After years of defending the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, one newspaper (out of several in the area) finally concedes the obvious: ‘WEDC has been a disaster from the get-go.’ See, from 11.28.15, http://www.gazettextra.com/20151128/our_views_consider_two_steps_for_salvaging_state8217s_job_creation_agency, subscription req’d. Yes, it has been a disaster, as politicized intervention in the economy, to the benefit of one’s well-fed, white-collar executive…
Innovation Center/Tech Park
CDA, Development, Economy, Gluttony, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Newspapers, Poverty, Press
Theranos as a Cautionary Tale
by JOHN ADAMS •
Theranos is a much-hyped biomedical start-up that’s fallen in valuation and reputation (not always the same thing) following published doubts (e.g., @ Wall Street Journal, Fortune) about its supposedly revolutionary technology. Here’s the meaning of this story for Whitewater: Theranos had the participation (and attention) of some of the most gifted men and women in America,…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Gluttony, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Politics, WEDC, Wisconsin
The State’s WEDC and Whitewater’s Facsimiles
by JOHN ADAMS •
Ongoing revelations about the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation are a double concern: they’re stories of statewide malfeasance, and those revelations beg the question of how local officials in Whitewater are managing their own pools of public money. First, the latest stories (it’s a steady stream) of state-level error, waste, and negligence: Madison— Failing to run…
Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Free Markets, Gluttony, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park
Conservatives Against WEDC
by JOHN ADAMS •
Only a generation ago (not long, really), most conservatives would have rejected something like the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s ineffectual, wasteful attempts to manipulate the economy for the benefit of a few insiders’ friends. Today, communities across our state are beset with any number of unctuous men hawking a kind of big-government conservatism, with false…
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…
City, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government
At Council Tonight…
by JOHN ADAMS •
At Common Council tonight, there’ll be, among other items, ongoing consideration of the proposed 2015 budget, and a presentation from Chancellor Telfer on the Tech Park. Both items offer curiosities. As in past years, City Manager Clapper will stand back from the discussion of the bus, but happily accept any money Council offers for it.…
Business, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park
Innovation Center Offers a Seminar on How to Go Out of Business
by JOHN ADAMS •
Nutty, but true: the Innovation Center – the Disappointment that Keeps on Disappointing™ – is apparently offering a program entitled, “What you Will Need to Know When You are Ready (or Not) to Sell Your Business.” It’s part of – wait for it – the Center’s ‘Elements of Success‘ series. Honest to goodness, for all…
Business, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Politics, University
Local Crony Capitalism via the WEDC (and similar schemes)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s had a decades-long problem of a few town insiders manipulating government and public resources for their own private ends. That time is drawing to a close, but there are yet some years ahead in which aging, mediocre town figures will push their self-promoting lies. As their chief motivation is personal vanity and pride, they’ll…
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government
Would They Run On It?
by JOHN ADAMS •
When local government’s politicians and bureaucrats propose big projects, they should ask themselves: would we run on it? That is, would they run on a standalone vote for (or against) their proposal? The open secret of local politics is that I’d guess many – if not most – of the big projects proposed would fail…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government
What’s an Entrepreneur?
by JOHN ADAMS •
I would think, and perhaps you would think, too, that an entrepreneur is a man or woman who runs a private business, bearing the risks and demands of his or her enterprise. For this reason, Americans are sympathetic to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial efforts – we admire the creativity and effort of business men and women…
Corporate Welfare, Gluttony, Innovation Center/Tech Park
Innovation as a Fad
by JOHN ADAMS •
Innovation is both a genuine development and a fad. In a free society, with unrestricted flows of information, capital, labor, and goods, it’s nearly inevitable that people will improve products and services in powerful, clever ways. Innovation – the word, the idea, etc. – is also a contemporary fad, the jargon of our…
Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government
If someone thinks that the Innovation Center is one of a ‘few good things’…
by JOHN ADAMS •
…then he probably thinks that Chicken McNuggets are one of a few gourmet meals. Background on the remark may be found online.
CDA, City, Development, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government
About that iButtonLink Announcement…
by JOHN ADAMS •
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…
Business, CDA, City, CRT, Development, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Planning
Yet Another Exercise in Standards Beneath Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
It should be a universal truth that Whitewater and Wisconsin deserve a far higher standard of diligence and review than whatever our CDA chairman believes his “gut” tells him would be good for our city and nearby area. In fact, that kind of intestinally-based level of judgment has failed this city time and again, and…