On "shrinkflation," financial media, and Mr. Sviggum

(image from buzzfeed)

Yesterday (Wednesday) was one of those days where I decided I could use a third meal. Not as much to do outside, now that temperatures are getting colder. It's awful early for cabin fever. Am I eating to counter the discomfort of the last few days, when Morris is in the headlines in an unpleasant way? Nothing we in Motown did wrong of course. We're in the news because a state-level politico made an odd comment. 

So we're still thrashing over this. 

First I'll review my dietary story from yesterday. Dashed downtown to get a frozen pizza, Bellatoria, as oven heated up to 425 degrees. My freezer is disconnected. I get a pizza and then consume it promptly. Pizza, Lay's chips and pop was my evening fare. I woke up in middle of the night with worst case of acid reflux I've ever had. No more frozen pizza for me, ever again. 

So I wonder: are food companies altering the ingredients for cost reasons? Not only are we hearing about inflation, we hear about "shrinkflation." Companies want to hold back raising prices - so as to hold customers - so they cut back with quality/quantity. They do this in a way where they hope we don't notice. This has been talked about quite a bit in the media. 

Inflation has not really seemed to bite us in the butt yet. It is not top-of-mind awareness yet, at least from my perspective. Look out, if the trend remains strong. 

It is highly questionable whether this thing called "the Fed" is doing enough in its battle. Higher interest rates are supposed to tame inflation. I will argue here that "the Fed" kept interest rates too low for too long. So we're paying the fiddler now. The rate increases of the last few months actually seem timid. But the Fed butts up against the stock market-centered interests, along with this beast called the financial media. You are probably aware of Jim Cramer, Joe Kernan et al.

Donald Trump loved going on CNBC to talk to Kernan. Trump would try to remind people "your 401Ks are looking good." The nice thing about an interest-bearing bank account is that it pays interest which is money you can spend immediately. A certificate of deposit can most often be set up to pay monthly. Stocks? I was taught as a child they were risky. 

As a young adult I found the stock market was all the rage, and you'd be teased if you still put faith in bank accounts. The big wave of support is still behind stocks and 401Ks. The financial media voices cry out en masse when they think the time has come for "the Fed" to start cutting rates again. So we get QE over and over, interest rates near zero. And now we have inflation at 8.3 percent. 

 

They'll scream

A couple more interest rate hikes, and the big shots of finance will scream bloody murder if they don't get something like QE again. The financial media that we know today with its incredible biases did not exist when I was a kid. The old gatekeeper media felt it wise to tamp such voices down. Then again, the gatekeeper media did a terrible job advising us on how the Vietnam war was a total mistake. Walter Cronkite finally broke through to say something obvious, but that was way belated. 

Was I a victim of shrinkflation this week? Are food companies messing with us and hoping we don't notice (much). Count the Kleenex in a Kleenex box etc. How is all of this going to end? 

 

Steve Sviggum (mpr image)

And let's talk about UMM

We have the Steve Sviggum matter to hash out this week, still. You may have been misled by the headlines the other day. The word "resigned" was trumpeted. Talk about trying to fool us. Is that what the Regents are trying to do? "Fool us" into thinking Steve Sviggum has resigned from the University of Minnesota Board of Regents? "Resigned" appeared in headlines. 

Silly rabbit, Sviggum has not resigned from the Regents. He only resigned as vice chair. I talked with a well-known UMM retiree just this morning who had been fooled on this. So unfortunate. 

The only proper resolution was for Sviggum to resign, outright. So maybe more pressure will have to be brought to bear. Too bad - it would be nice if the mess was simply over. There is only one interpretation of Sviggum's remarks that are at issue here: those remarks were racist. 

If UMM had a 90 percent white student body, he would not have been prompted to say anything like he did. Oh, enrollment would still be an issue - that in fact is the elephant in the room. So is there really an "enrollment problem" at UMM? Maybe there isn't, maybe the U likes a nice tidy campus of 1000 students that attains certain objectives. If enrollment is a problem, the U administration should take the lead in giving us an analysis with suggestions. 

Sviggum made the assumption there is a problem. Administration should have spoken first, thus relieving Sviggum of his urges of offering commentary. Even the board chair, Ken Powell, was deserving of some finger-pointing. His immediate response to Sviggum's comments was insufficient. Perhaps this individual has tendencies too? Pressure mounted for apologies. 

