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Blogging, Business, CDA, City, Free Markets, Gluttony, Local Government, New Media, New Whitewater, Politics

If Market-Based Solutions Are Superior to Cronyism, Why Are There So Many Cronies?

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Here’s a question, concerning even small towns like Whitewater, for which the Financial Times publishes an answer: If market-based solutions are superior to cronyism, why are there so many cronies?

First, there aren’t that many cronies (or insistent insiders) in Whitewater or elsewhere, but the few there are manipulate or intimidate weak reporters at local papers into representing their numbers as though they were all the community.  So they’ll commonly speak about how Whitewater does something, when the people acting are a few insiders in a room, for example.

(The truth of Whitewater is that the adult, non-student population in town is only about half the city’s total population, and by the time one accounts for natural differences in interest, outlook, and ideology, the number of big-business lobbyists in town is actually small.  Sometimes, it seems like it’s one person, and a guy who follows along beside him dutifully – if awkwardly – carrying signs or flyers.)

Why, then, does cronyism persist, despite the greater intellectual, practical, and ethical strengths of voluntary, unaided transactions in the marketplace?

Prof. Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago’s Booth School has the answer:

While everybody benefits from a competitive market system, nobody benefits enough to spend resources to lobby for it. Business has very powerful lobbies; competitive markets do not. The diffused constituency that is in favour of competitive markets has few incentives to mobilise in its defence.

This is where the media can play a crucial role. By gathering information on the nature and cost of cronyism and distributing it among the public at large, media outlets can reduce the power of vested interests. By exposing the distortions created by powerful incumbents, they can create the political demand for a competitive capitalism.

See, A strong press is best defence against crony capitalism @ The Financial Times.

Needless to say, I don’t think that the traditional local press (Gazette, Daily Union, Register) or an imitation (Banner) plays this role.  On the contrary, those publications are defenders of town squires’ repeated errors.

No matter: a new informational order now arises in many small places that progressively, effectively, decisively eclipses insiders to the benefit of those towns’ broader communities.

Tomorrow: Whitewater’s Major Public Institutions Produce a Net Loss (And Why It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way).

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

Option(s)

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 41 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.

Sometimes a presentation of options is genuine; other times one option is merely a straw proposal to make a second option seem more palatable, less extreme, etc.

As we’ve seen, at the 12.16.14 presentation to Common Council, the Donohue firm presented two slides, about two supposed options for a digester-energy project in Whitewater.  (See, The December 2014 Presentation (Part 1), The December 2014 Presentation (Part 2), and The December 2014 Presentation (Part 3).)

Screen Shot 2015-10-19 at 6.53.22 AM
Donohue’s description of Trane’s conclusions


Screen Shot 2015-10-19 at 6.54.02 AM
Donohue’s ‘Baby-Steps’ Proposal
 

(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked. All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin. Today’s questions begin with No. 267.)

Set aside for a moment – just for a moment – that the Trane study as has been publicly published amounts to no more than a slide and the profession of a few others that there was, in fact, a completed study.

267.  Considering the slides above, and the claims of city officials (City Mgr. Clapper, Wastewater Superintendent Reel) and Donohue that what Whitewater might do now is a ‘baby-steps’ program, isn’t it clear that the supposed second option is merely a thin-entering wedge for large-scale waste importation into the city?

(Even Donohue‘s description of Trane‘s alleged work implies as much, when one sees that Donohue begins by asking “does it make sense to build everything at once?” – emphasis added.  There’d be no need for ‘at once’ if Donohue and city officials did not plan, now, for a larger program of importing waste into Whitewater, later).

268. Under the supposedly baby-steps program, as outlined in slide 2, how much waste by volume would have to be trucked into the city to achieve the claimed revenue projections?

269. Under the supposedly baby-steps program, as outlined in slide 2, how much waste could be trucked into the city?

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.19.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Our work week begins with milder temperatures: Monday will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-one. Sunrise is 7:13 and sunset 6:05, for 10h 51m 59s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 35.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets today at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1781, America and France defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown:

The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the Surrender at Yorktown or the German Battle, ending on October 19, 1781 atYorktown, Virginia, was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by British lord and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis. The culmination of the Yorktown campaign, the siege proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War in the North American theater, as the surrender by Cornwallis, and the capture of both him and his army, prompted the British government to negotiate an end to the conflict. The battle boosted faltering American morale and revived French enthusiasm for the war, as well as undermining popular support for the conflict in Great Britain.[5]

….After the British surrender, Washington sent Tench Tilghman to report the victory to Congress.[79] After a difficult journey, he arrived in Philadelphia, which celebrated for several days. The British Prime Minister, Lord North, is reported to have exclaimed “Oh God, it’s all over” when told of the defeat.[80] Washington moved his army to New Windsor, New York[81] where they remained stationed until the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, formally ending the war.[82]

A Google a Day asks a science question:

What is the name of the anatomy text written by a physician from Bologna who is credited as “the restorer of anatomy?”

Animation, Books, Charity, Film

Sunday Animation: We Need to Talk About Alice

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GOOD BOOKS: "We Need To Talk About Alice" from Plenty on Vimeo.

