Over at the WEDC, the deputy secretary of that troubled agency has resigned: [Ryan] Murray’s departure comes three months after he was criticized in a resignation letter written by Lee Swindall, WEDC’s vice president of business and industry development, that was made public in September. Saying that Murray confused “rigid control with stability and sound…
Corporate Welfare
Corporate Welfare, Development, Local Government, Planning, Politics
Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
JANESVILLE—The city of Janesville is losing its second economic development staff member in as many months. Ryan Garcia, the city’s economic development coordinator announced his resignation effective Nov. 15, according to a city release Wednesday… Via (subscription req’d) Janesville economic development coordinator resigning @ Janesville Gazette. Perhaps the economy-meddling, big-government conservatives at the Gazette will…
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Press
Does the Gazette‘s Editorialist Think that Janesville’s Residents Can’t Count?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
All around, daily print newspapers are in decline. For most of them, there will be no more than several years of life left. By 2020, almost all of them will be gone. (See, along these lines, Clay Shirky’s Last Call: The end of the printed newspaper.) If a newspaper is at ideological odds with ordinary…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Uncategorized, WEDC
WEDC Claims Success by Writing Off Bad Loans
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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.…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Government Spending, Marketing, Press
In a City of Sixty-Thousand, Fifteen People Aren’t a Sign of Community Enthusiasm
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Nearby Janesville is considering a downtown revitalization, and at the most-recent meeting for the large & expensive proposal, only fifteen-people attended. The Gazette wrote about the plan with this headline: Last meeting for Janesville’s downtown plan doesn’t reflect ‘widespread championship’ (subscription req’d). Well, no, it doesn’t. (The online version of the Gazette had a more…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Wisconsin
The New (But Old) Zero-Sum Game
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Free Markets, WEDC
WEDC Afflicted with Internal Strife
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, WEDC
At WEDC-Sponsored Tech Festival, Local Company Announces a Move to Ohio
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…
Corporate Welfare, Politics, WEDC
WEDC Board Offers Millions to Subsidize Job Cuts
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The next time Chancellor Telfer, City Manager Clapper, and CDA Chairman Jeff Knight host Reed Hall of the WEDC in Whitewater, they might wish to ask him a few questions about use of public money, job creation, and community development: The board overseeing the state’s flagship job-creation agency has quietly approved a $6 million tax credit…
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Politics, WEDC
WEDC Update
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Anyone betting locally on the supposed prestige and success of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation has placed a bad bet. That corrupt and incompetent agency is in the news yet again for its failures and lies: WEDC award recipients outsourced Wisconsin jobs to foreign countries — WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports…
Corporate Welfare, Economy, Freedom of Speech, Local Government, New Media
Rock Netroots
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Local Government, Marketing, Politics
‘The Future Writes the History of the Present’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It’s an oft-repeated truism that the future writes the history of the present. That’s true in Whitewater as much as anywhere. It is a truth (like the most important truths) apart from both independent present-day commentary and contrasting, mendacious marketing and press-flacking. All the marketing in the world cannot shield against this simple question from…
Business, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Politics, University
Local Crony Capitalism via the WEDC (and similar schemes)
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Whitewater’s had a decades-long problem of a few town insiders manipulating government and public resources for their own private ends. That time is drawing to a close, but there are yet some years ahead in which aging, mediocre town figures will push their self-promoting lies. As their chief motivation is personal vanity and pride, they’ll…
Corporate Welfare
Crony Capitalism: Wrong, Erroneous, and Laughable
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Across America, from among left, small-government conservatives, and libertarians, a coalition now works to turn the tide against crony-capitalism and white-collar welfare. They will succeed, as America’s political tradition will reject the manipulation of the country’s political-economy for the selfish, rigged ends of well-fed men. Sometimes, these critiques against crony capitalism will be deservedly severe;…