CF Industries scored a big victory this morning at Terra Industries’ annual meeting in New York, as shareholders overwhelmingly voted to replace three Terra directors with three CF-nominated candidates, “CF claims victory.”

The victory strengthens CF’s hand in its bid to takeover the Sioux City-based company. Terra, which has repeatedly rejected CF’s hostile bid as inadequate, took a more conciliatory approach in a statement issued after the vote.

“…Terra shareholders noted that current trends in the fertilizer market could provide potential consolidation opportunities for many market participants. Terra’s board, as always, will continue to maintain an open-minded approach to considering any bona fide opportunity to create meaningful value for Terra shareholders.”

What will Terra’s next move be? Stay tuned. What do you think about the outcome today? Let us know.

No matter how proxy vote at Terra Industries’ shareholders’ meeting Friday turns out, the three-way fight between Terra, CF Industries and Agrium, called the “forever war” by some Wall Street analysts, has the potential to draw on for a very long time, if not forever.

In New York City Friday, Terra shareholders will decide whether to re-elect three incumbent board members or three challengers nominated by CF, which has been doggedly pursuing a hostile takeover of Terra since January. Check out my story online and in print Friday on what the loss of Terra’s Sioux City headquarters could mean for the community, “City leaders say much at stake in today’s vote.”

A CF victory presumably would put the Deerfield, Ill-based company in the driver’s seat to force a combination. But Terra, which would still control five of the eight seats on the board, could very well decide to try to fend off CF by launching additional defenses.

On the other hand, a Terra victory would more than likely allow the Sioux City-based company to remain independent. But some analysts expect CF to make one last significantly higher offer before throwing in the towel, however.

Canadian ag giant’s Agrium’s own pursuit of CF muddies the waters. On Thursday, Agrium announced that 62 percent of CF shareholders now back its $5.1 billion buyout offer, which had been scheduled to expire at midnight Wednesday “Majority of CF shareholders support Agrium bid.” Despite the widespread support, CF management still refuses to negotiate with Agrium.

It boils down to this. CF executives are refusing to do what the majority of its shareholders want. At the same time, they’re courting Terra shareholders to vote differently than Terra’s management is recommending.

Who will win in the end? We may know more Friday, or everything may become even less clear.

Watch this blog and siouxcityjournal.com for a report from the meeting. I’m particularly looking for Terra shareholders to talk to about their vote. Please email me at: davedreeszen@siouxcityjournal.com or call 712-293-4211.

The Obama administration boasts federal stimulus dollars “saved” or created jobs in 13 Iowa congressional districts.

The trouble is the last time I checked Iowa only had five districts. Not sure where the other eight districts are located. Where are they and why haven’t we heard about them before?

The federal Website that tracks stimulus dollars spent, recovery.gov shows $10.6 million spent – and 39 jobs created — in non-existent districts in Iowa.

ABC reports the government site erroneously listed phantom districts in Iowa and several other states, “Jobs ’saved or created’ in congressional districts that don’t exist.”

Not sure if Gotham City, NY., Lake Woebegone, Minn. or Margaritaville, Fla. are among the cities where the administration claims credit for creating jobs.

Administration officials blame the faulty reporting on human error.

Hitting double-digits for the first time in a generation, U.S. unemployment reached 10.2 percent last month, up from 9.8 percent in September.

The October rate is the highest since late 1982. The Christian Science Monitor reports, “After dismal jobs report, unemployment rate could hit postwar high,” the new government data has economists reconsidering their earlier economic projections.

“We have been forecasting a 10.5 percent peak for the unemployment rate in mid-2010; given that it is already at 10.2 percent, this could be too low,” writes Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist for MFR Inc. in New York.

The $787 billion stimulus bill pushed by President Obama and passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress last February is looking increasingly like a failure of sorts. At the time, the Obama administration promised that passing the huge tax and spending bill would keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent.

A recent administration claimed that the stimulus bill had created or saved more than 600,000 jobs (how do you accurately measure how a job is “saved.”) But media analysises of the documentation has found numerous errors that contributed to an inflated count, “White House tally appears to overstate stimulus jobs.”

For example, raises paid to some preschool teachers with stimulus dollars were mistakenly counted as saved jobs.

And a Kentucky shoe store that supplied nine pairs of work boots to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers counted the $800 expenditure as saving nine jobs.

That large of a bang for the buck was too good to be true.

Is the Obama administration trying to marginalize America’s largest business group?

“The uneasy relationship between the Obama White House and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has steadily eroded over the past several months, with the business group’s opposition to health care and climate change legislation triggering an all-fronts backlash from the administration,” Fox News reports, “White House targets Chamber.” “The administration is now trying to neutralize the Chamber by doing an end-run around the group and dealing directly with its members.”

