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
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…
Business, Free Markets, Technology
Jobs on Product Offerings and Markets
by JOHN ADAMS •
Business, City, Development, Economy
Grocery Preliminaries (Part 3)
by JOHN ADAMS •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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…
Art, Business, Culture
The Art Market (in Four Parts): Patrons
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Art Market (in Four Parts): Patrons from Artsy on Vimeo. What motivates patrons to fund artists’ wildest dreams? How has the concept of art patronage changed over time? And what’s behind the dramatic rise of private art museums? In the third installment of “The Art Market (in Four Parts),” we explore how and why…
Art, Business
The Art Market (in Four Parts): Galleries
by JOHN ADAMS •
What does an art gallery do for an artist? What fuels the global expansion of galleries like Gagosian and White Cube? And how has the internet affected the way galleries do business? In the second installment of “The Art Market Series (in Four Parts),” we look at the complex ecosystem of commercial galleries to probe…
Business, City, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Government Spending, Politics
The Growth That Uplifts
by JOHN ADAMS •
In a recent interview, Ana Revenga, senior director of the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Group, talks about ending extreme poverty. See, Ending Extreme Poverty: World Bank Economist Ana Revenga @ The Christian Century. (The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than $1.90 per person per day, and the article describes how…