It’s about as hard as ever to be a small famer in America. Some difficulties are simply a consequence of competition, by which both farmers (compelled to be more innovative) and consumers (getting better goods at lower prices) benefit. Yet, when government, itself, becomes a burden and hardship for small famers, we have tolerated what…
Business
Business, Laws/Regulations, Poverty
How Occupational Licensing Disproportionately Harms the Poor
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, New Media
Update on Friday Poll: Is Facebook a Fad?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Last Friday’s poll asked whether Facebook seemed a fad. Most respondents said no, but almost as many said that it was, or that they weren’t sure. Commenters were, I’d say, skeptical of the company. Well, fad or not, all the world’s talking about the problems FB’s stock is having. (I didn’t think it was a…
Business, City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending
The Generac Bus and Bottom-Shelf Messaging
by JOHN ADAMS •
More on a bad deal for taxpayers, but a bargain at their expense for one big corporation. I posted recently on addled messaging about the Generac bus from a weekly report of Whitewater’s city manager dated 5.11.12. Last Friday, 5.18.12, there was another announcement about the bus. That new announcement is really an admission of…
Business, City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Taxes/Taxation
A little consistency would be in order
by JOHN ADAMS •
Around two years ago, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue changed the method by which municipalities valued private properties. The state concluded — correctly — that municipalities were often over-valuing and thus over-taxing private properties. For businesses, a correct, lower assessment meant less in taxes; for municipalities, an over-valuation was useful to extract as much in…
Business, City, Corporate Welfare
A Local Flavor of Crony Capitalism
by JOHN ADAMS •
Multi-city Generac, a large industrial concern, wants government money — federal, state, local — for a bus line to bring workers from the Janesville-Beloit area to its plant in Whitewater. The bus line’s really good for no one but Generac’s employees. The times for the proposed line are tailored not to community needs, but to…
Business, Charity, City
Whitewater Farm Donates 151,000 Eggs to Needy
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, City, Development, Government Spending
Meet the New Public-Loan Applicant, Same as the Old Public-Loan Applicant
by JOHN ADAMS •
From Whitewater’s city manager and acting Community Development Association director comes word of a second public loan for DR Plastics. To follow the agendas, proceedings, and minutes of the CDA was to see this a mile away — CDA Approves Business Development Loan to DR Plastics The Community Development Authority (CDA) this week approved a…
Business, City, Economy
How to Make Whitewater Hip and Prosperous (Part 2)
by JOHN ADAMS •
A sketch-post from an ongoing series – I posted Part 1 previously on January 27th.. Emphasize the city’s natural beauty. If one’s interested in drawing tourism or affluent newcomers (and we should be), show them them what we have that bigger cities lack – a fine landscape, with much to do in it. We’re doing…
Business, City, Free Markets, Planning
Whitewater’s Overpowering Fear of a … Family-style Restaurant with a Liquor License
by JOHN ADAMS •
Update: 2.16.12 – video recording of session embedded below. Whitewater’s taken more than one bad turn in recent years — sadly, it took another one Monday night. Introduction. Following a unanimous January denial of a conditional use permit to operate a sports bar on the main business district in Whitewater, the city’s Planning Commission this…
Business, City
‘Why Best Buy is Going out of Business…Gradually’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Larry Downes has a fine — very fine — critique of Best Buy’s many problems online at Forbes. Five solid, well-written and well-reasoned pages in which he takes apart the practices and supposed strategy of a mediocre retailer. As a business critique, it’s top-notch. Yet, Downes’s critique is even more useful: think ‘local government’ instead…
America, Business
Chrysler’s Clint Eastwood Commercial, It’s Halftime, America
by JOHN ADAMS •
I held this commercial from the preceding post of my other favorites, because it’s both longer and different: its political themes separate it from a conventional commercial, even a conventional Super Bowl commercial (if there should be such a thing). There’s an optimism in this commercial that is, I think, justified: despite the most difficult…