AJ Vicens reports As the Coronavirus Hit, Jared Kushner’s Company Told Renters to Take Action to Pay “ASAP”: On Thursday, March 19, Westminster Management—which is owned by the Kushner Companies and boasts of holdingmore than 20,000 apartments across six states—sent residents in at least one property a notice about rent collection—but it wasn’t about giving them…
Poverty
Coronavirus, Meals, Poverty, Public Health, School District
Assistance Takes Time
by JOHN ADAMS •
So one hears that an effort toward assistance for children’s breakfast & lunch meals received a lower initial response than some expected. Perhaps, but responses take time – especially in a community where large numbers of children live in poor families that almost certainly do not have conventional broadband access. Initial responses are not indicative…
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, Boosterism, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Planning, Poverty, WEDC
Declines, Recessions, and Rhetoric
by JOHN ADAMS •
While yesterday was a bad day for the financial markets, it’s the underlying – and troubling – fundamental condition of the economy that matters far more. Places like Whitewater, that adopted business special interests’ “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” approach despite increasing poverty and stagnation in household and individual incomes, are especially vulnerable to a downturn. Market Declines. Steven…
Business, Economy, Poverty, Technology
Cashierless (and so Cashless)
by JOHN ADAMS •
One reads that Amazon has opened its first cashless, full-size grocery store in Seattle. See Amazon is opening its first full-size, cashierless grocery store. Here’s a first look inside. A few remarks: This is a technological achievement, and other companies are working along similar lines. No cashier means, definitionally, no cash transactions. That’s convenient for…
CDA, City, Development, Economy, Local Government, Poverty, Taxes/Taxation
Trump Tax Bill is the Predictable Failure Sensible People Warned It Would Be
by JOHN ADAMS •
In Whitewater, there’s a business lobby that amounts to a right-wing landlord or two, the dogsbodies who follow three paces behind, and the municipal officials who have been, variously, beguiled or browbeaten into asserting that government-directed capital spending means general prosperity. It doesn’t; it’s the great myth of municipal policy. A building here, a building…
CDA, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty
Common Council, 8.20.19: Fiscal & Economic
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yesterday, I posted about part of a Whitewater Common Council meeting that addressed a traffic signal at a dangerous intersection. See Common Council, 8.20.19: Misperception. There was another topic at that meeting: the annual audit of the city’s fiscal condition (link below). In another place and time, the fiscal condition of government might be decisive…
City, Culture, Economy, Education, Health, Poverty, School District
School Board, 7.22.19: One Worthy Question
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s school board met in regular session on Monday night, with an agenda of 16 items, of varying importance. In a two-hour, open-session discussion of over a dozen items, with topics great and small (and at least one board member as interested in wheedling or badgering himself into future meetings as any deeper question), there…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Employment, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Three Fundamental Failures: Employment, Income, and Poverty
by JOHN ADAMS •
An earlier post addressed Walker’s Fundamental Failure to meet his jobs pledge even after eight years. The record is much worse: years of corporate subsidies and meddling in the marketplace for preferred businesses & political cronies have produced failures of employment, income, and poverty. (Small town officials who copied this approach on the local level, as…
Business, CDA, Economics, Economy, Poverty
Gas Stations, Fast Food, and What the Market Will Bear
by JOHN ADAMS •
People drive cars, and most cars take gasoline; many people like to get food quickly, and so fast food restaurants meet that desire. There’s nothing wrong with having gas stations or burger joints in a town. One reads today that Whitewater will sell some city-owned land near a roundabout to a gas station chain, Kwik…
Agriculture, Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way, Trade, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
‘Stung by Trump’s Trade Wars, Wisconsin’s Milk Farmers Face Extinction’
by JOHN ADAMS •
After years of the ignorant scheming of tax incremental financing, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, capital catalyst grants, the Trump tax bill, and now Trump’s trade war, Alan Rappeport reports Stung by Trump’s Trade Wars, Wisconsin’s Milk Farmers Face Extinction (“The flagship industry in a pivotal swing state faces an economic crisis”): KENDALL, Wis. —…
Charity and Mercy, City, Education, Poverty, Press Release, School District
What Matters, What Doesn’t
by JOHN ADAMS •
Some contrasts are so clear that, on seeing them, one can tell immediately what matters and what does not: Number of homeless students in Whitewater School District reaches ‘crisis level’: The number of homeless students in [Dr. Lanora] Heim’s district last school year was more than double what it was three years ago—going from…
City, Development, Economy, Parodies, Poverty, That Which Paved the Way
Really, Really Urgent CDA Announcement!
by JOHN ADAMS •
Shortly after booting my computer this April 1st morning, I found staring back at me the following Really Really Urgent Message from the “Whitewater Community Development Authority.” Perhaps it has something to do with a recent excuse-making press release story at the Gazette. News Release: April 1, 2019 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (this means now!) Really…
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Development, Economics, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Transportation
Private Businesses Craving Public Money
by JOHN ADAMS •
A private group may invite whom it wishes, but the guests invited tell much about the organization doing the inviting. Long years ago, straining even the finest recollection, private businesses relied on their own efforts for success (or so one has heard). Look about now, even in small and struggling places, and one finds well-fed…