PORK FEST

Buckle up cuz we're about to get E.D.'d good & hard

Ol·i·garch: a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence

WOW! What an exciting past 14 months it has been here in the Heartland. Especially in Sanford Falls, where we have been treated to a whirlwind of “Economic development” that has given many of us whiplash, and not in a good way either.

So far, here’s some of the larger turd storms that citizens have had to weather:

- CO2 pipeline fight

- Megaprison approval in Sioux Falls - largest spending bill in SD history

- Wind farms

- $125 million LibertyLand TIF battle in Rapid City

- $69 million wealth transfer form SD citizens to (GOED) to “CJ Schwans” (a subsidiary of South Korea-based CJ CheilJedang)

- Data Centers, coming to a town NEAR YOU SOON!

- “SandField’’ relocation/development bonanza

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To briefly recap the latest SUPER EXCITING NEWS from superstar duo Larry Rhoden (unelected) & Paul Tenhaken (lame duck), who seem to have a fetish for giving our money to (sometimes foreign-owned) oligarchs:

Chinese pork processor Smithfield will be moving their stink factory to the NW corner of SF, in order to help spread the effluent odors over a wider metropolitan sprawl.

T. Diddy Sanford is sliding in with a cool $50 million that he skimmed from his non-profit pyramid scheme, to purchase the existing PORKING lot just north of Falls Park, which will obviously be named the “Sanford District”. Diddy fans are hoping this will finally get him the recognition he has been chasing these past 40 years in SD, and maybe a new bronze statue. Man, I shoulda went into the bronze statue business 15 years ago!

To add further intrigue, the $50 million Diddy money will be washed through the Sioux Falls Development Foundation, which is necessary to the whole operation for some reason.

Smithfield is demanding a $90 million TIF, because why should a profitable company be expected to pay their property taxes on a brand new facility? The SF City Council will presumably vote enthusiastically for this, as they have been instructed to.

The hog butchery has already been promised another $12 million in welfare payments from Santa Governor Rhoden, which he is pilfering from the Future Fund & GOED (also our $).

This story is only 5 days old, so we should expect more bombs dropping from thin air in the weeks to come. And of course, there are whole basket of unkown unkowns we little people will never learn about behind this multi-billion dollar project. But one thing we have been assured of is this whole scheme will “be good for the AG community”, somehow. Not sure how that applies to this episode, but it does make for some handy propaganda lubricant.

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2026 is the year that I discovered, from various muckety-mucks, that I am in fact “Anti-Business”. Good to know.

This charge has been leveled mainly in the form of op-eds in the Dakota Scout, who up till now has always insisted on equal time for opinion pieces but somehow made the decision to allow the Pro-Oligarch Chamber Bros to publish different variations of the same theme at least once a week now. In fact, another one from Mayor Paul just dropped yesterday in an attempt —- Dakota Scout article —-to stave off any naysayers like me who may try raining on his parade. In which, mayor Paul makes a very convincing (to the gullible) case for why this project deserves SOOO MUCH free money and tax breaks for a corporation that somehow can afford to pay their CEO …[checks Google]… $15 MILLION dollars a year. Wow yeah you are right Paul. This company really does need our help. Where can I send a donation?

I have also witnessed similar propaganda salvos in the Facebook app, where some local “business” people have tried to put me in my place, ideologically speaking. Their arguments can be boiled down to “Shut up, peon”, which is a tactic I am well used to at this point. Thus far, their tactics have proven inadequate to the task, if the task be persuasion. Frankly, it’s getting boring being told over and over and over the same weak ass talking points that sound like “blah blah community blah blah investments taxbase derrr umm stronger blah blah blah”.

This slur they like to throw around- anti-business- is so ludicrous that at first I decided to just ignore it. But now with this latest “Sanfield” grand scheme has dropped, with salient and significant details- such as Smithfield’s demand for a $90 million TIF - drip dripping out like an oozing infected wound, it appears that our electeds just aren’t getting the message anytime soon, and the propaganda will continue apace.

