FREE WHITEWATER

Agriculture

Agriculture, Economics, Economy, Federal Government, Trump

Brain Drain Plagues Key USDA Research Service After Trump Administration Orders Relocation

by  •  •  Comments

When the Trump administration relocated the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service to the Kansas City area last year, about two-thirds of its employees quit their jobs rather than move. Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, called the mass resignations a “wonderful way to streamline the government.” These departures have…

Agriculture, China, Economics, Economy, Trade, Trump, Wisconsin

Worse Ahead for Farmers

by  •  •  Comments

The price of supporting Trumpism – whether on economics, immigration, or foreign policy – is decline. For it all, some farmers will choose their own humiliation, their own degradation, for the sake of supporting Trump. Tory Newmyer describes what awaits Midwestern agriculture in Farmers are bracing for more tariff pain. But they’re sticking with Trump…

Agriculture, Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way, Trade, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin

‘Stung by Trump’s Trade Wars, Wisconsin’s Milk Farmers Face Extinction’

by  •  •  Comments

After years of the ignorant scheming of tax incremental financing, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, capital catalyst grants, the Trump tax bill, and now Trump’s trade war, Alan Rappeport reports Stung by Trump’s Trade Wars, Wisconsin’s Milk Farmers Face Extinction (“The flagship industry in a pivotal swing state faces an economic crisis”): KENDALL, Wis. —…

Agriculture, Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Gov. Walker, Local Government, State Capitalism, Trade, Trump, WEDC

How Walker and Trump Destroyed Dairies in America’s Dairyland

by  •  •  Comments

One has heard so much these last eight years about how Wisconsin has been ‘open for business,’ and for Walker and the WEDC that has meant countless subsidies and tax breaks for conservatives’ preferred businesses. Walker was never a free-market man; his whole approach rested on state capitalism (government funding some producers) and crony capitalism…

Agriculture, Economy, Trump

Dairy Farmers’ Struggles

by  •  •  Comments

The AP reports Farm bankruptcies on the rise in Upper Midwest: The number of farms filing for bankruptcy is increasing across the Upper Midwest, following low prices for corn, soybeans, milk and beef, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. The analysis found that 84 farms filed for bankruptcy in Wisconsin,…

Agriculture, Economy, Trade, Trump

Tales of Unrequited Support

by  •  •  Comments

Wisconsinites who went for Trump now find themselves economically disadvantaged despite their support.  It’s become an international tale: how some residents of America’s Dairyland foolishly hoped for better from Trump and now find themselves experiencing worse: Plymouth, Wisconsin, styles itself as “the cheese capital of the world”. The town of 8,445 people, about an hour north…

Agriculture, Business, Food, Law, Press

Gazette Thinks Janesvillians Are Too Stupid to Buy Milk of Their Own Choice

by  •  •  Comments

Among the items in its ‘Monday Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down’ editorial, the Gazette argues against allowing Wisconsinites to drink organic milk (subscription req’d).  It’s not merely that the paper’s editorial board thinks that drinking raw imprudent (pointing to illness from a recent incident), it’s that the board thinks sales should remain illegal.   Without a law, the…