One of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s many incompetent leaders, Ryan Murray, is leaving behind his controversial, failed role at the WEDC to become a lobbyist. Jobs agency official becomes lobbyist @ JS All Politics Blog reports on Murray’s shabby move: The No. 2 official at the state’s jobs agency has left the agency to…
Business
Agriculture, Business, Food, Law, Press
Gazette Thinks Janesvillians Are Too Stupid to Buy Milk of Their Own Choice
by JOHN ADAMS •
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…
Business
Overhauling an Airliner: Months of Work in a Two-Minute Video
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Uncategorized, WEDC
WEDC Claims Success by Writing Off Bad Loans
by JOHN ADAMS •
Wisconsin has had years of embarrassments from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, of economic manipulation, of picking supposed winners as though party hacks would know better than markets. It was a method bound to disappoint. These smarmy men at the WEDC have been trying to show progress on the millions of bad loans they’ve made.…
Business, Marketing, Politics
Roger Goodell could swing a gig in Wisconsin
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at Esquire, Ben Collins writes (accurately) about Roger Goodell as “a visual representation of everything wrong with corporate America squeezed into one empty suit made of blood and money.” See, Roger Goodell, World Class Client of Crisis Communications Experts, Still Needs to Resign.” Collins can be confident because he saw Goodell’s 9.19.14 news conference. …
Business
How to Pronounce 15 Difficult-to-Say Brand Names
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Wisconsin
The New (But Old) Zero-Sum Game
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at Rock Netroots, Lou Kaye makes this accurate observation about how most local communities’ officials understand development: For the most part, city leaders here [he’s referring to Janesville] and across Wisconsin not only believe that communities are in competition with one another, they vigorously support and fuel those concepts by carving out special slush…
Business, Humor
That barista at Starbucks is misspelling your name on purpose
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Free Markets, WEDC
WEDC Afflicted with Internal Strife
by JOHN ADAMS •
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…
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…