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Me, anti-business? Bro, I am a business.

Please join me here on a little story telling trip. The following is not to be taken as self-horn tooting, in which I am loathe to engage. Rather, I want to attempt to make the case that owner-operators of small (under 500 employees) businesses are in many ways more Pro-Business than any development foundationer, bank president, or developer could ever hope to be. I mean, some of us actually work for a living.

My journey in business began 32 years ago, when at the fresh age of 24, I, along with my wife, opened our mattress factory-direct store in Sioux Falls. Being naive and dumb, I had no idea how bumpy of a ride it would be for the rest of our lives. If not for God’s providence, our success would likely have been unattainable, at least in this specific industry. As a manufacturer of our own brand, we are up against billion dollar global brands that have advantages and resources beyond my imagination. With very little money to begin with, my greatest tools were ambition, determination and a phobia of failure. When we moved into our new building in SF- which was paid for with my own money, no TIFs or GOED handouts - I worked 6 weeks straight, with no days off, 7 days a week. And those were long days. Manufacturing is difficult enough, but we are also the retailer, which adds a whole nother layer of complexity. For reference, most mattress retailers simply purchase the finished mattress from a different company, ship them in and double their money. It really is that simple, which is why we have 50 different mattress retailers in this area. For them, it’s easy money. For me, not so much. And now, we have another enormous competitor that didn’t really exist 10 years ago - the internet boxbed sellers. We certainly aren’t alone in feeling the loss of revenue from internet sellers, which is why I have been trying to get some momentum going for a statewide Buy Local campaign. But that’s a different story.

Suffice to say, I am the opposite of anti-business. I LOVE business. I love helping people fill the need in their lives. In fact, I am not ashamed to admit that I beleive everyone in SD should be sleeping on a Comfort King, and it makes me a little sad when I think about this not being the reality. I am very uncomfortable with the fact that my evolution into a political observer & commentator has put me at odds with many of the rich and powerful in our community, people who can and should be my customers. I am loathe to alienate anyone who simply desires to own the finest mattresses on the planet, and who may have qualms about taking advantage of the fact that this is available to them right in their own town, because of my hot takes. Heck, I’d love it if T. Diddy wheeled in here and bought a bunch of beds one day. There have to be some empty rooms in one of his mansions that needs filling. I don’t discriminate, and I love every one of my customers, even the ones who are just wrong about politics. I am so PRO business, that I will make this deal: Anyone who buys a Comfort King will never see their name in a negative light on this Substack, moving forward. See how PRO BUSINESS I AM! Nobody loves business more than me. I'll take as much business as you can dish out, & be begging for more. I'm so Pro-Business that I want a law passed requiring that SD citizens can only purchase mattresses that are made in our state. Just kidding, but think of the ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT that would create! And the jobs, man, think of all those friggin jobs! And, it would even be good for the Ag community, somehow.

I'm not against anyone making an honest living, helping their fellow neighbors in whatever honorable enterprise they labor at, whether they be a small, medium or large business. I'm against confiscating taxpayers' & giving it to a business. That's theft.

For Oligarchs and Chamber Bros to call people like me, who are Noticing a LOT of corruption in the way our electeds deal with Big Businesses, “anti-business”, is a slap in the face of what we actually do all day, which believe it or not isn’t just posting on facebook.

Thousands of people just like me in SD quietly run our operations, with no help from our fellow taxpayers or electeds. They are the silent majority, who are too busy keeping the lights on and their employees fed to pay much attention at all to the fact that our governor is misusing the very money that we business owners have unwittingly put at his disposal. Some, like me, are starting to wake up to the realization that our state is being run by oligarchs. I know because I have gotten to know more and more of my fellow business operators, and none of them are happy with the way our politicians are handing out money like candy to their special friends.

