down, and make your head go woogly. (I've had this happen: I recommend adding a tiny notch in the lens at the screw post. Problem solved, and everyone could look funkier.)

I am thus pleased to acknowledge the exceptional customer service effort of JoAnne at Total Eyewear in Brookings. I tromped into her shop last winter in the midst of a brewing snowstorm. Looking every bit the wild-eyed Arctic adventurer with my backpack, boots, and bushy beard, I made my usual frames query, and JoAnne and her amused staff offered the usual "Sorry!" Nothing in stock. But JoAnne took my number and said she'd keep an eye out.

The spectacles JoAnne found for me, plus the old case that came with the black pair. Attention, all opticians: these are what I want.

In August, JoAnne called. She was browsing a second-hand shop in Canby, Minnesota, when she found not one but two pairs of antique spectacles. She got out her ruler to measure the lenses and found them perfectly circular. She bought them both and said she'd sell them back to me at cost, all of $15.

I dropped by Total Eyewear yesterday to pick them up. I gave JoAnne $20.

JoAnne doesn't know me from anything other than my chance visit to her shop last winter. She stood to make no money on this odd request. But she still remembered and made the effort to find exactly what this cranky, choosy customer wanted. I am impressed and grateful...

...and more than happy to recommend JoAnne's shop. If you need glasses and you're within shouting distance of Brookings, drop by Total Eyewear in Brookings, on 22nd Avenue South, by the University Mall. 605-692-8262.
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Bonus Irony: The full name of the woman who remembered that I wanted perfect circles, not just something round? JoAnne Ovall.

Amish Invade South Dakota, Challenge Civic Religion

The South Dakota blogosphere hosts a couple threads of discussion of the Islamic Center developers want to build in an old Burlington Coat Factory rendered "hallowed" by 9/11 landing gear. While some worry about Muslims in our midst, South Dakota is experiencing another religious infiltration that challenges our civic religion: the Amish are coming!

Tom Lawrence discusses this new influx in the Tripp neighborhood in today's Mitchell Daily Republic:

More than 50 Amish people have come to the area this year. So far, six families have bought 720 acres of land and planted crops and roots in southeast South Dakota [Tom Lawrence, "The Amish Arrive in Southeast South Dakota," Mitchell Daily Republic, 2010.09.04].

120 acres per family? What kind of farmers are these folks? How can any farmer support a family on less than a whole section or two? Don't they pray the mantra of Saint Butz, Get big or get out? If these weren't Amish, I'd think they were getting their farm advice from some liberal hippie blog on the Interwebs.*

They are a traditional people who eschew most modern conveniences. They rely on old-fashioned horsepower — horses — for their field work and travel.

...The Amish use traditional farming methods, including putting their corn up in shocks, instead of combining [Lawrence, 2010].

What? These folks won't come in to the blessed showrooms of Jim River Equipment to buy a big combine, or Prostrollo's to buy a big F-350? Blasphemy! South Dakotans have a sacred duty to shop and boost those sales tax revenues! If we let the Amish in, they'll start converting people to their ways and drive this state into deficit and decline.

The Amish don’t believe in confrontation or fights and have declined to serve in the military. Borntreger said his wife’s grandfather was drafted into the military during World War I and when he refused to serve, he was held as a prisoner of war.

They are conscientious objectors, he said, and are now treated that way by the American government [Lawrence, 2010].

The Amish won't serve alongside our best and bravest? They don't even believe in using guns for personal protection. More blasphemy!

Big farms, big business, big technology, big patriotism and guns—these are the central tenets of our culture. The Amish clearly challenge these tenets. Ought not we be alarmed at the presence of this challenge to our civic religion in our midst?
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*Cultural note: The Gracevale Hutterites brought their kids in to the library one day last week. Some of the kids were checking their Facebook pages.

Market at Work: Walgreens, Other Big Biz Shun Tar Sands Oil

With TransCanada piping Alberta tar sands oil across our fair prairie (and pushing to pump more), you might be inclined to take some economic action to help save Canada from its very dirty export. But the average citizen can't boycott TransCanada or Enbridge or any other shipper of tar sands oil. Our main point of contact with the oil industry is the gas station. TransCanada and Enbridge don't have gas stations (at least none I've seen). The One Stop here in Madison may get a truckload of gasoline refined from tar sands oil one week, from BP's recovered Gulf spillage the next, and some nice clean oil from Chavez or the Saudi sheiks the week after that. Boycott the local gas station to oppose duckocide in Alberta, and you're likely missing your target completely.

