Embed from Getty Images You may have read, recently, of a public official who came to Whitewater to talk about the Foxconn project. Why settle for the tired claims of a mid-level state-government operative when one can hear about Foxconn from the one man behind the entire project? Matthew DeFour reports on the real force…
Business
Business, Development, Economy, Employment, Environment, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way, Water, WEDC, Wisconsin
10 Key Articles About Foxconn
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
➤ Foxconned (“How much is Wisconsin paying for a Taiwanese manufacturer’s jobs?”): Already, it is hazy just how much of a boost to the local economy Foxconn is expected to make. The company said it planned to hire 3,000 workers over four years, whereas the state said the new facility would create 13,000 jobs with an average…
Business, City, Culture, Economy
The Market
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s an editorial at Royal Purple that contends a future Grocery store should accommodate students. The editorial makes sound points for pricing outreach to students, but my focus here isn’t merely a supermarket or co-op, but the general economic market of Whitewater and nearby, smaller towns (some of which are part of the local school…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Janesville
SHINE Fades (Updated May 2017)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Two years ago, I wrote about the troubles that Janesville’s publicly-subsidized SHINE project (to produce the molybdenum-99 isotope for nuclear medicine) was having in marketplace. See, SHINE Fades. Amy Goldstein also devotes a chapter to SHINE in her recent book, Janesville: An American Story. (I wrote about that chapter of her book, among others, in…
Business, Free Markets
Canadian Milk Producers Seek Regulatory Help to Defeat American Competition
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The video below, from the Journal Sentinel, describes how Canadian dairy farmers, unable to compete in the market with Wisconsin & New York dairies, have sought regulatory help from the Canadian government because they cannot manage the volume of American milk production. (Rather than concede their own competitive inferiority, they’ve predictably blamed American dairies for producing…
Business, Drink, Immigration
Budweiser’s Fine Commercial
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Business, Corporate Welfare, Economy, State Capitalism, Trump
What a Card! Jean Card’s Comedic Claim That Trump Will Rein in Crony Capitalism
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Jean Card is a weekly blogger at U.S. News & World Report (yes, it’s still in publication), former speechwriter for the secretaries of Labor (2001-03) and Treasury (2004-06) in the Bush Administration, and owner of Jean Card Ink, where she is “a writer and communications consultant with a proven track record of translating public policy jargon and government-speak…
Business, Economy, Employment, State Capitalism
Trump’s Carrier Deal (Update): Fewer Longterm Jobs
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Sometimes, a state-cajoled, anti-market confidence game unravels quickly, revealing the fraud that it is. Trump’s Carrier deal is one of those occasions. Three days ago, the news was that Trump’s Carrier deal was worth hundreds fewer jobs than he’d proudly boasted. (See, Trump’s Carrier Deal: Fewer Saved Jobs With Each Passing Day: ““We found out today…
Business, Free Markets, Technology
Jobs on Product Offerings and Markets
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Business, City, Development, Economy
Grocery Preliminaries (Part 3)
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
I’ve written a bit about the search for a grocery in Whitewater, but admittedly it has not been a principal topic for me. That’s not because I don’t think a grocery or co-op would be nice to have; it’s because I know it’s hard to sustain one. Retail grocers (independent ones most notably) operate under…
Business, City, Development, Press Release
City Press Release on Grocery Store Recruitment, 7.21.16
by JOHN ADAMS • • 9 Comments
Update: the press release was changed during the day from its original wording, as indicated below. Posted immediately below is the full and unaltered text of a City of Whitewater press release on recruitment of a grocery store. Needless to say, I don’t represent the city, but it’s fair to pass along the complete municipal…
Business, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Open Government, University
Grocery Preliminaries (Part 2)
by JOHN ADAMS • • 3 Comments
I wrote yesterday about a grocery in town, in a post entitled, Grocery Preliminaries. The post’s subject line used the word ‘preliminaries’ because it seems likely that Whitewater will get a new grocery, whatever one thinks of a public subsidy to entice one. In this way, that post presumed a deal, and so was meant…
Business, Government Spending
Grocery Preliminaries
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
I’ve written about the possibility of a government-subsidized grocery before, but only from an open-government perspective concerning Council’s last meeting in joint session with the Community Development Authority. There have been a few press accounts of previous public meetings about a grocery, but not one of the accounts shows the challenges involved in maintaining a subsidized…
Art, Business
The Art Market (in Four Parts): Art Fairs
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The Art Market (in Four Parts): Art Fairs from Artsy on Vimeo. In 2015, art fairs generated an estimated $12.7 billion in profits for exhibiting galleries. But why do collectors attend fairs in droves? And what’s behind their rapid international proliferation? The fourth installment of “The Art Market (in Four Parts)” tracks how the art…