Now I thought, as it’s what I have heard again, again, and again, that the WEDC was the Laser-Focused Semi-Private Job Creator of Wisconsin™.
How odd, then, to read that since the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s inception, Wisconsin is on pace for more job layoffs than ever.
What a shock: who would have imagined that the grand claims of cronyism would meet their refutation in actual human experience?
When the first round of WEDC funding hit Whitewater (it’s been many trips to the trough since), one heard how this was to be a grand and astonishing triumph for the city.
It was, instead, what anyone might have guessed: water on sand, negligible and of no benefit to the many thousands of this city.
The P.R. men, 501(c)(6) big-business lobby, and sycophantic officials who peddle these shoddy goods will keep trying.
It is impossible, nonetheless, that dollops of money preferentially allocated will produce a meaningful, lasting result for Whitewater.
That’s why I have described these white-collar welfare schemes as an expression of a gutter ideology – they are such, as they are both intellectually, ethically, and in practice inferior to alternative methods of allocation. (See, along these lines, Local Crony Capitalism via the WEDC (and similar schemes).)
I have every confidence in allocation of capital, goods and labor through free markets.
However, to be clear, almost any allocation to the poor would be vastly better on moral and practical grounds than a compulsory allocation through taxes to well-fed, avaricious, big-business leaders and their unctuous flacks.
Jobs, jobs, jobs? Not through the WEDC.
There’s irony on Free Whitewater: WEDC stats followed by “F is for Fake.” 😉
Theme of the day. 🙂