Jesse Checks

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On Monday, Mark Dayton officially became Minnesota’s Governor.  He joins many new governors around the US who started this week with their swearing-in and are likely to end it with a swearing-at.  The job isn’t easy with the river of red ink confronting nearly every state, and we are no exception.  The size of the gap for the next two year cycle (2012-2013) is 6.2B$, which is to say about 16% of the total General Fund Budget for the same time period.

The festivities surrounding the new Governor’s official acceptance of this responsibility are probably the last time we’ll have a chance to reflect back on what might have been before every politician in the state rolls up their sleeves and gets to swinging their fists … er, gets to work.  It’s as good of a time as any to remember that 12 years ago we started handing out what would be known as “Jesse Checks”, the sales tax rebate that totaled $2.6B over a three year period.

What would the Legislature do with that money now?

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2011 Predictions

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Happy New Year!  The changing of the calendar is a time when we can all make resolutions and think about how the coming year will be different.  It’s also a good time to make predictions for the coming year that we can hide away later – unless they come true, that is.  So I thought I’d give my own in plain language just so that those of you who have this bookmarked can make fun of me later.

Ready?

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2010? Meh.

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The year 2010 is nearly over.  What happened?  A fair number of celebrities died, a few videos went totally viral, and a few trends were established.  That’s what I get from the nooze, at least.

But what happened economically?  It turns out to be not much.  That is what everyone is complaining about, too.  I’ll do my best to explain just what nothing looks like as colorfully as possible because what we all expect from 2011 is something.  Not that anyone knows what it is, just that it won’t be this blah.

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Overnight Wonder

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The end of the year is as good of a time as any to look back and summarize what happened over the last year.  In the process of doing that I came across a tidbit of information that clearly deserves a post of its own.

From March 2008 through 2009 the Federal Reserve acted quickly.  Most people weren’t even aware of the crisis until October, but the Fed was on it.  Emergency overnight loans at low interest rates were the cornerstone of their effort, quietly fronting interest-free scratch to investment houses that were in deep trouble.

How much did they loan out?  Sen Bernie Sanders sponsored a bill that forced the Fed to tell us.  It turns out it was $9 Trillion – that’s money on top of the $4.7 Trillion that we knew was used to get the economy rolling.  All together the total “stimulus” is about 1 year’s total production in the USofA.

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Doctor Who

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A long holiday is more than a few days off, it’s a trip back through time.  Reconnecting with family and friends drops us back into conversations and simple glints in the eye that send us back to who we were long ago.  To our parents, we will always be the child they lovingly shielded from the darkness or spent hours crafting a perfect holiday for.  To our childhood friends we are still the kids who had small adventures together.  The traditions that set the scene for all this are as varied as our lives, but they often involve rituals around a television watching a holiday special or sports.

This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, it’s just what most of us do.

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