With the news that Foxconn plans to drop manufacturing at a plant that was supposed to hire thousands of workers, for which people lost their homes, and that was the centerpiece of Scott Walker’s corporate welfare and crony capitalism, Speaker Robin Vos blames…newly-elected Gov. Tony Evers. Oh, brother: Vos must hope that Wisconsinites are stupid enough to believe…
WEDC
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Employment, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
No one who thought about Foxconn seriously would be surprised to read from a Reuters exclusive that Foxconn [is] reconsidering plans to make LCD panels at Wisconsin plant. The Taiwanese manufacturer has already broken its promises on the kind of panels it would build at the plant, and failed to meet even its low, first-year hiring…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Education, Innovation Center/Tech Park, State Capitalism, Trump, WEDC
Ignorant Policymakers Will Produce Ignorant Policies
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Rep. Justin Amash, who is as close to a libertarian as any Republican in Congress, offered this observation about Wilbur Ross, Trump’s Secretary of Commerce: It’s amazing that Wilbur Ross was nominated and confirmed to be secretary of anything. He’s shown over many years that he doesn’t understand basic economics, and to describe him as…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Mendacity, Poverty, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Nationally and Locally: The Big-Government Conservatives Are Economy-Wreckers
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Catherine Rampell, writing about the national GOP, accurately describes their economic policy under Trump in The GOP has become the Soviet party. This has been a building national problem for years, but a building local problem for about as long: a clique of slogan-rich but insight-poor local conservatives have wrecked economies like Whitewater’s economy with a steady diet of…
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Employment, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Foxconn Couldn’t Even Meet Its Low First-Year Goal
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Here in Whitewater, the local private business lobby invited last year as a guest speaker a state operative to exaggerate wildly talk about Foxconn. See A Sham News Story on Foxconn. As it turns out, Foxconn hasn’t even been able to meet the low, first-year employment goals set for the publicly-subsidized project. Rick Rommel reports Foxconn falls…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, CDA, Charity, City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Dogs, Economy, Education, Federal Government, Foxconn, Free Markets, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Police, Politics, School District, State Capitalism, State Government, University, UW System, WEDC, Wisconsin
The Broad Outlines of 2019
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
For many years, I would begin the year with predictions for the twelve months ahead. Events since 2016 have made predictions harder, but one can still discern some short-term developments for the city. These prospects, of course, form an online of topics to ponder, and about which to write (often requiring that one return to the…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
The Outrage of Corporate Welfare (Amazon, Foxconn, and others)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
You may have heard by now that Amazon’s new headquarters will soon call the New York and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas home. This decision has engendered much criticism. But the Atlantic staff writer Derek Thompson doesn’t think the vitriol is enough. “We should all be screaming mad about the state of corporate handouts in this country,” Thompson…
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Foxconn’s boosters each day inch closer to a corporate welfare version of Scientology: it doesn’t make any sense, but adherents keep to themselves and repeat a shared list of crackpot claims. The latest news to pierce the cultists’ bubble: Molly Beck and Rick Romell report Wisconsin taxpayers could pay Foxconn for work done outside of Wisconsin,…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Conflicts of Interest, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Elections, Gov. Walker, Kakistocracy, Law, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, Tony Evers, WEDC, Wisconsin
Once a Gerrymanderer…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Wisconsin, with a gerrymandered legislature and a crony capitalist, lame-duck governor, was never going to have an easy transition back to a tradition of democratically representative government and sound economic policy. The men who engineered years of the wrong approach were never going to go gently to the political outer darkness that, deservedly, awaits them.…
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Employment, Foxconn, Government Spending, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
In Whitewater and Elsewhere, Employment’s Only Part of the Story
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In times of high unemployment, of course it makes sense to get people back to work. Jobs, jobs, jobs isn’t a bad mantra when people don’t have work. (Work isn’t simply about an income, but a place in society.) Today is not, however, the Great Depression. Listen to ‘development professionals’ go on about job-creation at…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Free Markets, Government Spending, Local Government, Mendacity, Open Government, Politics, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Tony Evers, WEDC, Wisconsin
The Walker Cabinet Officers’ Open Letter
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Four cabinet secretaries of the Walker Administration have come forward to criticize the governor, and three of them have co-written an open letter against Walker’s relentless emphasis on political gain over sound policies. One of the signatories of the letter is Paul Jadin, who was Walker’s first Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation leader. It says all…
CDA, City, Economy, Local Government, Poetry, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Walworth County, WEDC, Wisconsin
Majority of Walworth County’s Renters are Rent-Burdened
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A new study, Paying the Rent, from the Wisconsin Policy Forum finds that a majority of Walworth County’s renters are rent-burdened, placing the county in the top five most distressed in the state by that measurement. (There are, of course, 72 counties in Wisconsin, so Walworth County is among the weakest of a very large…
CDA, City, Economy, Local Government, Poverty, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Walworth County, WEDC, Wisconsin
Walworth County’s Working Poor
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In Whitewater and throughout Walworth County, huge numbers of residents are “asset limited, income constrained [yet] employed” (ALICE®). A report from the United Way of Wisconsin, entitled ALICE® ASSET LIMITED, INCOME CONSTRAINED, EMPLOYED WISCONSIN, reveals the truth about many in our community. Walworth County measures slightly worse than the already-disappointing state average. The talk of…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Distraction, Economy, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Local Government, Marketing, Planning, Politics, Poverty, State Capitalism, WEDC
The Two Questions that Haunt Old Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Two questions haunt Old Whitewater (where Old Whitewater is a state of mind rather than an age or a particular person): What does it mean to be a college town? and What is meaningful community development? (There are other serious questions, but one can be sure – at the least – that these two have Whitewater…