“Obama and top aides quietly have met with 50 to 60 big-time corporate CEOs over the past few months in an effort to cultivate their support on key issues — the White House denies that it has encouraged any companies to sever ties with the Chamber.”

Liberal groups have highlighted such firms as Apple cancelling their Chamber membership over climate change legislation. Another influential firm, Nike, resigned its seat on the board of directors.

(It’s somewhat hypocritical of Apple and Nike to support the proposed cap-and-trade legislation pending in Congress. Both companies manufacture their products in third-world countries exempt from limits on carbon emissions. The Chamber’s membership also includes many companies with U.S. factories that would face steep costs to stay in business if cap-and-trade would become law.

Obama’s allies are turning up the heat on the U.S. Chamber as well. A group of small businesses in Iowa, called 1Sky, recently issued a news release in which they criticized the Chamber for not supporting climate change legislation.

Iowa Workforce Development released its monthly unemployment reports today, which showed little statistical change locally, “Sioux City area unemployment rises, despite job gains”

Unemployment in nearly all Northwest Iowa counties was below the statewide average of 6.7 percent for September. Three exceptions were Emmet, 8.7 percent, Monona, 7.1 percent, and Palo Alto, 7 percent. Sioux County posted the lowest area rate of 4.1 percent.

If you haven’t read it already, check out my story on the latest development involving Sand Creek Post & Beam, the Wayne, Neb.-based maker of kits for old-fashioned barns. The story appeared in print Sunday, but due to a technical issue, was not posted online until today, “Sales aloft”

I first visited owners Len Dickinson and Jule Goeller in October 2006, about two years after they moved from Lincoln to Wayne and launched their business. That story, with the catchy headline “Barn Again, , was awarded a first-place award for business writing the next year in the Iowa Associated Press Managing Editors contest.

A framed copy of that story now hangs in the conference room of Sand Creek’s new offices in downtown Wayne. The company, after outgrowing their cramped leased offices, acquired a former bank and drug store building dating from the turn-of-the-century and extensively renovated it. The interior decor features rustic, rough-cut wood and other materials they use in their business.

Earlier this summer, more than 350 local residents turned out for a BBQ brisket luncheon the company hosted to show off their new digs.

Since my last visit, Sand Creek also has tripled the size of their plant on the east side of Wayne. The company’s barns are now sold in 44 states and counting. The dizzying sales increases from 2005 to 2008 landed the firm on Inc. magazine’s annual list of the 500 fastest-growing, privately-held U.S. businesses.

South Dakota has the most “business-friendly” tax system, and New Jersey has the least, according to the Tax Foundation’s 2010 State Business Tax Climate Index.

Iowa ranked 46th, ahead of only Ohio, California, New York and New Jersey.

Sioux City and other Northwest Iowa cities have faced difficulty in the past competing with neighboring South Dakota, which has no corporate or individual income tax.

The Index measures the competitiveness of the 50 states’ tax systems and ranks them accordingly based on the taxes that matter most to businesses and business investment — corporate income, individual income, sales, property and unemployment insurance taxes.

The states are scored on these taxes, and the scores are weighted based on the relative importance or impact of the tax to a business.

The Index measures how well a state’s tax system encourages investment by maintaining a broad tax base and low rates.

Nebraska meatpacking workers routinely face hazardous conditions, including unrelenting line speed, humiliating treatment and verbal abuse, according to a report from a non-profit public interest law center released today.
For the report, Lincoln-based Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest interviewed 455 workers at eight plants in five communities. The group did not identify the identify the companies or communities, but reportedly talked to some workers at Tyson Foods’ Dakota City beef plant, the metro area’s largest employer with some 3,400 employees.

Of the total workers interviewed, Appleeseed said 62 percent of reported they had been injured during their previous year at work. That’s a higher rate of injury than official government statistics.

To read the full 104-page report, click here.

Read the Journal online and in print Thursday for local reaction to the Appleseed report.

Ever wonder where McDonald’s gets the fish for its famous Filet-O-Fish sandwiches? After learning the answer this week, I now wish I didn’t know.

According to the New York Times, much of the fast food king’s filets come from the waters around New Zealand, it’s ”From Deep Pacific, Ugly and Tasty, With a Catch”.

One of the most popular is the hoki, or whiptail, a bug-eyed specimen that looks rather hideous. (See photo above)

As it turns out, the Pacific may be running out of the specifies because of overfishing. Not sure what that means for McDonald’s long term. But I’m not all the worried. After all, I’m more of a fan of the McChicken. But I’d just as soon not see a spread on where the chain gets those filets any time soon.