Lutheran Social Services -- Bankruptcy -- December 31, 2021

From a reader:

Lutheran Social Services filed a petition for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Thursday, May 13, four months after the organization’s board of directors determined it wasn’t able to continue operating.

Administrators have blamed heavy debts from Lutheran Social Services Housing, which provided affordable housing in rural areas, for the 102-year-old organization’s financial failure.

Lutheran Social Services invested $16 million and borrowed another $45 million for its housing program, which grew significantly during the 2010s in response to an urgent need for affordable housing in the Oil Patch during the Bakken boom.

The organization owned 20 housing projects and managed another 14 facilities in 22 communities in North Dakota, which provided housing for about 1,400 residents

The documents did not provide a total for secured debts held by banks, but include a foreclosure lawsuit seeking $8.3 million filed by First International Bank & Trust owed for the 124-unit Prairie Heights apartment complex in Watford City.

Several other banks have filed lawsuits seeking loan repayments.

Alerus Financial Corp. said Lutheran Social Services Housing still owes more than $4.7 million on a 2017 loan for a housing project in Stutsman County, and Cornerstone Bank said it owes more than $7.5 million on a 2016 loan for a project in Watford City, according to court documents.

Other secured debts, according to the bankruptcy filing, include a $5.6 million loan owed to the city of Maddock and a federal Payroll Protection Program loan of more than $2.5 million, for which Lutheran Social Services has applied for forgiveness.

Lutheran Social Services also owes Gate City Bank $591,975 and American State Bank & Trust $149,991, according to bankruptcy filings.

In the bankruptcy petition, Lutheran Social Services seeks approval from a judge in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Fargo to use cash collateral to pay expenses as the organization continues what Otterson has described as an “orderly wind down,” which includes liquidating assets, paying creditors and transferring key programs to other organizations.

One important program is Luther Hall in Fargo, which provides residential treatment for children aged 10 to 17. Luther Hall has been sold to Nexus Family Healing, a nonprofit group that specializes in outpatient therapy, residential treatment and foster care for children with emotional and behavioral health problems.

Most employees were told their jobs were being eliminated when Otterson announced on Jan. 15, the day the board decided that Lutheran Social Services couldn’t continue to operate, that the organization was being dissolved. The organization had 283 employees as of mid-January.Several major real estate holdings are being sold off. Lutheran Social Services has an agreement to sell its Fargo headquarters, near the interchange of Interstates 29 and 94, for $4.9 million to Great Hall Partners, a real estate holding company based in Fargo.

In a May 14 letter to former employees, Otterson notified them that they were receiving payments, minus deductions, for unused vacation days. The payments were made possible by the sale of Lutheran Social Services’ Bismarck program center, which enabled the organization to make payments to its primary lender, Bremer Bank, he said.

“Many people invested their careers here,” Otterson wrote in the letter. “Many people turned to LSS in times of need. Unfortunately, decisions made two, four, even 10 years ago brought down this agency and forced hundreds of people to seek healing, help and hope from other sources.”

Otterson took the helm of the agency on Dec. 1, 2020 — six weeks before the board decided to cease operations — and has spent most of his tenure “winding down” the organization.

In a separate legal proceeding, the assets of Lutheran Social Services Housing, a subsidiary nonprofit, are going through receivership. The receiver, Lighthouse Management, is running the properties and will decide whether to sell housing assets, he said.

.......................

That did answer [the reader's] question.  They did own that Fargo building, it wasn't just a leaseback.

First International Bank is owned by the Stenejhem family - originally from Arnegard.  That's $8 million - and there's another $14 million owed to ND entities.  That's still just half of the $45 million debt listed.  Of course, I'd like to see the creditor list.  I pitched it to XXXXX XXXX as being of interest to western ND since there was ND property and lenders involved.  We'll see. 

Sailboat -- December 26, 2021

Link here. I have this set, recently bought it locally.

Cocktails

Wall Street Journal book review, December 17, 2021.

Sources

Make Me A Cocktail

Petrarch, Shakespeare, Goethe, Iambic Pentameter, Iambic Trimeter And All That Jazz -- November 19, 2021

A reader sent me the link to this essay on poetry. 

My reply:

1. The eclipse was somewhat anticlimactic  (or is it anticlimatic?) LOL. Whatever. The eclipse in 1440 was a whole lot better, I suppose, mostly because no one knew it was coming -- except for a few Druids at Stonehenge -- and they couldn't explain it either.

2. But I digress. Yes, I was the only one standing outside in the parking lot with my iPhone pointing at the stars, identifying what was what with the "Skyview" app. I recognized the moon even without the app. Beautiful, beautiful evening. If it was cool or brisk I did not notice. It felt nice and the skies were perfectly clear.

3. With regard to Petrarch's woes. Wow, talk about a coincidence. I'm reading selected chapters in the two-volume biography of Goethe, as previously mentioned. Goethe was in Rome, trying to escape his mistress, it appears -- he was noted for Petrarchian woes -- the book is outside in my car right now so I'm not going out to get it -- but the last ten pages have been about the play he was writing and his woes. But I honestly can't remember whether the biographer references Petrarch. Can't wait to get the book later this morning and see.

