Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 70. Sunrise is 7:15 AM and sunset 6:03 PM for 10h 47m 42s of daytime. The moon is full with 100% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1803, the United States Senate ratifies (24-7) the Louisiana Purchase. Free markets include markets…
Labor
Business, Coronavirus, Employment, Free Markets, Labor, Private Property, Vaccines
No Shirt, No Shoes? No Service
by JOHN ADAMS • • 4 Comments
The conservative populists talk endlessly about the dangers of socialism (however poorly they grasp the term), but truthfully they’re happy with government mandates or prohibitions that advance their own preferences. Some private employers want to require masks, and others want to require vaccinations, but these right-wing interventionists now screech that private businesses should not be…
Business, Economy, Free Markets, Labor, Lobbyists
Businesses, Workers, Goods, and Services
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at Dan Shafer’s Recombobulation Area, guest columnist Shawn Phetteplace reminds us that WMC Doesn’t Speak for All Businesses. Phetteplace, the state manager for the Main Street Alliance, writes that When former Gov. Scott Walker declared Wisconsin “Open for Business,” what he meant was it was open for deregulation, tax cuts, and special deals to…
Labor, Music
Monday Music: Louis Armstrong, Red Cap
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, Economics, Economy, Education, Labor, Newspapers
A Telling Comparison
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…
America, Authoritarianism, Labor, Liberty, Politics, Right-wing Populism, Trump
In a Principled Opposition, the Basis for a Grand Coalition
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Writing at The Week, Jeff Spross nicely summarizes Why Trump’s Cabinet poses a unique threat to the working class. Spross both explains Trump perceptively & succinctly, and in the same post implicitly holds out the prospect of a grand coalition (principled liberals, conservatives, and libertarians) to oppose him. (For an explicit call for broad opposition, from…
America, Free Markets, Immigration, Labor
Immigration in America Is Not Broken
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Immigration has proven to be one of the most divisive issues in the 2016 presidential race. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have expressed that the system is broken, but a consensus on any solution seems untenable. In this video, Atlantic national correspondent James Fallows and contributing writer Deborah Fallows ventured across the country to…
Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Immigration, Labor, Restaurant
Film: From Dishwasher to Award-Winning Restaurateur
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I suppose that if I wanted to curry favor with others, I’d talk about the need for immigration restrictions, or at the least I’d avoid taking a contrary view (a restrictive position being so popular these days). That would seem to me a timid way to face the world, unfit for robust Americans. One should…
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 • • Comments
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…