P-B Advisory Board

History repeats itself in Venezuela

By Don Flassing

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela just received approval to be "President for Life," rather than be limited to two terms.  How does this happen?

Well, after years of financial mismanagement and partisanship in Venezuela, Chavez was elected promising to clean up government and put an "excess profits tax" on oil companies to help support the poor and workers.

With the Chavez tax policies, foreign investors fled the country. Banks were nationalized. Unemployment escalated. Only government jobs increased. People became more dependent on the government for promised handouts. The unions gained strength and Chavez was reelected promising to tax the remaining rich to support the poor and working class.  He called this a "stimulus package."

Venezuela now has a larger percentage of the populace dependent on the government than there are in private industry, assuring Chavez's continued majority and coalition "for life."

If any of this sounds familiar, please stop me before Obama's sixth term?

Put U of M campus on Soldier's Field golf course?

By Dave Grimsrud

I've noticed the good PB coverage of the U of M's needs downtown. Is Soldier's Field golf course sacred city property? If not, have the U buy what appears to be a financially struggling private golf course (Meadows Lakes) next to the country club. Then exchange it to the city for the Soldier's Field Golf Course property. The city would own the Meadow Lakes course and could rename it to honor war veterans and be part of the Rochester rec system. The U would have ample spare to grow directly south of the downtown.

 

Maybe the city sees the U expansion to be one gigantic downtown urban renewal project to replace old homes and buildings.That's good, too, and probably less controversial at least to Rochester's old-timers who golf.

 

Welcome to P-B Advisory Board

From Greg Sellnow:

On Feb. 13, I announced the formation of a new citizen advisory panel whose job it is to give our Editorial Board advice and help promote community dialogue.

The Editorial Advisory Board is composed of five P-B readers: Don Flassing, Dave Grimsrud, Gayle Kall, Michon Rogers and Jerry Williams.

Now that our volunteer board is in place, we're ready to put them to work. This blog is intended as a conduit between our readers and the board. I'll prime the discussion pump with some ideas from time to time, and I'll serve as referee when and if that's necessary. But, for the most part, this will be our advisory panel's blog. Feel free to discuss with them any issue you'd like. But please be civil.

To get things started, here's a comment that was posted in response to my column announcing the new panel last week:

“Great we have someone from education, Liberal 1, a publisher, Liberal 2, a community volunteer, Liberal 3, another from education, Liberal 4 and a Minister, Liberal 5.  Wtg PB so much for diversity, but I did not expect anything else.”

We picked the folks we did based on their diverse backgrounds and involvement in the community. We didn't ask them about their political ideology, although a couple of them offered that information. I think you'll find most, if not all, members of this group difficult to label. But I'll let them speak for themselves.

Have at it.