Saturday Night Music Video: "The Weekenders" by The Hold Steady

For my money, one of the best American indie rock outfits of this past decade is Minneapolis's own, The Hold Steady. The band's specialty is the kind of heartfelt, bombastic, poetic rock and roll Bruce Springsteen used to make before he he got old and started taking himself too seriously. "The Weekenders" is a gorgeous track off of their most recent album that always puts me in a happy mood whenever I hear it. The perfect song for a holiday weekend.

Enjoy!

Medtronic Cuts 220 Jobs In Mounds View (Minnesota)

Yet another mass layoff notice from the health care industry, as reported by Twin Cities.com:

Fridley-based Medtronic is eliminating about 220 jobs in its division for heart rhythm devices.

The business unit, which is headquartered in Mounds View, makes pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators, which shock failing hearts back into rhythm.

Sales of the heart devices have been sluggish for years. In previous years, Medtronic also has announced job cuts during the month of May, shortly after the close of the company's fiscal year in late April.

"They have to keep right-sizing the business to reflect the future prospects," said Tim Nelson, an analyst with Nuveen Asset Management. "I think this was a lot of Minnesota-focused people. It came with a pretty significant reorganization in product development."

Medtronic employs about 8,000 people in Minnesota.

Kathleen Janasz, a company spokeswoman, would not comment on the types of jobs eliminated or the location of affected workers. The reductions are being accomplished through a combination of buyouts and layoffs, Janasz said, adding that those facing involuntary separation are being given benefits including severance pay.

"General managers are now leading the business," she said of a reorganization that's part of the downsizing. "We believe that this is the right model that will be supportive in bringing new products to market faster and being more efficient in doing so."

Yep, because firing workers ALWAYS results in greater production and efficiency. So what is the real reason behind this announcement?

Growth in the market has been hurt by a series of product recalls over the years and, most recently, a federal investigation into whether implantable defibrillators have been over-prescribed. The device systems can cost up to $30,000.

Nelson said the job cuts reflected the sluggish outlook for heart rhythm devices. "This is endemic of a very slow growing - in fact declining - market," the analyst said. "Even though the signs are that things may be stabilizing a bit, they're still down."

So, it was a crackdown on unnecessary medical procedures being performed in the name of higher corporate profits. At this point, I'm pretty much beyond being surprised by this kind of stuff.


Bonus: Get rhythm

Minnesota Republican Lawmaker Says Food Stamps Are Like "Feeding Wild Animals"

The political nervous breakdown of the Republican Party seems to be accelerating. By now it should be readily apparent to any observer who reamins even somewhat tenuously connected to reality that, in the wake of their victories in the 2010 midterm elections, the Republicans have dangerously overstepped their supposed mandate. Of course, this was entirely predictable given the officially sanctioned media narrative that Obama and the Democrats lost because they supposedly overreached, when in fact the opposite was true. Enthusiasm for President Hopey-Changey on the part of his own supporters waned dramatically as it became apparent that he was determined to do little more than carry on the disastrous Bush economic policies which got us into this mess in the first place.

The politically smart thing for the Republicans to do would have been to hammer on Obama for essentially giving Wall Street a pass on crashing the economy and causing the economic crisis. But since they are even more in the pockets of the oligarchs than are the Democrats, they obviously could not do that. So their strategy was to obstruct Obama even on the tepid reforms he did try to push while whipping up the culture war politics that had served them so well back when George Bush the Lesser was still happily farting behing the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

The problem for the Republicans was that they had pretty much gotten all the mileage they could get out of gay bashing, so they needed to look around for other ripe targets to rile up their troglodyte base. One choice was to take the war against "feminazis" to the next level, which explains the utterly misguided recent campaigns against not only abortion but contraception. The other and perhaps even more unfortunate tact was to ramp up the demonization of the poor at precisely the time when tens of millions of people are still suffering from the effects of the economic crash.

This "war on the poor" hit another low point with the recent comments from State Representative Mary Franson, who compared the Food Stamp program to "feeding wild animals." Here is The Raw Story with the details:

One Republican lawmaker in Minnesota expressed a peculiar but existing belief in GOP circles Friday afternoon, claiming that food stamps recipients are virtually similar to feeding wild animals.

State Rep. Mary Franson released a Youtube video describing her hopes of reducing the amount of time residents in Minnesota could stay on food stamps from five years to three.

“And here, it’s kind of ironic, I’ll read you this little funny clip that we got from a friend,” she said. “It says, ‘Isn’t it ironic that the food stamp program, part of the Department of Agriculture, is pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of food stamps ever. Meanwhile, the Park Service, also part of the Department of Agriculture, asks us to please not feed the animals, because the animals may grow dependent and not learn to take care of themselves.”

Franson is not the first Republican to make this comparison. In 2010, then South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer said exactly the same thing.

