Not long ago, Messrs. Telfer, Knight, and Clapper met in Whitewater with Reed Hall, so-called CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, to ‘celebrate’ another round of public money in the service of crony capitalism. These gentlemen must have thought – somehow – that all this would look grand and spectacular, that it would be…
Business
Books, Business, Development, Economy, Local Government, Press
The Book on Janesville
by JOHN ADAMS •
Amy Goldstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Washington Post, is writing a book about Janesville after GM’s departure, entitled, Janesville: An American Story. I’ve been awaiting the book, and recently (also happily) discovered publishing information about it, from PublishersMarketplace.com: Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporter Amy Goldstein’s JANESVILLE: An American Story, following three families as the GM…
Business, Food
McDonalds Restaurants: Ranking the Five Most Unusual
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, WEDC
At WEDC-Sponsored Tech Festival, Local Company Announces a Move to Ohio
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation – it should more accurately be called the Wisconsin Economic Disaster Corporation – had yet another embarrassment this week. At the WEDC-sponsored ‘Forward Technology Festival‘ in Madison, a local company announced that it was moving…to Ohio. The Journal Sentinel reports that Aver Informatics Inc., a health information technology start-up, moved…
Business, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park
Innovation Center Offers a Seminar on How to Go Out of Business
by JOHN ADAMS •
Nutty, but true: the Innovation Center – the Disappointment that Keeps on Disappointing™ – is apparently offering a program entitled, “What you Will Need to Know When You are Ready (or Not) to Sell Your Business.” It’s part of – wait for it – the Center’s ‘Elements of Success‘ series. Honest to goodness, for all…
Business, City, Development, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
Local Government’s Vendor Problem
by JOHN ADAMS •
The risk of reliance on a big outside vendor for a big project in a small town is easily described: The vendor will be everywhere initially, will purr contentedly during work, but disappear quickly after the final check clears. It will want the money, will say anything to get it, but without any respect for…
Business, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Politics, University
Local Crony Capitalism via the WEDC (and similar schemes)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s had a decades-long problem of a few town insiders manipulating government and public resources for their own private ends. That time is drawing to a close, but there are yet some years ahead in which aging, mediocre town figures will push their self-promoting lies. As their chief motivation is personal vanity and pride, they’ll…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Free Markets, Good Ideas, Government Spending, Technology
A Tech Company That Seeks Private Support
by JOHN ADAMS •
What does a small tech company that seeks private support look like? Often, we’ll not know, because those private companies seek the support of private venture capital, in thousands of encounters and presentations across America each day. Sometimes, though, one sees more because a private tech startup looks to something like Kickstarter to win backing…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Local Government
Rand Paul on Chamber of Commerce Republicans
by JOHN ADAMS •
Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, often moves (sometimes quixotically) between libertarian and conventionally conservative, Republican positions. Still, there’s unquestionably some libertarian in him, and in his libertarianism he shares a dynamic philosophy (if not party label) with a huge number of other Americans (about 22%, or just under one-in-four people). Here’s what Paul, speaking…
Business, Science/Nature, Technology
WATCH LIVE @ 9 pm CT: SpaceX Unveils 1st Manned Dragon Spacecraft
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government
What’s an Entrepreneur?
by JOHN ADAMS •
I would think, and perhaps you would think, too, that an entrepreneur is a man or woman who runs a private business, bearing the risks and demands of his or her enterprise. For this reason, Americans are sympathetic to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial efforts – we admire the creativity and effort of business men and women…
Business, Film
“The Shawshank Residuals”
by JOHN ADAMS •
An enduring, deserved success: Bob Gunton is a character actor with 125 credits to his name, including several seasons of “24” and “Desperate Housewives” and a host of movie roles in films such as the Oscar-winning “Argo.” Vaguely familiar faces like his are common in the Los Angeles area where he lives, and nobody pays…
Business, Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Local Government
Because, you know, it’s government’s job to manipulate results among private businesses
by JOHN ADAMS •
The presumptions of a local government pol: This ordinance has been an attempt to require the food trucks to put some skin in the game,” [Fort Atkinson city councilmember] Lescohier said. “That skin is through a fee structure, through an appropriate place for them to operate and to control the noise. Right now if you…