But if you're a company dealing directly with oil shippers, you've got some real leverage to use against the dirtiest oil in the world. Enviro-group ForestEthics gets this. They're urging corporations to boycott shippers who carry tar sands oil. And they're getting some takers. Walgreens, which burns a lot of gas hauling toothpaste and such to its 7500 stores, has signed on to this boycott. The Gap, Timberland, and Levi Strauss also are giving preference to non-tar-sands shippers. The City of Bellingham, Washington, has also joined the movement.

Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource. It will run out. The Keystone pipeline will go dry. Wouldn't it be great if we could hasten that dry-up with some good old-fashioned market forces?

Good call, Walgreens! Let's hope more American companies wise up and tell TransCanada we neither want nor need their tar sands oil.

SD Biz: Poll Says Wow, Pollster Still Stays Put

Pollina Corporate just announced its Top 10 Pro-Business States for 2010:

1. Virginia
2. Utah
3. Wyoming
4. South Carolina
5. North Carolina
6. Nebraska
7. Kansas
8. South Dakota
9. Alabama
10. Missouri

This good ranking comes as Caterpillar prepares to bring up to 100 really good engineering jobs to Rapid City. Of course, after ranking South Dakota in the top 10 for most of the past decade, Pollina Corporate continues to maintain its headquarters in low-ranking Illinois. Perhaps Pollina sees Sioux Falls and Rapid City ranking 1st and 11th, respectively in business climate, but then see 76 other small cities that offer better quality of life for the two-thirds of the time they and their employees will spend outside of the office. Add how little we'll spend educating their kids, and Pollina and other business folks say, "Thanks but no thanks."

South Dakota's historical Pollina rankings:

• 2004: 6th
• 2005: 3rd
  
• 2006: 3rd
  
• 2007: 7th
  
• 2008: 6th
  
• 2009: 6th
  

Why Kill All the Lawyers? Just Buy All the Scientists

Classic Big Oil playbook: BP is trying to stifle science. As it rounds up experts to help build its defense against over 300 lawsuits stemming from the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, BP is trying to get academics under contract not just to testify on their behalf, but to prevent them from offering any testimony for plaintiffs against BP. Those contracts include confidentiality clauses that would restrict scientists on BP's payroll from publishing any research results on the oil spill for three years.

Anyone care to speculate how many of the 3% of active climate scientists who still deny anthropogenic climate change have been similarly bought by Big Oil? Or how many of these educated folks who helped prepare the inadequate draft environmental impact statement for the Keystone XL pipeline may have contracts to ensure they never say a discouraging word about the designs of Big Oil?

Worth noting: Entrix, the consulting firm TransCanada paid to write the DEIS and lowball the risk of pipeline rupture, is also BP's go-to team for environmental consulting. Also, one of the Entrix folks in charge of oil spill risk assessment in the DEIS has as her highest degree an MBA from questionable for-profit online University of Phoenix.

Businessman Hunter Likes Big Government Mail

Jon Hunter loathes big government. In Hunter's world, health insurance reform, financial reform, and energy reform are all efforts to shrink the private sector and grow government.

So how does the Leader Printing executive feel about scaling back the United States Postal Service?

The prospect of losing Saturday delivery from the Postal Service is a huge concern for Americans, and we should fight to retain it to better serve America.

...[T]he Postal Service should be considering improving its delivery performance and expanding choices for mailers. As the economy recovers, businesses and consumers will need a reliable and affordable deliverer of mail. Our nation's economic health depends on it.

South Dakota's congressional delegation supports ongoing Saturday delivery. But we'll need the help of other members of Congress to reject this idea and push the Postal Service back into fulfilling its mission of affordable, universal delivery. [Jon Hunter, "Now Is the Time to Fight to Retain Saturday Delivery," Madison Daily Leader, 2010.07.20].

By Hunter's logic, Americans may not have a right to universal health care, but they apparently have a right to receive advertisements six days a week mailed from Madison's convenient central location at the lowest rates possible, courtesy not of the free market of but Uncle Sam.

