Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer.

Financial panics are not rational. The federal debt ceiling is an arbitrary artificial limit. The U.S. economy would not fundamentally change on the day the Treasury could not send Social Security checks or military payroll because it was barred from borrowing to pay the bills Congress has already approved. But world financial markets would freak out.

The international financial market system is an extremely complex and intricate web of interrelated understandings, agreements, contracts, checks and balances, guarantees, regulations and laws. The system is normally resilient and redundant enough to handle losses which regularly can and do occur. For many decades, the U.S. dollar has been the linchpin of the system, and U.S. Treasury notes and bonds have been considered the basic risk-free asset class. Essentially, the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government has been and remains the cornerstone of the worldwide financial system.

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

There’s something missing in the debate over Iowa’s proposed carbon capture pipelines. Too often the discussion breaks down along familiar frames of the pipeline companies against landowners, or labor unions against environmentalists. When we stop the analysis here, we lose sight of what the fight is really about: the role of monopoly power in Iowans’ lives.

To date, no politician of either party is making this connection. Some have gotten close in their critiques of the pipeline companies, but none have highlighted the role of corporate monopolies in enabling these proposed schemes to exist in the first place. It’s strange because, as prominent politicians like U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar note, history is sitting right there in front of them.

Jim Chrisinger is a retired public servant living in Ankeny. He served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, in Iowa and elsewhere. 

When we retired back to Iowa from Seattle in 2018, Iowa was trending purple. The Des Moines metro was a hot destination for young professionals and families. No more.

MAGA has displaced the pragmatic and welcoming conservatism that Governor Bob Ray and U.S. Representative Jim Leach personified and so many of us admired.

How does this development sit with business Republicans now cohabiting with their new MAGA partners? It can’t be comfortable. MAGA folks aren’t even conservative, not at least the way most of us knew conservative.

Nate Willems served in the Iowa House from 2009 through 2012 and practices law with the Rush & Nicholson firm in Cedar Rapids. This essay previously appeared in the Prairie Progressive and the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

If you have never had to learn or appreciate what a non-competition agreement, or non-compete is, consider yourself lucky. These documents hold workers hostage to the whims of employers.

The idea that a non-compete is an “agreement” overstates things. Commonly, when a person gets a job, a non-compete is just another document the employer requires the employee to sign. The employer may or may not explain what it is. Whatever explanation an HR representative provides is not binding on the company. 

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member. This essay first appeared in the Sunday Des Moines Register.

Chuck Magro. John May. Donnie King. Cory Harris. Charles Scharf.

These are the CEOs of five of the most powerful corporations operating in Iowa: Corteva. John Deere. Tyson. Wellmark. Wells Fargo.

Where are they? Should we request a wellness check to make sure they’re OK?

These CEOs lead corporate monopolies making billions every year off the bodies and brains of Iowans, including LGBTQ Iowans, yet they’ve been missing in action as Iowa Republicans advance the largest number of anti-LGBTQ bills ever in a single legislative session.

Deb VanderGaast is a registered nurse and child care advocate seeking to advance state and national child care and disability policy, inclusive child care practices and improve access to quality, affordable child care for working parents. She was the 2022 Democratic nominee in Iowa Senate district 41.

Municipal, county and state governments have a lot in common with private businesses, especially non-profits. They have to raise revenue to support the workforce and resources needed to produce services or products that will attract and retain customers. That’s how they maintain and grow their revenue. That revenue flow makes a business viable and financially stable.

For the state of Iowa, our “customers” are the people and businesses choosing to locate here. They create economic activity that generates tax revenue.

Our “products” are the services, infrastructure, and laws that make it desirable for businesses and individuals to move to Iowa or remain here. If residents and businesses leave, Iowa loses tax revenue and workers, so will have less of the human and financial resources needed to produce quality products and services to attract and retain others.