Recent content from Eric Wieffering
Wieffering: Time to get over debit card fees
The foot-stomping frenzy about debit card fees reminds me of a sandbox showdown between 2-year-olds.
For Thrivent and others, warnings were there
Dumb money.
With billions in sales, some co-ops are big business
When Brent Heuth and a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin decided to measure the economic impact of cooperative-owned businesses in the United States, they didn't figure it would be too hard.
Student loans are a great deal - for the government
Congress returns next week, and one of the first things on the agenda will be figuring out how to pay for the cost of keeping interest rates low on federally guaranteed student loans.
Wieffering: Start-up bill results in less-informed investors
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act is that rarest of Washington objects: a bill signed by President Obama, heartily endorsed by both Democrats and Republicans and championed by the likes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Wieffering: Tax-free sales give unfair edge to online sellers
Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on anything these days, especially when the conversation swings to taxes and the economy.
Wieffering: Best Buy needs an outsider as its next CEO
Brian Dunn is out as chief executive of Best Buy, but not for the reasons many thought would prove his ultimate undoing: Losing the loyalty of customers and the confidence of investors.
Wieffering: With second chance, 2nd Swing finds the green
Simon Kallal's first golf venture, 2nd Swing, found water in 2006, when it was liquidated in bankruptcy.
Wieffering: Regional air carriers not immune to tough times
The future of the airline industry is beginning to look a lot like its recent past.
Wieffering: Tickets should be yours to use, or resell
Beware monopolists claiming they have the best interests of consumers in mind.
Wieffering: The Street is losing faith in Best Buy's CEO Dunn
An underperforming professional sports team knows it's time to hire a new coach when the current one "loses the locker room."
Wieffering: Health care overhaul aims to heal a creaky system
Americans may think that health care is a universal right, but for most people in the United States, it's a benefit that can be extended, altered or revoked on a moment's notice.
Wieffering: Rising gas prices not as evil as you might think
Americans believe deeply in the virtues of free markets. Except when they behave in ways we don't like.
Wieffering: Proceed with caution on 'reforms' of device OKs
The medical device industry is right. The approval process for new devices is badly broken.
School reform free-for-all has the cash flying
Education reform has all the hallmarks of a parent-led, grass-roots movement to fix failing public schools.
Making the case for lower corporate taxes
Corporate tax cut fever is in the air.
Wieffering: HEI in the pink but hardly tickled
HEI Inc. posted its first profit in three years Monday, and investors seem increasingly confident that CEO Mark Thomas is delivering on his turnaround plan for the Victoria-based technology firm. Since late December, HEI's share price has surged almost 30 percent.
Wieffering: For Lusso, luxury vision ends up in bankruptcy
The Lusso Collection, an Eden Prairie-based club that offered unlimited access to dozens of multimillion-dollar getaway homes around the world, promised members a "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"-like experience.
Wieffering: Approval in St. Paul always seems to be conditional
St. Paul residents may wonder why their property taxes are going up in 2012 even as the amount of services and amenities the city can afford to provide goes down.
Property tax system needs reform, not quick 'fixes'
A decade ago, Minnesota legislators and business interests struck a grand bargain around property taxes.
Wieffering: Good pay, job security in two years instead of four
E.J. Daigle has a plea for America's moms and dads.
Future of manufacturing jobs
You'll need more than a high school diploma to get them.
Jobs go wanting
Manufacturing companies are struggling to find enough people who can program and run the high-tech machines that cut metal and plastic components. But these precision manufacturing jobs are also among the highest-paying. Though the total number of jobs is expected to shrink in the next decade, demand for these skills is expected to remain strong.
Tech IPO has Minnesota connections
Cambridge, MA-based Brightcove scheduled to go public this week
Wieffering: Buckley helped 3M rediscover its mojo
Chief executives don't usually get a victory lap, and some of them don't deserve one.
Wieffering: Fighting death's final indignity: The price tag
Death may not be proud, but it sure can be expensive.
Private Equity: The Rosy-Eyed View
Rushing to the defense of an industry that's got an image problem.
Wieffering: Clear choices are essential to surviving rapid change
One measure of a company is how it faces up to the kind of disruptive change that, left unchecked, could lead to its ruin.
Go long to measure the true cost of a stadium
Minneapolis city officials thought they were saving downtown in 1995 when they agreed to buy Target Center for $72 million.
Wieffering: Buffets Inc.: Revisiting a deal gone wrong
When Old Country Buffet tumbled into bankruptcy last week for the second time in four years, top executives of Buffets Inc. were quick to blame the restaurant chain's woes on weak spending by consumers.
Manufacturer sounds off on skills gap, wages
State manufacturers "in fight of their lives" for skilled workers
Wieffering: Let's hope talk of American, Delta merger goes nowhere
Airlines raised ticket prices nine times in 2011, and they seem determined to maintain or exceed that pace in 2012. Earlier this week the nation's biggest carrier, Delta Air Lines, pushed through its second fare increase of the new year.