Hunter's business interest in cheap federal mail inspires not only political inconsistency but typical MDL illogic:

The irony is that the Postal Service blames an increase in the use of email as a contributing factor in volume decreases and financial losses. Yet they believe that reducing service will somehow reverse this trend? [Hunter, 2010.07.20]

Hunter's language in that last sentence is a bit unclear. What trend does he think USPS officials are trying to reverse? Obviously, reducing service will not reverse the trend of Internet-driven decreases in mail volume, and I don't think any USPS official has argued that it would. But when there's less mail to deliver, the logical way to reverse or at least mitigate financial losses is to spend less money, and reducing service is one logical way to do that.

Perhaps Hunter simply believes that it's more important for the federal government to continue stimulating the economy by providing printers and advertisers with cheap universal delivery and by employing lots and lots of postal workers. I'm fine with that. And heck, I enjoy sending and receiving mail on Saturday, too. But I don't have to square my support for reliable, efficient, universal government mail service with conservative Republican principles the way Jon Hunter does.

Madison: Free Beer! Commission Considers Repealing Hooch Samples Ban

Update: The City Commission agenda is labeled July 13... but a neighbor tells me the commission met last night. Hmm....

Five years ago, I suggested a number of alternative slogans for our fair city, including "Madison: Free Beer!"

The City of Madison may be taking me up on that. At tonight's city commission meeting, our fearless leaders will consider repealing Section 4-11, which bans off-sale licensees from giving free samples of alcoholic beverages.

So seriously: are Madison's booze peddlers going to make the case that there isn't enough demand already, that they now need to hand out free samples to drum up business?

Help Business: Pass Carbon Caps Now!

Yesterday I mentioned Rebecca Terk's cogent explanation of how clear regulation of homemade food helps micro-business by making the marketplace predictable for home-based entrepreneurs. I drew a parenthetical analogy with the passage of energy security legislation: get the Senate off its duff to set clear national policy for renewable energy and the cost of carbon emission, and industry will finally know where to invest in long-term energy plans.

Then David Leonhardt makes exactly the same point in his NYT essay on how Congress can boost growth and stave off the dreaded double-dip recession. He notes that health insurance reform and financial reform are already helping businesses make decisions.

One big piece of uncertainty remains, though: energy. Several energy chief executives have said they have major projects ready to go, if only they knew what was going to happen to the cost of emitting carbon. The same is no doubt true of nonenergy companies trying to make decisions about new buildings and factories.

The Senate still has a small window to pass an energy bill this summer. A good bill would include a cap on power plant emissions, making clear how much more expensive those emissions would become. Such a bill wouldn’t help only the climate, as Jim Rogers of Duke Energy says. It would be a form of stimulus, too [David Leonhardt, "5 Ways Congress Can Bolster Growth," New York Times, 2010.07.06].

As I've said, and as my friends at Repower America have said, let's finish the job on energy security legislation so the marketplace can get to work. Senator Tim Johnson knows energy security legislation will be good for South Dakota—he said so at the Heartland open house yesterday (I'll buy an ice cream cone for the first person who can send me a photo of Russell Olson applauding those lines!). Unfortunately, Johnson also said cap and trade won't pass the Senate—nertz! Time to swing the big stick, Senator Johnson, get your colleagues on board, and pass some energy legislation to help the environment and the economy!

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Related: Senator Johnson told the nice people at the Heartland shindig yesterday that energy security legislation will promote the production of low-cost electricity. Matt McGovern of Repower America agrees: he tells KJAM that reports of the impending demise of your pocketbook due to green energy are greatly exaggerated... by the oil industry and corporate interests determined to squeeze every dollar they can from an outdated, unsustainable energy business model.

Also Related: The Obama Administration is following through on a campaign promise to clean up the air in the eastern U.S. Per direction of the courts, the EPA is issuing a revamped version of the Clean Air Interstate Rule (originally proposed by that crazy socialist greenie and destroyer of the economy President George W. Bush) to require coal-fired plants east of the Mississippi to drastically reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 2014. The plan includes pollution credit trading.

Welspun Faces Lawsuits, Has Strong 2009 Profits to Cover Costs

...and South Dakota money goes to Iran after all?

We wait for the mainstream media to pick up the story about the possibility that TransCanada built the Keystone pipeline with defective Indian steel. We also wait for someone to connect the dots and ask why a few sticky gas pedals provoke a recall of over five million Toyotas, but hundreds of faulty pipe joints don't trigger a recall of steel posing an ecological threat to South Dakota's farmland, wetlands, and drinking water.

