Below are the abstract and full study from George Mason University on The Economics of a Targeted Economic Development Subsidy (examining the Foxconn deal in Wisconsin). There’s much to consider in this work, for the Foxconn project, and by reasonable extension to other government-targeted business subsidies. Abstract: In an effort to spur economic growth and…
WEDC
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Comedy, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: ‘Innovation Centers’ Gone in a Puff of Smoke
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Trump insisted Foxconn in Wisconsin would be the eighth wonder of the world, and smarmy development men in places like Whitewater spoke about how much would come of the project, but in a puff of smoke that project’s ‘innovation centers’ are gone. Nick Statt reports Foxconn finally admits its empty Wisconsin ‘innovation centers’ aren’t being…
CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn on the Same Day: Yes…um, just kidding, we mean no
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One reads that in the course of a single day, Foxconn changed its plans for a major building at its Wisconsin site. Corrine Hess reports In A Day, Foxconn Changes Course, Plans To Build Different Mount Pleasant Building: This flashy building? Sorry, Wisconsin, you’re not getting this. Illustration via Mount Pleasant Development Dept. Foxconn’s plans to build a…
CDA, Economy, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
Trumpism Brings Economic Decline
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It was supposed to be jobs, jobs, jobs for the WEDC and miniature versions of it like the Whitewater Community Development Authority. Gosh darn it, the former chairman of the Whitewater CDA even thanked (in person!) multimillionaire gerrymandered congressman F. James Sensenbrenner for part of the Trump tax bill. And yet, and yet, one reads…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: First In, Now Out
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One reads that Christopher ‘Tank’ Murdoch, the first Wisconsin resident hired by Foxconn, has left the company: Christopher “Tank” Murdoch, the first Wisconsin resident hired by Foxconn Technology Group and an honored figure at last year’s groundbreaking for the firm’s planned flat-screen factory, has left the company. In a brief interview, Murdoch said he left…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Mendacity, That Which Paved the Way, UW Madison, WEDC
Be Patient, UW-Madison: Only $99,300,000.00 to Go!
by JOHN ADAMS • • 5 Comments
If a group invited a guest speaker who said the world was flat, then that group would be rightly discarded as a credible policy advocate. In Whitewater and other towns, crony-capitalist groups of different sizes proudly declared the Foxconn project a boon for Wisconsin. (Trump, himself, declared it a boon for the whole planet: “the…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: Hey, Wisconsin, How About an Airport-Coffee Robot?
by JOHN ADAMS • • 3 Comments
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…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, 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 • • Comments
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, Corporate Welfare, 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 • • Comments
[embeddoc url=”https://freewhitewater.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Costs-and-Benefits-of-a-Revised-Foxconn-Project.pdf” width=”100%” download=”all” viewer=”google”] 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…
Babbittry, Boosterism, CDA, Foxconn, Mendacity, Reasoning, Science/Nature, That Which Paved the Way, Waste Digesters, WEDC
Junk Reasoning Isn’t Simply a Problem at the Top
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Helena Bottemiller Evich reports ‘It feels like something out of a bad sci-fi movie’ (‘A top climate scientist quit USDA, following others who say Trump has politicized science’): One of the nation’s leading climate change scientists is quitting the Agriculture Department in protest over the Trump administration’s efforts to bury his groundbreaking study about how…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, 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 • • Comments
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, Corporate Welfare, 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 • • Comments
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, 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 • • Comments
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, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, WEDC, Wisconsin
Right on Schedule – A Foxconn Delay
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
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…