And we, the little people with our small but mighty businesses, are openly wondering if it really has to be this way. Do we really need to be offering enormous TIFs, which amount to a company being able to use the property taxes that they SHOULD be paying to instead help them pay down their debt? Why should these already-successful corporations get special treatment?

One propaganda talking point goes like this: “WOULD YOU RATHER THEY LEFT TO ANOTHER STATE?!”. This one is basically the same bit of extortion that the data center developers are using, through their pet legislators, to try to force a 50 YEAR exemption on sales taxes. As an exercise, I posted this yesterday:

It didn’t take long to catch the fish I was expecting…

This exchange highlights what I think is the key issue here that hopefully, over time, we can begin to come to terms with, and adjust the prevailing views of our society. Along the same lines of the pushback I am getting is that this is all just “the way things are done, see”. And yes, I do understand the realities of the world we occupy, where power & influence are proportional to dimension. Size does matter, particularly when it comes to politics. Back room deals are nothing new, but what we are being treated to here in SD is the spectacle of our politicians openly promoting huge businesses, who are already successful and don’t actually need the welfare payments. And do we really want to helping business owners who threaten the taxpayers in pursuit of more profits? Should we be rewarding extortion?

Like most people - Normies - I used to swallow the oligarch propaganda without question, believing that somehow, using taxpayer money to help Big Businesses was “good for the economy”. But now I look at it differently. Now I question the narrative, and so should we all.

Why should we so brazenly be propping up large businesses who don’t actually need the help anyway? This looks like corruption, once you take off the blinders.

After all, big companies by their very nature are already in a position of tremendous privilege and leverage. For example, there is no small business owner in SD who can call up Governor Rhoden and expect to get a meeting, or even a phone call. Heck, I’ve never been able to even get a meeting with my own mayor! But if you happen to head up a large company, your chances are very good you will have access to power. Big Businesses enjoy tons of benefits over small ones, including the ability to expand their operations. Right now, somewhere in SD, Sanford Health is adding on to one of their buildings. Excavators & cranes are permanent fixtures of modern health, it seems. Does anyone really think Sanford deserves TIFs, or any corporate welfare?

Another glaring issue that should be put under the microscope is one of qualification. How many of our elected officials actually have any experience in the private sector developing and investing in businesses? Has Larry Rhoden ever started, run or expanded a large business? Has he ever taken on a bank loan of $ millions, and paid it off by running a profitable business? Has he ever negotiated a large construction project, or an exclusive supplier agreement with a large national brand, like I did a few months ago? Do they know or even care if the moves they are making a fiscally sound? Are they making wise investments with our money? Does anyone care? These are fair questions if we are to continue allowing him unfettered access to hundreds of millions in “investment money”.

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A NEW PARADIGM

I don’t know exactly how long that “Economic Development” has held dominion over the hearts and minds of our elected leaders in SD, but I am quite sure that we are seeing an unprecedented and rapid acceleration of their real world application of this philosophy in the past several years. I think it has something to do with the rise of Donald Trump.

Trump is indisputably the most successful entrepeneur to ever get elected president. Unlike our wannabes in SD, Trump spent most of his adult life constructing high rises in New York City, and casinos & hotels everywhere else. Right or wrong, he has taken his business acumen into the Executive Branch & bent our entire foreign & domestic policy to his will. I think this has unfortunately emboldened our own electeds to go ham in the business sector, making deals left and right with little regard for minor issues like funding ongoing overhead costs (at the new prison) and quality of life in the long term for the hundreds of thousands of taxpaying citizens (every other damned thing they spend money on).

I recently spoke with a RINO political veteran regarding this new “Sandfield” project, and he expressed concern about the secrecy & games being played. He told me “they didn’t used to do it this way”. He meant the hoopla, the joint press conference, the rather stunning and gross display of interconnectedness that our politicians now have with big business. He didn’t say this, but what he meant, I think, is that we are obviously living in an oligarchy, suddenly.

It didn’t used to be this way.

It doesn’t have to be this way.