According to the USDA, Todd County in Franson’s district contains one of Minnesota’s highest poverty rates, with 16.9 precent of residents in 2010.

That last sentence is particularly galling since it's not like this dingbat represents some lilly white prosperous suburb where poor folks are rare. Presumably, she is in a position to see with her own eyes what the economic crisis has done to her own community, and yet she's such a psychopath that it has obviously elicited exactly zero feelings of empathy in her. Nationally, of course, you would think that someone on the Republican side would recognize that bashing the poor is not a smart strategy when there are now so many more of them than there were a few years ago, but the party obviously got so used to claiming it creates its own reality that it has now made the fatal error of believing its own press clippings.

The biggest beneficiary of such audacious heartlessness, of course, is President Hopey-Changey himself. Absent another crash in the financial markets between now and November, all Obama will have to do is keep doing what he has been doing: pay lip service to being on the side of those who are hurting while continuing to take big fat campaign checks from Wall Street and pointing the finger at all of the crazy rhetoric spewing forth from the Republican side. In this manner he could breeze through to reelection without making any concrete promises to take on the oligarchs and start restoring basic fairness to the system. It's almost enough to make you wonder if useful idiots like Minnesota State Representative Mary Franson are secretly on the payroll of the president's reelection campaign.


Bonus: A song from a guy who actually does have a little empathy for the downtrodden

Supervalu Cutting 800 Corporate and Regional Jobs

Once in awhile, the corporate flacks really tie themselves up in knots with these layoff announcements Here is the Minneapolis -St. Paul Business Journal with the details:

Supervalu Inc. said Tuesday it is eliminating 800 jobs from its corporate and regional offices nationwide as part of its yearlong effort to cut costs and offer more competitive grocery prices.

Supervalu said in a news release the cuts include layoffs of current employees and open jobs that won't be filled. The grocer expects most of the cuts to be done by Feb. 25, the end of the company's fiscal year.

About 200 jobs are being cut at the company's Eden Prairie headquarters, representing about 7 percent of its headquarters staff.

So far, pretty standard stuff, but check this out:

"These reductions are necessary to help further strengthen and accelerate Supervalu's business turnaround in a very competitive marketplace," Supervalu CEO Craig Herkert said in the news release.

A month ago, Supervalu said its turnaround plan was still on course despite reporting a widening loss in the third quarter. Sales were down 4 percent for the quarter that ended Dec. 3.

There's only one thing proper reaction to that: Dooooooooh!

Memo to Blockbuster Video: Give it UP, Already

One of the more interesting examples of a corporation refusing to acknowledge reality and just die already is the slow motion collapse of Blockbuster Video. The chain has been steadily closing locations for years as On Demand, Netflix and now downloading have utterly destroyed its brick and mortar business model. Of course, that was after the chain itself ran most of the mom-and-pop video stores around the country out of business. Here is the Minneapolis Star Tribune with the details of Blockbuster's latest woes in Minnesota:

Facing stiff competition from online movie retailers such as Netflix, Blockbuster said it plans to close 10 Twin Cities-area stores and one in Duluth in the next several months.

The Wayzata store will shut its doors at the end of January. Apple Valley, Cottage Grove, Columbia Heights and Eden Prairie are scheduled to close in mid-February. Stores in Hudson, Wis., Woodbury, Blaine, Savage, New Hope and Duluth will go out of business in March.

Several of those stores already have stopped renting movies, but are open for sales of CDs and other merchandise.

The company, based in the Dallas suburb of McKinney, Texas, wouldn't discuss details but said its stores can close for various reasons, including the loss of a lease and issues with the size of a store. Blockbuster went into bankruptcy in 2010 and was purchased in 2011 by Dish Network Corp., which now operates Blockbuster as a subsidiary.

Seven Minnesota stores will remain after the closings, said Blockbuster spokesperson Kelsey Smith. Those include stores in Bloomington, Rosemount, West St. Paul, Minneapolis, Edina, Cloquet and Mountain Iron.

Not long ago, Blockbuster and other movie rental companies were ubiquitous, but the digital age is allowing consumers to access movies and games in many other ways, including online, through cable providers and via subscription.

You gotta love that weaselly answer about stores closing for "various reasons." There is only one reason a national chain closes a store location: it isn't making enough money to cover the rent, employee salaries and other expenses. So many Blockbuster locations have closed around my area that I couldn't tell you where the nearest one is anymore. It is long past time for Blockbuster to concede to reality and put itself out of its own misery.

Update: Minnesota Vikings Stadium Deal Sacked by Billion Dollar State Budget Deficit

image: the Metrodome roof does its best imitation of the chances that the Vikings will get a new, publicly funded stadium

Back on October 16th, I wrote about how officials in the state of Minnesota seemed determined to ram through a public funding deal for a new Minnesota Vikings football stadium over the objections of a substantial portion of the electorate. Well, the chances of that happening just became slimmer, as reported on Thursday:

On the eve of the release of the state's economic forecast, there were some nervous lawmakers eager to get the new numbers. Most were expecting a budget deficit in the $750 million range.