4. However, continuing the conversation .... much of the last ten pages that I've been reading has been about Goethe writing his Iphegnia play initially in prose, and then re-writing it in Shakespearean iambic pentameter as opposed to iambic trimeter common in Greek and Latin classical poetry. Goethe struggled whether to go rogue and go with Shakespeare. I kid you not. Remember, Goethe was enamored with the Greeks and he was "Latin." And, of course, as a continental, he hated the Brits. LOL. So, it was a big deal to go with iambic pentameter and not trimeter. [Wow, I would love to go back as a substitute teacher for high school. I absolutely enjoyed those few years when I did that in San Antonio, TX.]

5. By the way, in his Iphengia, Goethe uses the "hanging by a thread" metaphor. Now I'm curious: who coined that? Shakespeare, or did Goethe plagiarize Shakespeare? We'll sort that out later. Obviously it was from a classical myth (https://www.grammar-monster.com/sayings_proverbs/hanging_by_a_thread.htm) but did Shakespeare popularize it or was Goethe the first to use it as a metaphor?

6. And so, another rabbit hole to explore.

7. Disclaimer: the above will have content and typographical errors. My proofreader was not yet up to proofread this note before it was sent.

Walmart Visit -- November 16, 2021

Interesting to note the empty shelves and gaps in shelves.

Lego: like Target, the Lego shelves were really, really empty at Walmart.

Turkeys, just prior to Thanksgiving:

• Butterball: $0.98 / pound (vs $0.99 / pound at Target
• Honeysuckle: 87 cents / pound

Bacon:

• brand (52 cents / ounce) to store brand (28 cents / ounce)
• about $8 for a pound of a bacon; $10 for a pound and a half

The Fufeng Gambit -- The Taiwan Connection -- Why China Chose Grand Forks, ND, For A Corn Milling Operation -- November 16, 2021

Why is China so interested in a corn milling program in a remote town in a remote state known for wheat and oil? But not corn. 

UND EERC: link here. A world-class energy research center. Where oil and technology came together to become part of the US shale revolution, perhaps one of the most amazing energy revolutions ever. China: looking for shale technology.

UND Aerospace: link here. Where Saudi princes come to learn to fly. The second-largest degree-granting college at UND, the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences operates one of the largest fleets of civilian aircraft in North America. 

Drone research:  US DOT selects North Dakota DOT for unmanned aircraft BEYOND integration pilot program. Link here.  That link is just the beginning. Click on "drones" in search at the milliondollarwayblog. You can start here if you want. If one is seriously interested in drones, one thinks Grand Forks, ND.

Bottom line: UND / Grand Forks is home to a huge drone program, a huge aeronautics program, and a huge connection to the US space program as well as the entire history of the US shale revolution, open to the public. 

Okay.

Now for the good stuff.

Grand Forks AFB: it used to be home for the B-52 Stratofortress bomber, part of the nation's nuclear triad. 

Now, GFAFB is even more important for the nation as it affects / regards China: GFAFB is home of the 319th Reconnaissance Wing which maintains, operates, and flies the nation's Global Hawk High-Altitude ISR mission (see below), more important to real-time events than even the nation's satellite reconnaissance program. 

RQ-4 Global Hawk: fact sheet. 

PAVE PAWS: does anyone remember this? Star Wars? Ronald Reagan? Reagan made the SDI announcement in 1983. Pave Paws developed in 1980. See wiki, does this get your attention?

PAVE PAWS (Precision Acquisition Vehicle Entry[a] Phased Array Warning System) is a complex Cold War early warning radar and computer system developed in 1980 to "detect and characterize a sea-launched ballistic missile attack against the United States". 

With the first solid-state phased array deployed, the system at the perimeter of the contiguous United States used a pair of Raytheon AN/FPS-115 radar sets at each site[3] (two sites in 1980, then two more used 1987–95) as part of the United States Space Surveillance Network. 

One system was sold to Taiwan and is still in service. -- yes, in the lede paragraph of the wiki entry.

The exact location: Cavalier Air Force Station about one hour north of Grand Forks AFB / Grand Forks driving time. 

So, an operating system to ""detect and characterize a sea-launched ballistic missile attack against the United States" and still in service was sold to Taiwan. 

Okay, ask me again, why is China so interested in a corn milling program in a remote town in a remote state known for wheat and oil?

A huge thank you to a reader who brought this to my attention. I would love to take credit for this but I have to give all the credit to my readers.

Amazon Is Way Undervalued, But Apple, Even More So -- November 14, 2021

Quick: name the company that generates the most income from the internet as defined by a contributor at ZeroHedge.

Big Tech companies have quite the influence over our lives. That influence is becoming difficult to ignore, and draws increasing media and political attention. And some see this attention as a plausible explanation for why Facebook changed their name—to dissociate from their old one in the process. 

One tangible measure of this influence is the massive amount of revenue Big Tech companies bring in. To get a better sense of this, we can look at Big Tech’s revenue generating capabilities on a per-minute basis as well:

Look at the per-minute revenue gap between:

• #2 and #3;
• #5 and #6
• in each case, not even in the same ballpark.

Two takeaways:

• Amazon is way undervalued; and
• Apple is way, way undervalued.