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Corporate Welfare

Business, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, State Capitalism, State Government

After Years of Promises, Foxconn Will Think of Something…by July

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Years of claims, promises, declarations, announcements (and private homes destroyed along the way), and yet Foxconn still needs a bit of time to think of something to make. Just give ‘em a sec, they come up with something by July: Liu said that the company will announce what it will make in Wisconsin before July.…

Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Speaker Vos, State Capitalism, Taxes/Taxation, Technology, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Highlight’s from The Verge’s Foxconn Assessment

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No failure better reveals the bankruptcy of corporate welfare in the Walker and Trump years than the Foxconn project in Wisconsin: exaggeration upon exaggeration, but nothing productive. This was a failure of judgment so obvious and significant that everyone involved should retire from policymaking. Walker Administration, Trump Administration, the WISGOP, the WEDC, down to Whitewater’s Community…

Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Speaker Vos, State Capitalism, State Government, Technology, WEDC, WISGOP

Accountability Comes Calling at Foxconn

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After years of grandiose – ludicrous, truly – claims about Foxconn from Trump to Vos to boosters in Whitewater, Accountability has made her way to Foxconn. If not Accountability personified, then at least Missy Hughes (the new, Evers-appointed leader) of a slightly-reformed WEDC. Josh Dzieza of the national publication The Verge reports Wisconsin denies Foxconn tax…

Bad Ideas, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, UW Madison

Foxconn & UW-Madison: Two Years and Less Than One Percent Later…

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Kelly Meyerhofer reports UW-Madison still waiting on Foxconn’s $100 million pledge 2 years later: Foxconn Technology Group gave no money to UW-Madison over the past year, renewing questions about the company’s commitment to its $100 million pledge to the university nearly two years ago. UW-Madison received $700,000 in the first of a five-year agreement — less than…

Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Mendacity, WEDC, Wisconsin

Foxconn’s ‘Innovation’ Centers: Still Empty a Year Later

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 Over at the national tech website The Verge, Nilay Patel reminds that a year later, Foxconn has still done nothing with the ‘innovation’ centers that foreign corporation promised it would open around the state. They’re still empty:    See FOXCONN’S BUILDINGS IN WISCONSIN ARE STILL EMPTY, ONE YEAR LATER. In Whitewater, the ‘Greater Whitewater’ Committee…

Babbittry, Boosterism, Coronavirus, Corporate Welfare, Disinformation, Economy, Mendacity, Newspapers, Opioids, Public Health

A Newspaper’s Boosterism During a Pandemic

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A worthy person – a man or woman committed to reason, honesty, and seriousness of purpose – would have little respect for the Janesville Gazette. This critical view is not a new one, truly: the paper’s work has been inferior during the Great Recession, during an opioid crisis, during cheerleading for countless state and local…

Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Planning, Poverty, WEDC

Declines, Recessions, and Rhetoric

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While yesterday was a bad day for the financial markets, it’s the underlying – and troubling – fundamental condition of the economy that matters far more. Places like Whitewater, that adopted business special interests’ “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” approach despite increasing poverty and stagnation in household and individual incomes, are especially vulnerable to a downturn. Market Declines. Steven…

Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Public Relations, WEDC

Do Yorkshire Terriers Dream of Being Wolves?

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Perhaps Yorkshire terriers dream each night of being ferocious wolves.  If that should be so, and if even tiny dogs imagine themselves as mighty predators, then there may be a natural explanation – in animals and people – for the yearning of smarmy local development men for gigantic corporate welfare schemes. Of those men and…

Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Press Release, WEDC

A Reminder About Opportunity Zones: Bad Policy Flacked Locally

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Those following what passes for economic policy in Whitewater know that this website has been rightly critical of the economic opportunity zones that were part of Trump’s tax bill. See About that Trump Tax Bill, More About that Trump Tax Bill, and The Trump Tax Bill: That’s Not Reform. Jenny Schuetz, commenting on part of Trump’s…

Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Development, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Trump, WEDC

‘But Not in Conditions of Their Own Choosing’

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It’s a truism to say that all people make history, but not in conditions of their own choosing: Admittedly and sadly, the local boosterism of the pre-Trump years is now in retrospect worse than one might have initially believed: across America boosters who peddled false descriptions & junk solutions during the economic hardship of the…

America, Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, City, Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Mendacity, Newspapers, State Capitalism

What the New Dealers Got Right – What Whitewater’s Local Notables Got Wrong

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There’s sound reason to doubt that the New Dealers’ economic solutions to the Great Depression were effective, but there’s no doubt that Roosevelt’s Brain Trust was hard-working, smart, and candid in its description of America’s economic problems. For a critical assessment of the New Deal, written accessibly, see The Forgotten Man: A New History of…

Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Comedy, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, WEDC, Wisconsin

Foxconn: ‘Innovation Centers’ Gone in a Puff of Smoke

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Trump insisted Foxconn in Wisconsin would be the eighth wonder of the world, and smarmy development men in places like Whitewater spoke about how much would come of the project, but in a puff of smoke that project’s ‘innovation centers’ are gone. Nick Statt reports Foxconn finally admits its empty Wisconsin ‘innovation centers’ aren’t being…