Conservative Jonathan V. Last, writing at The Bulwark, invites readers to Come Meet the Biggest Fool in America. In part of an email newsletter sent to subscribers today, Last rightly excoriates economist Richard Epstein for minimizing the risks from the coronavirus pandemic. Last writes (yes, a pun) that I mention all of this as a…
Economics
Coronavirus, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Public Health
Public Policy Responses to the Coronavirus: ‘You have to address the health side’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Economist Austan Goolsbee offers three scenes, in his words, for addressing the coronavirus pandemic. All three, in the order he presents them, are sound. Most economic schools of thought – and all sound ones across the continuum – would consider something like his suggestions in response to a pandemic. One obvious note – or at…
Babbittry, Boosterism, CDA, City, Development, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Poverty, School District, WEDC, Wisconsin
Local Public Policy as if Charitable Assistance
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s policymakers, and those of other small, rural cities, should – in these times of economic stagnation, a lingering opioid crisis, failed business welfare, and an approaching recession – view their principal obligation as if it were charitable outreach. (It’s not charity, of course, but that’s how policymakers should view it: as both palliative and…
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Conflicts of Interest, Development, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Special Interests, WEDC
Miscellany on Development Policy in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a significant difference between local, political calls for urgency and genuine need. Recent discussions about development policy in Whitewater only bolster this view. A few remarks (as I’ve been asked more than once what I think of the last two months’ events) — Independence. The best decision one could make when writing about policy…
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
by JOHN ADAMS •
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…
Agriculture, Economics, Economy, Federal Government, Trump
Brain Drain Plagues Key USDA Research Service After Trump Administration Orders Relocation
by JOHN ADAMS •
When the Trump administration relocated the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service to the Kansas City area last year, about two-thirds of its employees quit their jobs rather than move. Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, called the mass resignations a “wonderful way to streamline the government.” These departures have…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Development, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Trump, WEDC
‘But Not in Conditions of Their Own Choosing’
by JOHN ADAMS •
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…
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Politics, WEDC
Market-Hating Republicans Have Been a Local Problem for Years
by JOHN ADAMS •
George Will, writing in the Washington Post, observes that Josh Hawley sounds like he has far too much faith in government: The sails of [Republican] Sen. Josh Hawley’s political skiff are filled with winds gusting from the right. They come from conservatives who think that an array of — perhaps most of — America’s social injuries,…
America, Bad Ideas, CDA, Economics, Economy, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Local Government, State Government, WEDC, Wisconsin
But, but, but…we were promised growth, growth, growth!
by JOHN ADAMS •
Locally, statewide, and nationally, Trump & those who flacked his tax bill, and those who also pushed corporate welfare schemes (Foxconn, WEDC, Whitewater CDA), promised growth, growth, growth! How odd that these men — politicians, movers-and-shakers, developers, landlords, and public relations types — seem to have missed the mark: The World Bank sees U.S. growth stumbling from…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, WEDC
Journal Sentinel’s Rick Romell Reports the Obvious about Foxconn Project
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Journal Sentinel, business reporter Rick Romell reports that More signs emerge that the pace of Foxconn’s Wisconsin project is falling short of expectations. Honest to goodness – there have been years of reports, and years of analyses, that made clear to any reasonable person that this project was destined for failure. Anyone and…
CDA, Economics, Foxconn, Government Spending, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn Notices the Noticeable
by JOHN ADAMS •
Two recent stories about Foxconn show how that project is, as Willy Shih of Harvard Business School aptly observed, only a state visit project (‘a high-profile way to earn some serious good will and political capital. But as Foxconn worked through the details, I suspect they were having trouble figuring out how to make economic…
CDA, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: State of Wisconsin Demands Accountability, Foreign Corporation Stalls
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a significant new development in the Foxconn project: the state has told the Taiwanese corporation it’s presently no longer eligible for tax credits. Over at The Verge, a national technology publication, there’s an excellent, detailed story about Foxconn’s serial excuses to receive the public money or credits it wants regardless of performance. In an…
CDA, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: Worse Than Nothing
by JOHN ADAMS •
Below are the abstract and full study from George Mason University on The Economics of a Targeted Economic Development Subsidy (examining the Foxconn deal in Wisconsin). There’s much to consider in this work, for the Foxconn project, and by reasonable extension to other government-targeted business subsidies. Abstract: In an effort to spur economic growth and…
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
by JOHN ADAMS •
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…