Over at the Gazette, there’s a story that, ever so tentatively, lets readers know that the public-money-sucking SHINE project (to produce the molybdenum-99 isotope for nuclear medicine) isn’t faring so well in the marketplace. SHINE is, after all, the centerpiece of big-government conservatism in Rock County, having received millions in public money to fund a…
Corporate Welfare
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, State Government, WEDC
12 Points on the WEDC’s $500,000 Loan for Campaign Contributor’s Failing (and Lying) Company
by JOHN ADAMS •
Seemingly, all Wisconsin is discussing a $500,000 Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation loan to a failing company of a Walker political contributor. Here’s a summary of what’s known so far. 1. The loan was to Building Committee Inc. (BCI), a business owned by William Minahan, a Walker political contributor (and Minahan made contributions to other campaigns,…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Gluttony, Government Spending, Marketing, WEDC
WEDC Slowly Crumbles
by JOHN ADAMS •
WEDC ‘CEO’ Reed Hall Looks Downcast. You Would, Too, If You’d Disgraced All Wisconsin Yet Again. AP Photo. On a Friday afternoon, there’s breaking news across Wisconsin. Having rejected free markets in capital, labor, and goods for cronyism and ineffectual manipulation of the economy, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation now slowly crumbles: Scott Walker calls…
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Misconduct, WEDC
Reed Hall’s Inauspicious Choices
by JOHN ADAMS •
Reed Hall, who ‘boldly,’ ‘innovatively’ uses the private title of CEO for an organization that runs on public money, has written two defenses to his agency’s latest audit fiasco. The first of those appears as a few platitudinous paragraphs online (‘WEDC takes bold, innovative approach to economic development,’ subscription req’d, and the second as a…
CDA, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, University, WEDC
Another WEDC Audit Failure
by JOHN ADAMS •
Appearing below, you’ll see a full, 116-page audit of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. It shows the WEDC’s gross negligence; it’s the second to show the WEDC’s many failures (including deficiencies persisting from audit to audit). (For a link to the prior audit, see WEDC Claims Success by Writing Off Bad Loans.) For each and…
City, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Free Markets, Government Spending, Local Government, Marketing, Poverty, University, WEDC, Wisconsin
Wisconsin on Pace for Most Layoff Notifications Since WEDC Created
by JOHN ADAMS •
WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports Now I thought, as it’s what I have heard again, again, and again, that the WEDC was the Laser-Focused Semi-Private Job Creator of Wisconsin™. How odd, then, to read that since the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s inception, Wisconsin is on pace for more job layoffs than…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, WEDC
WEDC Develops Its Own Foreign Aid Program
by JOHN ADAMS •
One reads that a big-business recipient of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s taxpayer-funded largesse is moving a plant and jobs…to Mexico: WATERTOWN (WKOW) — A global power systems management corporation that has received nearly $370,000 in tax incentives from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) since 2012 is shipping jobs from Wisconsin to Mexico for…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Gluttony, Government Spending, WEDC
The Failed WEDC’s Revolving Door
by JOHN ADAMS •
View image | gettyimages.com People are attracted to good opportunities, and repulsed by bad ones. At the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, there’s no better sign of a failed organization than that the agency has become a building that needs a revolving door: Since WEDC’s creation in July 2011 by Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers as…
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Open Government, Planning, Waste Digesters, WGTB
The City of Whitewater Digester Clarification That Could Use a Clarification
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a paragraph from Whitewater’s City Manager Update for 3.20.15 that proposes a clarification about the digester project proposed as part of an overall, $20.7 million-dollar upgrade to the city’s wastewater treatment facilities. First, the city’s clarification (my emphasis added): Wastewater Treatment Facility Upgrade Clarification When an issue as complex and technically detailed as the…
Corporate Welfare, Education, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Labor, Liberty, Local Government, School District, University, WEDC, Wisconsin
Education: Substance & Spending
by JOHN ADAMS •
Following comments to yesterday’s post on proposed cuts to the UW System schools (Caution arrives late, doesn’t recognize its surroundings), here are nine quick comments about education. 1. Act 10 as a budgetary tool. This centrally-planned idea didn’t work. Reductions in public-union bargaining powers in exchange for the ‘tools’ to balance school and other public…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, State Government
WEDC: Those Who Can’t Do, Lobby
by JOHN ADAMS •
One of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s many incompetent leaders, Ryan Murray, is leaving behind his controversial, failed role at the WEDC to become a lobbyist. Jobs agency official becomes lobbyist @ JS All Politics Blog reports on Murray’s shabby move: The No. 2 official at the state’s jobs agency has left the agency to…
Corporate Welfare, WEDC
WEDC’s Revolving Door to Take Current Leader Back to the Curb
by JOHN ADAMS •
An enterprise of selfish, striving executives, advancing their white-collar ambitions and of those of their friends, looks as though it’s about to lose yet another leader: Madison — The head of the state’s flagship jobs agency is expected to leave his post as the governor moves into a second term, a move that would generate…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Government Spending, WEDC
Clap Your Hands, It’s Galactic Marmoset Week
by JOHN ADAMS •
So one reads that a few of Whitewater’s town fathers, toadying to the WEDC’s public-relations machine, are crowing that the Innovation Center is part of GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP WEEK. Global? That’s not so much. One can easily show these striving WEDC public-relations men how to take something small and make it look really big. Behold, I…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Government Spending, WEDC
Another Holiday on the Calendar
by JOHN ADAMS •
Oh dearie me, having been thinking these months about Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, somehow GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP WEEK slipped my mind. How, truly, could one forget a week-long celebration of white-collar tech startups? Perhaps a lifetime of celebrating both religious and national holidays, and the actual accomplishments of ordinary people who have overcome harrowing obstacles, has…