Yesterday’s post addressed open government aspects of an unrecorded council meeting. See Public Records Request of 6.26.18 (Open Government). This post will consider a slide presentation from the unrecorded Whitewater Community Development Authority presentation of 6.19.18 on grocery store recruitment. Embedded immediately below is that slide presentation, and a link to the 5.19.16 Perkins supermarket…
Business
Business, CDA, Development, Government Spending, Local Government
Groceries & Co-ops
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater has more than one food-shopping option in town, but only Walmart is of significant size. Many residents would like something beyond what we now have here in Whitewater: a dedicated grocery or a co-op. Over these last few months, I’ve received emails from readers favoring one option, the other, both, or neither. (My thanks…
Business, Ethics, Politics
Why, Yes, It Was
by JOHN ADAMS •
Cecilia Kang reports AT&T Chief Says Hiring Michael Cohen Was a ‘Big Mistake’: WASHINGTON — Randall L. Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive, said on Friday that the company had made a “big mistake” by hiring President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, to advise on the telecommunications giant’s deal to buy Time Warner. “Our company has been…
Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Foxconn plant isn’t even built yet, but the Walker Admin and its allies (including a few local apologists for corporate welfare in Whitewater) now resort to fantastic, magical claims about how much economic development will come from nearly four billion in taxpayer subsidies. So magical, so fantastic, that they now claim an 18-1 multiplier…
Business, CDA, City, Development, Economy, Local Government, Poverty
A National Study on Big-City Economic Development
by JOHN ADAMS •
What’s the relationship, if any, between economic development and inclusion? A study from the Brookings Institution (Metro Monitor 2018) suggests that for large metropolitan areas, there may be one. (I’ll not try to fit these data into a local container. That’s why there’s no ‘The Scene from Whitewater Wisconsin’ logo attached to this post.) Here’s…
Business, Economy, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, State Capitalism, Trump
The Man Behind the Foxconn Project
by JOHN ADAMS •
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, 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 •
➤ 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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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…