The problem is that public pressure was required. Maybe it's time to clean house with the Regents. Maybe look for younger people, people more "hip" to our diverse times. In fact, we need younger people all across the political spectrum, don't we? Why are we stuck in this norm of so many older folks, some with apparent cognitive issues? Perhaps this is the fundamental issue at hand? 

Let's take a look at the UMM enrollment facts. Thanks so much to Ruth Thielke for backgrounding me. I had the very good luck of encountering Ruth when we were out along the biking/walking trail. She emailed me subsequently.

 

Brian, I looked up the official fall 2022 enrollment for Morris, and it is 1068.

There is a comparison here:

https://idr.umn.edu/reports-by-topic-enrollment/enrollments

You can select the Morris campus by year, or you can see the historical comparison, or whatever you would like. There is a lot of enrollment data on this site.

It was good to see you today.

Ruth Thielke

 

Was pleased to get feedback on all this from a regular contact of mine, Randy Olson of Bonanza Valley. He initially reacted to my thoughts on "UMM" vs. the apparently preferred "UMN" these days. Here's from Randy, and thanks friend:

 

Hello Brian, and it will always be UM-Morris to me. I find the UMN label very odd. It's UMM just like there's UMC and UMD and the U of M main campus. Anyway I digress.

Hard to justify what Sviggum said in a public sphere. Whatever happens to him is of his own doing.

You are absolutely correct in your blogging that the enrollment issue should be very troubling and worrisome to anyone who cares about UMM's future. I honestly don't think UMM is doing anything wrong per se and I have nothing against its push to be a diverse campus. I loved the diversity I was surrounded by during my 4 years as an undergrad there. I will always cherish those years. They were wonderful, and the diversity was a huge part of that.

The bigger issue is the economy (James Carville, hello!!! Remember his line "It's the Economy, Stupid!") and the REAL question the powers that be need to ask is, "Does UMM provide a good value and a college degree that will be useful in today's marketplace?"

College is horrendously expensive today. I got lucky. I could skate by with 4 years of UMM with some pell grants, academic scholarships and ended with just shy of $10,000 of student loans in 2000 with a B.A. degree in political science that wasn't all that useful in the 2000s, but I have absolutely zero regrets about one single minute of my college days in Morris regardless of how little I got out of that B.A. degree. Isn't that really tremendous? I say this with the purest of sincerity. I absolutely loved my UMM days, even losing to Sean Lazenby for UMM campus president - it was all part of the experience that I'll never forget.

Today many college kids would give their right arm to graduate with "only" $10K of student loans.

If UMM isn't seen as a good value, then families are not going to ship their kids out there, regardless of how wonderful the diversity draw is for UMM. And I'm in the camp that the diversity is a draw. I say that as a Norwegian kid who grew up in a 99% white Norway Lake Township, rural Sunburg...but was fortunate to have some friends at Brooten elementary and later B-B-E who were Hispanic.

PS - you're welcome to share my views on this!!

Randy Olson

 

This discussion took in Del Sarlette also. Del is an MHS Class of '71 alum just like Ruth's husband Neil. Neil wasn't along on the biking/talking path because he had a hobby type of obligation. Ruth backgrounded me. Then I emailed Del:

 

I encountered Ruth Thielke this afternoon when I was on walking trail. She said Neil was out hunting, bow hunting. I said I did not approve of that pastime. She said "I don't think the deer have too much to worry about." I'm surprised Neil would enjoy that. As we parted I said to Ruth "I'm rooting for the deer." We talked a little about UMM music dept. She confirmed how discouraged Jim Carlson was when he left. It was worse than I thought. She groped for the name of the person who she said "tried to destroy the department," so I said "Martin Seggelke?" and she said "yes!" So depressing to hear these stories. She said Jim was responsible for recruiting a large portion of UMM's overall student body, like one-third. He traveled around so much.

Remember that with UMM, it is a publicly supported enterprise so it is not accountable the way a private business is. In other words, all kinds of petty politics comes into play, back-stabbing etc. You just have to expect it. So-and-so is out to get so-and-so.

 

- Brian Williams