(See all the process, character design, style frames, at plenty.tv/work/good-books-we-need-to-talk-about-alice )

“We need to talk about Alice” was commissioned by New Zealand based agency String Theory and created to be part of Good Books’ “Great Writers Series,” a collection of short films made to promote the non profit organization (gogoodbooks.com) which is an online charity book store that sells book and donates all proceeds to Oxfam, an organization that fights hunger and poverty since 1995.

In the last few years, a select group of directors have donated their time and knowledge to create animated shorts based on renowned literary works and authors to promote this charity. In 2012, Buck launched the amazing “Metamorphosis”, a tribute to author Hunter S. Thompson. Then came “Havana Heat” in 2013, a sensual animation produced by renowned duo McBess and Simon from The Mill.

Plenty had the honor of creating the third a 2:30 minute short film for Good Books based on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s adventures in Wonderland” to commemorate the book’s 150th anniversary.

After a lot of dedication, hard work and passion for what we do, it’s our pleasure to introduce “We need to talk about Alice”

We’ll be posting more about the project soon! We have a 5 minute breakdown where you’ll be able to see the whole process for this amazing adventure we embarked in! A lot of process stills, extra content and some magical gifs!

We hope you love it! We were honored to be a part of a series of shorts that will leave a mark in the history of motion graphics.

Via Vimeo.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.18.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday will be sunny with a high of fifty-nine.  Sunrise is 7:12 and sunset 6:07 [corrected from 8:07], for 10h 54m 45s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 26.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW poll asked whether, as in the case of a New York restaurateur’s establishments, restaurants generally should abandon tipping.  A majority of respondents (57.89%) voted to preserve tipping as an option.

AlaskaMap1867

On this day in 1867, America takes possession of Alaska from Russia:

The transfer ceremony took place in Sitka on October 18, 1867. Russian and American soldiers paraded in front of the governor’s house; the Russian flagwas lowered and the American flag raised amid peals of artillery.

A description of the events was published in Finland six years later, written by a blacksmith named T. Ahllund, who had been recruited to work in Sitka only less than two years previously.[25]

“ We had not spent many weeks at Sitka when two large steam ships arrived there, bringing things that belonged to the American crown, and a few days later the new governor also arrived in a ship together with his soldiers. The wooden two-story mansion of the Russian governor stood on a high hill, and in front of it in the yard at the end of a tall spar flew the Russian flag with the double-headed eagle in the middle of it. Of course, this flag now had to give way to the flag of the United States, which is full of stripes and stars. On a predetermined day in the afternoon a group of soldiers came from the American ships, led by one who carried the flag. Marching solemnly, but without accompaniment, they came to the governor’s mansion, where the Russian troops were already lined up and waiting for the Americans. Now they started to pull the [Russian double-headed] eagle down, but — whatever had gone into its head — it only came down a little bit, and then entangled its claws around the spar so that it could not be pulled down any further. A Russian soldier was therefore ordered to climb up the spar and disentangle it, but it seems that the eagle cast a spell on his hands, too — for he was not able to arrive at where the flag was, but instead slipped down without it. The next one to try was not able to do any better; only the third soldier was able to bring the unwilling eagle down to the ground. While the flag was brought down, music was played and cannons were fired off from the shore; and then while the other flag was hoisted the Americans fired off their cannons from the ships equally many times. After that American soldiers replaced the Russian ones at the gates of the fence surrounding the Kolosh [i.e. Tlingit] village. ”

When the business with the flags was finally over, Captain of 2nd Rank Aleksei Alekseyevich Peshchurov said: “General Rousseau, by authority from His Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, I transfer to the United States the territory of Alaska.” General Lovell Rousseau accepted the territory. (Peshchurov had been sent to Sitka as commissioner of the Russian government in the transfer of Alaska.) A number of forts, blockhouses and timber buildings were handed over to the Americans. The troops occupied the barracks; General Jefferson C. Davis established his residence in the governor’s house, and most of the Russian citizens went home, leaving a few traders and priests who chose to remain.[26][27]

On this day in 1967, police and students clash at UW-Madison:

On this date club-wielding Madison police joined campus police to break up a large anti-war demonstration on the UW-Madison campus. Sixty-five people, including several officers, were treated for injuries. Thirteen student leaders were ordered expelled from school. State Attorney General Bronson La Follette criticized the police for using excessive brutality. [Source: They Marched Into Sunlight]

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.17.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday will be partly cloudy with a high of fifty-three.  Sunrise is 7:11 and sunset 6:08, for 10h 57m 31s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1777, Burgoyne surrenders to Horatio Gates at Saratoga, and in consequence America wins French aid during the Revolution:

The Battles of Saratoga (September 19 and October 7, 1777) marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. British General John Burgoyne led a large invasion army up the Champlain Valley from Canada, hoping to meet a similar force marching northward from New York City; the southern force never arrived, and Burgoyne was surrounded by American forces in upstate New York. Burgoyne fought two small battles to break out. They took place eighteen days apart on the same ground, 9 miles (14 km) south of Saratoga, New York. They both failed. Trapped by superior American forces, with no relief in sight, Burgoyne surrendered his entire army on October 17. His surrender, says historian Edmund Morgan, “was a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory.[8]

On this day in 1970, Pres. Nixon visits Green Bay:

On this date President Richard Nixon traveled to Green Bay to speak at a testimonial dinner in honor of Green Bay Packers quarterback Bart Starr. [Source: The American Presidency Project]

Business, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economics, Economy, Liberty, Local Government, WEDC

Business v. Free Markets

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Over at Cato, David Boaz writes about The Divide between Pro-Market and Pro-Business. (I’ve also linked to Boaz’s post at my libertarian website, Daily Adams.)

