Cato’s Policy Handbook for Policymakers, 8th Edition, is now available. Chapter 13 offers excellent immigration suggestions to move toward a freer labor market. It’s a reasoned approach in the place of dodgy data and nativist biases. What private individuals believe about these matters is their own concern; policymakers and officials should meet a higher standard,…
Economy
Charity, City, Culture, Development, Economy, Local Government
Gentrification Requires the Right Social Conditions
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve written that Whitewater faces a choice between decisive action now (to lessen government’s role) or years of stagnation and relative decline before eventual gentrification (at which point longtime residents will have almost no say in redevelopment). See, How Big Averts Bad. As I doubt Whitewater’s local political class has the will for near-term changes, the best…
Economy, Trump
Donald Trump and the Carrier Myth
by JOHN ADAMS •
During the 2016 election, the Carrier factory’s decision to move jobs from Indiana to Mexico was a story that stuck. Donald Trump won a political victory when he convinced the CEO of Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies, to keep 800 jobs in Indiana. Trump’s efforts run counter to a broader global trend, however. Most factory…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Economy, State Capitalism, Trump
What a Card! Jean Card’s Comedic Claim That Trump Will Rein in Crony Capitalism
by JOHN ADAMS •
Jean Card is a weekly blogger at U.S. News & World Report (yes, it’s still in publication), former speechwriter for the secretaries of Labor (2001-03) and Treasury (2004-06) in the Bush Administration, and owner of Jean Card Ink, where she is “a writer and communications consultant with a proven track record of translating public policy jargon and government-speak…
Economy, Federal Government, Free Markets, Liberty, State Capitalism
Who Runs the Economy?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Consider this Twitter exchange between liberty-oriented Republican Justin Amash and a Trump supporter, over the suitability of Trump’s cabinet appointments: The Trump supporter thinks that the credentials of a cabinet nominee justify the appointment; Rep. Amash rightly sees that credentials do not define the scope of legitimate state action.
Business, Economy, Employment, State Capitalism
Trump’s Carrier Deal (Update): Fewer Longterm Jobs
by JOHN ADAMS •
Sometimes, a state-cajoled, anti-market confidence game unravels quickly, revealing the fraud that it is. Trump’s Carrier deal is one of those occasions. Three days ago, the news was that Trump’s Carrier deal was worth hundreds fewer jobs than he’d proudly boasted. (See, Trump’s Carrier Deal: Fewer Saved Jobs With Each Passing Day: ““We found out today…
Economy, Employment
Trump’s Carrier Deal: Fewer Saved Jobs With Each Passing Day
by JOHN ADAMS •
Desperate but hopeful people wanted to keep their jobs with Carrier in Indiana. As it turns out, the promises of over a thousand jobs retained (albeit at a cost to other taxpayers) were exaggerated, whether by carelessness or manipulation: INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) – The Carrier deal, brokered by President-elect Donald Trump, may not have saved as…
Economy, Government Spending, Poverty
Ineffectual, Wasteful Infrastructure Ambitions
by JOHN ADAMS •
Randal O’Toole takes a look at a key part of the incoming administration’s economic policy, and sees the Trouble with Trump’s Infrastructure Ambitions. There are, simply expressed, four problems: Not all spending of this kind is equally valuable: “Many advocates of infrastructure spending assume that all infrastructure contributes equally to economic vitality, but this is far…
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Government Spending, Local Government
The Local Economic Context of It All
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over a generation, Whitewater’s big-ticket public spending (where big ticket means a million or more per project in a city of about fifteen-thousand) has come with two, often-contradictory justifications: (1) that residents needed to spend so much because Whitewater was the very center of things, or (2) that residents needed to spend so much to assure that…
America, City, Development, Economy, Free Markets
Small Towns in America Can Thrive
by JOHN ADAMS •
I posted recently about James Fallows’s Eleven Signs That a City Will Succeed. (See, from FW, James Fallows on ‘Eleven Signs a City Will Succeed’ (Part 1) and an assessment of those signs for Whitewater, James Fallows on ‘Eleven Signs a City Will Succeed’ (Part 2).) In the video below, James & Deborah Fallows talk…
City, Culture, Development, Economy
Culture, Economy, Fiscal
by JOHN ADAMS •
The approximate number of working age adults, from 25-64, in the City of Whitewater proper is 4,134. This working age population is nestled among a total, estimated population of 14,801. See, American Community Survey, 2010-2014, 5 year estimates http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/14_5YR/DP05/1600000US5586925. One can draw three broad but reasonable conclusions from these numbers. Culturally, local publications present a…
City, Development, Economy, Hip & Prosperous, Politics
The Middle Time, Part 2
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over two years ago, I described Whitewater as being in a ‘middle time,’ between former conditions and future ones: While Whitewater is in a time of transition, from one way of life to a more diverse and prosperous one, she is only at the ‘end of the beginning’ of that transition. It’s a middle time now, and…
Business, City, Development, Economy
Grocery Preliminaries (Part 3)
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve written a bit about the search for a grocery in Whitewater, but admittedly it has not been a principal topic for me. That’s not because I don’t think a grocery or co-op would be nice to have; it’s because I know it’s hard to sustain one. Retail grocers (independent ones most notably) operate under…
Business, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Open Government, University
Grocery Preliminaries (Part 2)
by JOHN ADAMS •
I wrote yesterday about a grocery in town, in a post entitled, Grocery Preliminaries. The post’s subject line used the word ‘preliminaries’ because it seems likely that Whitewater will get a new grocery, whatever one thinks of a public subsidy to entice one. In this way, that post presumed a deal, and so was meant…