The Fed: Optimistic right until the end
2006 transcripts reveal almost surrealistic assessment of housing market
Wieffering: This business may look grim, but it plans to reap big profits
GWG Holdings makes money when its customers die, and as the prospectus for its $250 million debt sale makes clear, sooner is better than later.
Jobs go away, pay stays flat
Manufacturing wages rising faster outside U.S.
Eric Wieffering: Devil is often in details of executive paychecks
Listen closely and you can already begin to hear it stirring: The collective sound of jaws hitting the floor as companies reveal the take-home pay of their top executives.
Best Buy Buyout?
Bloomberg floats possibility of private-equity takeout of electronics firm
Wieffering: For some, recovery may never come
Most conversations about the beleaguered housing sector focus quickly on one topic, prices. As in, "Will they ever stop falling?"
Manufacturing report comes with fat asterisk
Outlook for nation's factories improves, but not the high-paying jobs they once provided
Look anew at Minnesota's job creation challenge
Minnesota begins 2012 in much the same shape it began 2011: Slowly repairing the ravages of the Great Recession, brandishing an unemployment rate that suggests the state is doing better than the nation as a whole.
Sears, Kmart and the Walking Dead
Retailers' slide has been years in the making
Vibrant economies aren't found only in cities
Count Mankato, Owatonna and Willmar among the state's economic hot spots, according to ia just-released analysis of Minnesota's outstate economy.
Debtors' prison revisited
National Public Radio series brings national dimension to story first reported in Strib
Supervalu has a tough time living up to its name
Every investor's portfolio has one: an established, even profitable company stuck in a state of permanent turnaround.
Wieffering: Fate of Ford plant was settled long time ago
The closing of Ford's Twin Cities Assembly Plant in St. Paul marks the end of an era in Minnesota's economic history.
Wieffering: At MSP, some cracks in the fortress hub wall
Clearly, Dan Boivin does not understand the role of a lap dog.
Housing: it was all a dream!
Or nightmare that came true
Wieffering: Enron's fall is a lesson we still can't seem to learn
Enron's bankruptcy 10 years ago Friday taught investors to trust no one. Not senior executives, not the analysts, not the accountants, and definitely not the regulators or Wall Street bankers.
Downtown Minneapolis dropped off shoppers' list
Not much has changed about the Holidazzle parade since it first snaked its way down the Nicollet Mall in 1992.
Another airline bankruptcy ... finally
American Airlines' parent company bows to competitive reality
Wieffering: Now isn't the time to kill tax cut, benefits for jobless
Here's a topic to toss around the dinner table this Thanksgiving, even though it wades into the dangerous territory of economics and public policy.
Four years after roof fell in, a few good signs
If Upper Deck made trading cards for countries, here's what the vital statistics for the U.S. economy would have looked like four years ago this month, on the eve of what we now call the Great Recession.
Shining a brighter light on student loans
Consumer bureau seeks wide-ranging info from private lenders
Wieffering: Early store openings reflect new retail reality
Black Friday is no longer the busiest day of the holiday shopping season, but its event-like trappings -- 3 a.m. openings, time-limited sales available only in stores -- are vitally important in bringing people to the store and creating momentum for the rest of the season.
Paying for college, mortgaging your future
During the housing boom, qualifying for a loan was as easy as drawing a breath.
Those troubles across the pond floating our way
From afar, the economic crisis in Europe seems like a puzzling and sometimes amusing sideshow.
More on jobs gap
Jobs do go unfilled, but for a variety of reasons
Don't blame the unemployed for the jobs crisis
A new culprit has emerged as a major source of the nation's long-term unemployment crisis: the jobless themselves.
The employment recession in graph form
We're adding jobs, but not nearly fast enough to help those looking for work.
Wieffering: Returns aren't in on Best Buy's VC venture
Shareholders of Polaris and Best Buy reacted predictably last week to news that the companies had each made a bet on the future of electric motorcycles.
How many dreams fall prey to health care costs?
Alex Danovitch's business has nine employees, Andy Johnson's has 90. One firm is four years old, the other 11. One is in south Minneapolis, the other in St. Cloud.
Job killing health care costs
More on how health insurance costs may discourage innovation
More on health care costs
Soaring cost of health care penalizes or discourages entrepreneurs
Pricey benefits
Most Americans get their health insurance through an employer, and the average annual premium for family coverage has more than doubled in the past decade.
Less than meets the eye in Dayton's business loans
Gov. Mark Dayton's decision to deposit another $100 million in Minnesota's community banks is a sincere but ultimately symbolic gesture that will do little to spur new small business lending in the state.
Defining the 99% - and the 1%
New report shows big income growth for top earners.
Wieffering: The best plan to boost jobs: Invest in workers
It seemed fitting that the co-author of a depressing bestseller about America's economic decline would deliver the keynote speech at Gov. Mark Dayton's daylong conference about Minnesota's broken down jobs engine.
Benefits of trade outweigh cost - eventually
Trade makes nations wealthier.
