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The Book on Janesville

Amy Goldstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Washington Post, is writing a book about Janesville after GM’s departure, entitled, Janesville: An American Story.  I’ve been awaiting the book, and recently (also happily) discovered publishing information about it, from PublishersMarketplace.com: Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporter Amy Goldstein’s JANESVILLE: An American Story, following three families as the GM…

Whitewater’s Independent Merchants: Supporting Small Bricks Over Bytes

A quick summary of my views on business would be to say that (1) private markets are typically superior to government regulation, subsidies, or game-rigging, (2) government should be impartial to different kinds of businesses, (3) government ‘business’ or ‘development’ efforts are often self-promoting efforts of officials, bureaucrats, and hangers-on who are parasitic of public…

Show Your Work

#172284535 / gettyimages.com We’re in a new round of big-project proposals for Whitewater. Here’s a suggestion, that this municipal administration would do well to follow, for any large-scale proposal: (1) Release any feasibility study, analysis, or performance contract on the city’s website a month (thirty calendar days) before Council consideration. (2) Hold a public hearing…

Why Not Build Another Los Angeles (by the Bridge to Nowhere)?

Typical Los Angeles Resident Los Angeles is America’s second-largest city, and is world-renowned for her diverse economy and global role in commerce, entertainment, and art.  All its people are reputed to be exceptionally beautiful, talented, and clever (at least by their own, uniform accounts). If Los Angeles should be so valuable – and it is…

Public Spending on Infrastructure

A simple rule about public spending on infrastructure, that some forget, and others would prefer remained that way: adding infrastructure is only beneficial if a resulting economic gain (should there be one) is greater than the cost of its acquisition (capital, labor, etc.). There is no way around this.  Just about everything one hears about…

Three Motivations for Local Government Intervention (and One That’s Sadly Missing)

In Whitewater, we’ve had any number of local projects, some involving millions, in a town of only thousands.   Broadly, one may assume three motivations for local intervention: (1) genuine if mistaken efforts at community betterment, (2) the vanity or economic interest of parties to a project, or (3) a desire to prevent demographic and…

About that iButtonLink Announcement…

An aspiring musician tells his friends that he performed to a standing-room-only crowd at Carnegie Hall. Needless to say, they’re impressed. “It’s great that your songs drew such attendance,” they observe.   “Why, yes,” the musician replies, “it must have been my music, although I suppose the free tickets and fifty-dollar gift packages might have…

What a Film About Janesville Really Says

Much has been said about Brad Lichtenstein’s As Goes Janesville, and it’s usually about how the film depicts Gov. Walker.     There’s much more to the film, though, and particularly interesting to me is how Janesville tries to entice a startup to locate in that city by offering millions in public incentives.  The startup, Shine, promises a new…