Minnesota Rusco is gone, thanks to BlackRock

As always for Moody Monday, there are so many topics but so little time.

1) I'm glad I brought the two historians to your attention a few days ago. Their most recent video is a real gem, with several moments of memorable quotes.

2) The money crisis, with so very many Americans ("richest country on the planet") unable to afford food, is a lot even to try to comprehend.

3) The one single issue I want to explore more thoroughly, though, is a problem demonstrating itself here in Minnesota. I offer anti-capitalism rants occasionally, and here's another one. As many people have said before, "private equity ruins everything it touches".

Minnesota Rusco is the company that I used, once in 2019 and again in 2024, to install new windows in my century-old home. This company was in operation since 1955 (famous locally for this musical jingle in their television advertisements), but they closed suddenly in 2025 a few days ago. Even people in the company didn't know it was going to happen. This YouTube video, from roofers here in the Twin Cities, describes the situation from a local industry perspective. As this news page from University of Minnesota explains, they were bought out from the former owners in 2022, sold to Renovo Home Partners in Dallas TX... which itself became owned in 2024 by BlackRock TCP Capital Corp of New York.

Yes, that BlackRock. It sure seems like all of those companies with the "BlackRock" name are in a financially incestuous relationship with each other, everything some subsidiary of the original, with this story getting into tedious details of the financial dealings of the company. BlackRock is also now a majority owner of a power company here in Minnesota. Our legislature approved that sale, as if nothing could go wrong with that arrangement. Ugh.

You already know how opposed I am to the concept of making wealth the point of living. With everything else going sour in the USA, we still idly watch as capitalists extend control into every part of daily life, from home repairs to power infrastructure. I really need to buy solar panels. Between Trump tariffs driving up costs of Minnesota electricity to whatever capitalists are about to do to force additional scarcity (which drives up value for investors), I just need my own independent power source. I feel like we can't have a nice society, because we bow to the gods of wealth.