February 5 will begin a series of interesting programs arranged by Frank Mabley with a presentation by Rotary Peace Scholar Amanda Ottman on the American Refugee Committee.  Ms. Ottman will follow up on the January 22 program by Kim Crockett on Immigration in Minnesota.  On February 12 Prof. William Doherty  from the University of Minnesota will show us how we can become Better Angles to reduce the polarization in our society that has heightened over the last decade.  Abraham Lincoln asked us to become better angles notwithstanding our differences so it is fitting this program occurs during the month of his birth.

 

President Bill Kiehnbaum will direct a Club Assembly on February 19; consequently, there will be no program that day.  Rotarians should think about what teams they would like to volunteer for this year in preparation for the club assembly.  Mike Spellman will present his Classification Talk on February 26 so we will all learn more about one of our newest members.

 

Thanks to Paul McCreight for arranging the January programs.  We all learned more about the economy and the stock market from Chad Latour and Tom Parnell.  Kim Crockett provided lots of information about refugee resettlement and immigration in Minnesota.  Bob Selden showed us why veterans and their spouses are dying to get into Ft. Snelling National Cemetery.

 

Do you have a friend or family member whose politics are so different from yours that you can no longer discuss politics with him or her?  Bring that friend or family member as a guest to our meeting February 12.  The program will help to build goodwill and better friendships in keeping with the Rotary four-way test.

Our presenter at this, our first meeting of 2019, was Chad Latour, from the investment firm of Lord Abbett.  His objective was to provide an overview of the performance of financial markets in 2018 as well as to share the firm's thinking on expectations for 2019.  This was well-timed, given the significant decline in market valuations in the last quarter of 2018.  The net result was that both the Dow and S&P indexes were down about 7% for the year.  Virtually every category of investment lost ground in 2018.  This was as compared to 2017 in which every asset category made money and despite the fact that corporate earnings were widely up in 2018.  Why?  Letour attributed most of the market decline to fear that the Fed would raise interest rates substantially in 2019.  After the strong market reaction late in 2018, the Fed did back off its plan to raise rates, which has helped the market recover somewhat in the early days of 2019.  Lord Abbett projects that the S&P will improve by about 8% in 2019.  Inflation is expected to continue at the relatively low rate of just over 2%.  There is some fear that global growth rates will slow during the year, driven greatly by expectations for a slowdown in China's economic growth.

Today's speaker was Kim Crockett, Vice President, Senior Policy Fellow and General Counsel of the Center of the American Experiment, a conservative "think tank" based in Golden Valley.  Her presentation was entitled "Pulling in Minnesota's Welcome Mat" and argues that our state is being harmed by generous welfare benefits that have made it a much favored destination for immigrants and refugees.  At the heart of this discussion lays difficult questions like, "What is our moral obligation to refugees?", "What constitutes genuine humanitarian assistance for refugees?", "How many refugees can Minnesota successfully absorb?", "How will Islam affect our culture, law and freedom?".  The process of resettling refugees is complicated.  The federal government decides where to place refugees, often in concert with local Voluntary Agencies (VOLAGs), like Lutheran Social Services.  The federal government provides some up-front funding to state programs, but usually this ends within three months of a refugee's stay in the country.  After that a refugee's major needs are covered by state benefits.  Congress has not addressed the ever-increasing pressures related to global immigration trends, as evidenced by the current battle being waged in Washington and the resulting partial government shutdown, hence this presentation was timely.

We had a good group gathered on this freezing cold January morning, including frequent visiting Rotarian Ron Hughes from the Excelsior club.  Our speaker was Bob Selden, who serves as President of the Volunteer Committee for the Fort Snelling National Cemetery.  Fort Snelling's cemetery is one of 136 national cemeteries in the country and is the fourth busiest; it was dedicated in 1939 and now spans 450 acres.  There are 5,300 interments per year; currently 62% of those interments are cremation vs. 38% burials.  Only 10 years ago, this ratio was reversed.  There are a total of 232,700 interments at the cemetery.  291 of those are unknown graves from the civil war and prior.  The volunteer committee that Bob leads was created to obtain funds to maintain the cemetery.  They are currently planning to petition the National Cemetery Agency to create a new, permanent monument to the "Unknown", which is estimated will cost about $300k.  Most of the committee members also serve on the volunteer rifle squad, which provides military honors each day to veterans being interred that day.  Bob serves on the "Friday" squad, as does our own Joe Ziskovsky.  Anyone who has visited Fort Snelling knows this is a beautifully maintained, lovely place.  It has been recognized as such as it is now listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.