In Whitewater, there’s a top-notch think tank right-wing landlord’s business group that flacked Foxconn both privately and through that group’s sway over the Whitewater Community Development Authority. The group invited a state operative to spin Foxconn as a tech city of gold, and at the Whitewater CDA one could hear fantastic tales of high-tech wonders…
State Capitalism
CDA, City, Congress, Crony Capitalism, Free Market, Gerrymandering, Government Spending, Local Government, Never Trump, Politics, Republicans, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way
F. James Sensenbrenner Heads for the Exit
by JOHN ADAMS •
One reads that F. James Sensenbrenner, the pro-Trump septuagenarian multimillionaire congressman from a gerrymandered district that stretches all the way down to Whitewater, is retiring when his current term ends. Consigned to the minority forever must look unappealing. How time flies! It was not long ago that then-chairman of the Whitewater Community Development Authority was scampering…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, Water, WEDC, WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN, Wisconsin
It Shouldn’t
by JOHN ADAMS •
Anna Clark (author of The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy) asks Why should Wisconsin drain Lake Michigan for Foxconn?: The Great Lakes — five inland seas holding one-fifth of all the fresh water on Earth — are vast, but they are not limitless. So it is alarming that Wisconsin intends to send…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: Independent Study Confirms Project is Beyond Repair
by JOHN ADAMS •
Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers, Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition is Automation, While Appeasing the…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
Town Residents Claim Trump’s Foxconn Factory Deal Failed Them
by JOHN ADAMS •
The project has failed those residents, as it has failed Wisconsin, and become a cautionary tale for the rest of America. Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers, Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Development, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Politics, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: Reality as a (Predictable) Disappointment
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Wisconsin Foxconn project was, is, and will continue to be a huckster’s con and a sucker’s idea. Across America – a place of over 325 million – Foxconn is an example of an obviously bad, unworkable idea. In Whitewater and other Wisconsin communities, the men who push this project were either objectionably conniving or…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Crony Capitalism, 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…
CDA, Crony Capitalism, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, WEDC, Wisconsin
Right on Schedule – A Foxconn Delay
by JOHN ADAMS •
Talking up the Foxconn project – a habit of the ignorant or scheming – gets harder all the time. Foxconn looks to have pushed back its construction schedule – to 2021 (past the presidential election). See Foxconn Appears To Push Back Opening Of Mount Pleasant Plant (‘Company Denies Delay But Offers Few Details’). Here’s the…
Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Development, Economy, Employment, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin
Walker’s Fundamental Failure
by JOHN ADAMS •
Walker’s fundamental claim was that he would be a jobs creator, with a horde of operatives, development men, business insiders, and political cronies insisting that billions in state funds would somehow trickle down to create jobs. In his fundamental promise, Walker was a failure. Shawn Johnson reports Walker Never Reached 250,000 Jobs Created (‘Finalized statistics…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Despite Denials, Foxconn’s Empty Buildings Are Still Empty
by JOHN ADAMS •
This morning, Joe sent along a comment mentioning a story about Foxconn from the national technology website The Verge. (Many thanks for the pointer.) Josh Dzieza reports One month ago, Foxconn said its innovation centers weren’t empty — they still are (“Foxconn still hasn’t done anything with the buildings it bought in Wisconsin”): Last summer,…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Economics, Economy, Employment, Government Spending, Local Government, State Capitalism, State Government, WEDC
The Empty ‘Jobs Created’ Pledge
by JOHN ADAMS •
In Wisconsin, these last years, one has often heard – so often that it might as well be a mantra – that corporate subsidies are necessary for job creation, to reward job creators. This repeated justification ignores evident realities: (1) in times of low unemployment job-creation subsidies are less necessary, (2) wealthy corporate recipients are…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
America’s Best Know Better
by JOHN ADAMS •
A story from the Wall Street Journal‘s Valerie Bauerlein explains the damage that the Foxconn scheme has done to ordinary people in Foxconn Tore Up a Small Town to Build a Big Factory—Then Retreated (“The iPhone maker got fat incentives to build a $10 billion LCD plant that largely hasn’t materialized on land where Mount…
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. —…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Tony Evers, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn Confirms Gov. Evers’s Claim of a Renegotiation Discussion
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yesterday, Gov. Evers was proved right on a key contention about Foxconn. Earlier this week, Evers released a letter to Foxconn executive Dr. Louis Woo in which Evers mentioned that Foxconn had sought to “suggest several changes to the existing agreement.” Gov. Evers also stated that Woo had also met with Vos and Fitzgerald and…
