Tu-Uyen Tran from the Grand Forks Herald has a post up tonight about A.G.Edwards; "Nest Egg" index rankings. Tu concludes from the rankings that North Dakota "sucks" at saving money, but is that really true?

North Dakota has seven cities in the top 500. Fargo (which is coupled with Moorhead), Minot, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Jamestown, Dickinson and Wahpeton. That's a pretty impressive showing.

Even more impressive when you consider that the U.S. has about 19,355 incorporated cities. The 500 in A.G. Edwards' ranking represent the top 2.6% of cities in America. Meaning that of the best places in the nation to save money, North Dakota has seven places in the top 2.6%.

I don't think that "sucks." I think that's pretty good. North Dakotans should be proud.

On a somewhat related note, I'm always annoyed when people are overly negative about the economy. I look back in America's history and I see some really harsh times. Stock market crashes, depressions, recessions, droughts, etc. Comparatively speaking, America is doing wonderfully right now, yet if you were to ask citizens on the street about the economy a good number of them would probably tell you that the economy is doing poorly. It's sad.

We're in boom times, and nobody seems to realize it.