Meanwhile, here are a few notes on Welspun, the maker of the faulty steel that might lie under the South Dakota prairie in the Keystone pipeline:

1. Indian pipe maker Welspun (I'm waiting for plays on that name) faces three lawsuits from U.S. pipeline companies accusing the company of supplying substandard steel. The litigants include Kinder Morgan, in whose pipelines federal safety regulators found defective Welspun steel, as documented by Plains Justice.
2. I'm not a professional finance reporter, so it'll take me a while to figure out which division is which, but Welspun Corp Ltd. is down 4.6% from its Monday close. Welspun-Gujarat Stahl Rohren Ltd. is down 4.7%.
3. Ah! Welspun Corp Ltd. is Welspun-Gujarat Stahl Rohren. The company changed its name from the latter to the former this spring, taking three months of brainstorming and consultations to come up with the shorter name and a new logo. (Note: stahl rohren is German for "steel pipe".)
4. Shipping bad pipe didn't hurt Welspun's business in 2009: Welspun increased revenue 28% and more than doubled operating profit.
5. Welspun is acquiring majority stake in Saudi pipe maker Aziz. Dang: Even if we use Canadian oil, we're still depending on Saudi pipe.
6. Welspun does business in Iran. TransCanada bought 47% of the steel for the Keystone pipeline from Welspun. This year's South Dakota State Legislature protected a huge tax break for TransCanada. At the same time, the Legislature passed a law to oppose investing state funds in Iran. Connect the dots....

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Update 2010.07.02: The mainstream media speak! KJAM covers the concerns over Welspun steel pipe.

More Madison Handouts: Farmers Elevator Gets $100K Free Rail Crossing Upgrade

If we could draw an organizational chart of Madison's power structure, we might find Madison Farmer's Elevator somewhere near the top. Other businesses and organizations, like East River Electric and James River Equipment, have to ask nicely for their subsidies. Madison Farmer's Elevator gets $100,000 of work done on its property for free by the City of Madison without even asking:

Also scheduled in 2011 is the railroad crossing upgrade on Highland Avenue. Comes said this $100,000 project is 90 percent funded through a railroad grant.

Don't forget: vote in the latest Madville Times poll on what great project Madison's taxpayers should subsidize next!

Mayor Gene Hexom asked if the Madison Farmers Elevator would be contributing funding for the project, since that company actually owns the railroad crossing.

Comes said the elevator hasn't been approached about providing cost-share toward the project [Elisa Sand, "City Reviews Five-Year Street Improvement Plan," Madison Daily Leader, 2010.06.22].

Ah, the Madison free market at work. Imagine if the city would just appear on your street one day, fix all the sidewalks, and not even knock on your door to ask you if you want to chip in to cover the cost.

Qwest Rant: Stop Ringing My Phone After Midnight

Do any other Qwest customers get the phantom half-ring between midnight and 1 a.m.? We have had this problem here at Lake Herman for several years. Last night, we were up late chatting when our phone gave one crisp half-ring. No further ring, no one on the line, just a single truncated ring, happening on our old phone and new phone alike.

Now the sound of a phone ringing in the middle of the night is fraught with doom. A midnight call means either disaster or prankster; either way, we are conditioned to respond with a surge of fight-or-flee adrenaline.

In our case, we've learned our choice is to fight or flee Qwest. We have called numerous times to ask them to fix the problem. The closest thing to a logical explanation Qwest's operators have offered is that the half-ring is a side effect of the scheduled line tests they automatically conduct in the middle of the night to make sure our phone is working. Evidently the voltage the phone company uses is enough to set off the ringer.

We've asked Qwest to fix it. Their reps have told us they'd fix it. They never have. I've told the Qwest rep they are welcome to not check whether our phone is working, vowing that, really, if our phone isn't working, we'll run over to the neighbors' and let Qwest know we have a problem... in the morning.

We found this noise particularly exasperating when our Divine Miss K was a little baby learning to sleep through the night. Any little midnight noise could rouse her for a gloomy session of crying and rocking. Thank you, Qwest, for testing our parenting ability.

Our little one sleeps more soundly now (last night's thunderstorm didn't even rouse her!). Yet the phantom ring remains a mild annoyance. But even more annoying than the unwanted noise intruding on our house in the middle of the night is the runaround we get from Qwest "customer service" in the morning.

One more time, Qwest: our phone works. You don't need to test it. Hit the little button on your computer that will fix this problem.