Embed from Getty Images You may have read, recently, of a public official who came to Whitewater to talk about the Foxconn project. Why settle for the tired claims of a mid-level state-government operative when one can hear about Foxconn from the one man behind the entire project? Matthew DeFour reports on the real force…
Economy
Business, Development, Economy, Employment, Environment, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way, Water, WEDC, Wisconsin
10 Key Articles About Foxconn
by JOHN ADAMS •
➤ Foxconned (“How much is Wisconsin paying for a Taiwanese manufacturer’s jobs?”): Already, it is hazy just how much of a boost to the local economy Foxconn is expected to make. The company said it planned to hire 3,000 workers over four years, whereas the state said the new facility would create 13,000 jobs with an average…
City, Culture, Demographics, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Good Ideas, Local Government, Planning, Politics, Poverty
Dane, Not the WOW Counties
by JOHN ADAMS •
For many years, Republicans have railed against Madison, and against Dane County, as bastions of dysfunctional liberalism. Indeed, this impulse has been strong even after the GOP gained control of both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office. Funny, though, that it’s Dane County – not the WOW counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, or Washington – that’s…
Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Infrastructure, Laws/Regulations, Local Government
Foxconn Deal Even Worse Than Most State Capitalism
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jason Stein reports Foxconn package cost Wisconsin eight times as much per job as similar 2017 state jobs deals: To land the massive Foxconn factory, Gov. Scott Walker has committed the state to paying more than eight times as much per job as Wisconsin will provide under similar job creation deals struck…
City, Development, Economy, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Planning
What a Print Advertiser Means (and Doesn’t Mean)
by JOHN ADAMS •
So, if one lives in Whitewater, he or she may find a shopper-advertiser in the mailbox, with ads from (mostly) out-of-city advertisers. Even if one omits the publisher’s own ads, and public service announcements, the ratio of out-of-city to Whitewater ads is something like 3 to 1. Indeed, the largest ad, on the front page,…
Babbittry, Development, Economy, Local Government, Newspapers, Poverty
Care at the Point of Injury
by JOHN ADAMS •
A post from early December – ‘Don’t worry about them – the rest of us feel great!’ – outlined the problem of boosterism & babbittry: it urges people to look away from real injuries and to gaze instead on delightful distractions. First the problem summarized, then the better, ethical response – The problem: A doctor…
Babbittry, Culture, Development, Economy, Janesville, Local Government, Newspapers, Poverty, Press
‘Don’t worry about them – the rest of us feel great!‘
by JOHN ADAMS •
A doctor walks into a town of one-hundred people, and finds that half of them are pale, feverish, and vomiting blood. The physician calls out to a community leader, “Send for help, you have an epidemic on your hands.” The community leader replies, “Oh no, don’t worry about them – the rest of us feel…
Babbittry, City, Demographics, Economy, Poverty
Contrast
by JOHN ADAMS •
Consider the contrast between how the Janesville Gazette‘s publisher want his city to be seen, and how an economics reporter describes the Janesville area: Janesville Gazette editorial, A question for Janesville to consider: [James] Fallows and his wife learned the differences between success and failure during a 54,000-mile journey across the United States in a single-engine…
City, Economy, Politics
The Winnowing Transition
by JOHN ADAMS •
Today’s a good day to post about the transition through which Whitewater is now going. It’s a winnowing transition, in which many political and economic positions formerly popular are slowly being swept away. (There are, in fact, few leading public officials even from a decade ago still around. Those who are operate in conditions of…
Business, City, Culture, Economy
The Market
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s an editorial at Royal Purple that contends a future Grocery store should accommodate students. The editorial makes sound points for pricing outreach to students, but my focus here isn’t merely a supermarket or co-op, but the general economic market of Whitewater and nearby, smaller towns (some of which are part of the local school…
America, Economics, Economy, Education, Labor, Newspapers
A Telling Comparison
by JOHN ADAMS •
People in small towns, nearly everywhere in this country, have access to national programming & news on television and online. As easily as one could subscribe online to something like the Janesville Gazette, one could subscribe to the Chicago Tribune or Washington Post. Imagine, then, a choice between editorials in the Gazette and the Post…
City, Economy, Local Government, University
How a Campus Masks Local Mistakes
by JOHN ADAMS •
Many small towns, looking for something to attract visitors and newcomers, probably dream about the possibility of a college campus. Whitewater has a public university campus, and the majority of the city’s residents are students at that school. Thousands of students in the city assure a steady stream of retail traffic we would not otherwise…
City, Economics, Economy, Education, Immigration, Trump
Anti-Immigration Measures, Wrong Yet Again
by JOHN ADAMS •
Embed from Getty Images An anti-immigration position is for economics something like a flat-earth position would be for natural science: one may hold it only through either ignorance or disorder. (The ignorance would have to be profound, as even the weakest grasp of economics would incline a rational person to acknowledge the benefits of a…
City, Culture, Economy
Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 11: ‘Fiestas and Apple Orchards’)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This is the eleventh post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. In the Wall Street Journal, Pennsylvanian Crispin Sartwell writes of Fiestas and Apple Orchards: Small-Town Life Before Trump (“My corner of Pennsylvania was thriving again—until immigration agents began carting people away”): I live in York Springs,…