"This is one of the more uncertain times I've done a forecast," MN State Economist Tom Stinson says. He's been issuing these forecasts since 1987. He says the hard copy will be around 100 pages.

"The rumors are at this point, is the state of Minnesota will face another billion dollars in the hole when the fiscal forecast comes out on Thursday," Hamline University Political Expert David Schultz said.

Ouch, THAT'S gonna leave a mark. Minnesota, of course, experienced a shutdown of its state government this past summer over the budget problems it was already experiencing.

Fortunately, the biggest loser in all of this is apparently going to be the Vikings:

Professor Schultz says the proponents of a Vikings Stadium funded partially with public money were hoping for a deal ahead of this dismal forecast. "How easy is it going to be to say okay, we're going to rob a billion dollars from K through 12, but we're going to give Zygi Wilf a half a billion dollars? Politically, you can't do that," he explained.

Certainly not while the Occupy protests are in full force all around the country. As I said in my previous post on this subject, if Zygi Wilf (WTF kinda name is THAT for a human being, anyway?) wants a new super expensive playground for his millionaire athletes and corporate fat cat buddies, let the fucker pay for it out of his own damn pocket.

"Oh, but he might then move the team to LA!" the stadium funding proponents shriek. Good, let him. California is even more broke than Minnesota and the Vikings fucking suck anyway. They haven't appeared in a Superbowl since back when Brett Favre was still raising his hand to ask the teacher's permission to go take a number two.

I know I'm a cold-hearted, cynical bastard, but hearing that the Vikings may not get their ransom for a new stadium from the taxpayers after all put me in a much better mood to watch the games today. Are you ready for some football?


Bonus: Just to show that there is no offense intended to the good citizens of the Twin Cities, here are local heroes, The Hold Steady, with one of their most kick ass anthems

Taxpayers Denied a Chance to Vote on Public Funding for New Minnesota Vikings Football Stadium

Image: the Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota does its bet impression of the American economy.

In this era of budget austerity and diminishing public services, you would think the last thing state and local governments would be doing is to continue subsidizing billionaire sports team owners by handing them hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for new stadiums. Why silly you, did you just fall off the turnip truck or something? This is America: Land of the Free and the Home of the Publically Funded Corporate Sky Box that the general public will NEVER get to set foot in.

The latest trick to ensure that those taxpayer dollars continue to flow is keep the voters—who might wonder at the skewed priorities of such subsidies at a time when teachers, policemen and firefighters are being laid off— from even having a say in the matter. Here is the Minneapolis Star Tribune with the story:

The proposed Minnesota Vikings stadium tax won't face a public vote in Ramsey County, but a report to be released Wednesday by the Metropolitan Council raised new questions about the viability of the Arden Hills site.

The report says the price tag and time line for clean-up of the site -- a former munitions plant -- will be greater than expected and that a county sales tax plan to help finance it would "compromise the county's and the region's ability to finance other projects."

The nearly 200-page report also identified $39 million in unfunded costs for the proposed $1.1 billion publicly subsidized stadium.

Vikings spokesman Lester Bagley said he was pleased that the Ramsey County Charter Commission decided against putting the sales tax to a public vote but said the Vikings were "surprised" that the report had been made public before Wednesday's formal release.

I’ll bet the public relations flack for the Vikings is just pleased as punch that the people whose money is going to be given to his fat cat bosses are not going to have any say in the matter. That’s American democracy inaction for you.

So, how much are we talking about here:

Not having to win public approval for the sales tax plan should make it easier for Ramsey County to come up with its $350 million share of the stadium financing plan…

Wow, that’s quite a chunk of change. All to build a brand spanking new stadium so two groups of overpaid millionaires can spend three hours on Sunday banging into each other a grand total of EIGHT TIMES PER YEAR. Seems to me that a better use of this money would be...oh I dunno...damn near anything.

It’s funny how often you hear conservative commentators bashing public employee unions for their “gold plated” health care plans and retirement benefits that come at public expense, and yet they never seem to utter a peep about billionaire subsidies like sports stadium funding. Look, it sucks for the Vikings that they have to play in a stadium with a roof that is susceptible to collapse every time a snowflake lands on it, but once and for all if they want to build themselves a new place of business LET THEM PAY FOR IT, just like any small business owner would have to do.

At least one guy gets it. Here’s a quote from near the end of the story of what he said to the panel that made this hideous decision:

"By not allowing a vote, you are preferring to serve special interests and not the people you were appointed to serve," said John Waldorf of North St. Paul.

Welcome to America, Mr. Waldorf. Are you ready for some football?