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opuscorp.comBest Buy's Richfield campus

Without a doubt, Minnesota is a leader when it comes to producing innovative research. The problem is that other states are doing a better job of plucking ideas from the laboratory (and sometimes our laboratory) and spinning them into successful, job-creating businesses.

Health-care reform is a perennial issue in Washington, where elected candidates routinely arrive with sweeping ideas about how to change the way hospitals and insurers care for — and bill — patients.

You might credit the cold for our inventive spirit because there's a body of research out there that says cultures are more innovative the farther they're situated from the equator.

Twin Cities retailers might want to consider stocking up on eggnog. It probably won't sell, but at least it'll come in handy for drowning the sorrows of what's predicted to be the region's bleakest holiday shopping season in decades.

The corny joke about economists is that if you laid a thousand of them end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. So, that outcome was to be expected Tuesday night, when the University of Minnesota arranged a row of four economists on stage at the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs.

On Sunday morning, Wells Fargo Chairman Richard Kovacevich reportedly met Wachovia Corp.'s CEO for breakfast to discuss acquiring the failing financial institution.