Boaz observes that, too often, business (especially big business) is an opponent of free markets:

In 2014 big business opposed several of the most free-market members of Congress, and even a Ron Paul-aligned Georgia legislator who opposed taxpayer funding for the Atlanta Braves.

The U.S. chamber jumped into a Republican primary in Grand Rapids, Mich., to try to take down Rep. Justin Amash, probably the most pro-free-enterprise and most libertarian member of Congress. Free-market groups, including the Club for Growth, Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity, strongly backed Mr. Amash.

And now the chamber plans to spend up to $100 million on the 2016 campaign. Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, reports, “Some of business’ top targets in 2016 will be right-wing, tea party candidates, the types that have bucked the corporate agenda in Congress by supporting government shutdowns, opposing an immigration overhaul and attempting to close the Export-Import Bank.” Politico adds a highway bill to big business’ list of grievances against fiscal conservatives.

This clash between pro-market and pro-business is an old one. Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations” to denounce mercantilism, the crony capitalism of his day. Milton Friedman said at a 1998 conference: “There’s a common misconception that people who are in favor of a free market are also in favor of everything that big business does. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Locally, which side would one choose, in a contest between (a) Smith, Hayek, & Friedman on one side, and (b) on the other side the economic manipulations of the WEDC,  UW-Whitewater chancellor, Whitewater city manager, Community Development Authority, and (with some of the same ‘development’ gurus) the Greater Whitewater Committee business lobby?

Honest to goodness, that’s no choice at all.

When one contends in support of free markets, doing the best one can to understand, apply, and defend the arguments of Smith, Hayek, Friedman, et al., one embraces a tradition incomparably superior to the crude, deceptive, and ineffectual manipulation of the economy to the benefit of a few, favored businesses.

One can be confident about this not because there’s anything special about oneself (in my case there certainly isn’t), but because the tradition of which one is a proponent is vastly better than the views of those on the other side.

A strong tradition uplifts its advocates; a weak tradition diminishes its adherents.  Personality doesn’t matter more than sound principle; sound principle creates the world in which personality, of whatever type, may be freely expressed and enjoyed.

 

 

Cats

Friday Catblogging: Cat & Vacuum

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One wouldn’t prudently encourage other cat owners to try this with their cats, and it’s odd that this feline seems so entranced, but here’s a peculiar feline who likes a vacuum hose:

Poll, Restaurant

Friday Poll: End of Tipping at Restaurants?

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Yesterday I posted a story about a restaurateur who was ending tipping at his establishments, because he thought this more equitable to all his employees:

Under the current gratuity system, not everyone at a restaurant is getting a fair shake. Waiters at full-service New York restaurants can expect a full 20 percent tip on most checks, for a yearly income of $40,000 or more on average — some of the city’s top servers easily clear $100,000 annually. But the problem isn’t what waiters make, it’s what cooks make. A mid-level line cook, even in a high-end kitchen, doesn’t have generous patrons padding her paycheck, and as such is, on average, unlikely to make much more than $35,000 a year.

The fact that the people cooking your food often earn less than the people who serve it is a troublesome issue not just for the cooks themselves, but also for their employers — especially in a high cost-of-living city. “We’ve never faced a shortage of talented cooks like we have this year,” Meyer told me. “We’re in a day and age where there are more talented cooks than there ever have been, but fewer of them who want to live in New York to start a fine dining career.”

Whatever your own reasons for voting, would you vote to keep or end tipping at restaurants?

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.16.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a more autumn-like Friday: partly cloudy with a high of forty-nine. Sunrise is 7:10 and sunset 6:10, for 11h 00m 19s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 10.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1962, Pres. Kennedy was told of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba:

On October 15, the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center reviewed the U-2 photographs and identified objects that they interpreted as medium range ballistic missiles. That evening, the CIA notified the Department of State and at 8:30 pm EDT, National Security AdviserMcGeorge Bundy chose to wait until the next morning [October 16, 1962] to tell the President. Secretary of DefenseRobert McNamara was briefed at midnight. The next morning, Bundy met with Kennedy and showed him the U-2 photographs and briefed him on the CIA’s analysis of the images.[31] At 6:30 pm EDT, Kennedy convened a meeting of the nine members of the National Security Council and five other key advisors,[32] in a group he formally named the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM) after the fact on October 22 by the National Security Action Memorandum 196.[33] Without informing the members of EXCOMM, President Kennedy tape recorded all of their proceedings, and Sheldon M. Stern, head of the Kennedy library has transcribed some of them.[34][35]

LeMay_Cuban_Missile_Crisis

The U.S. had no plan in place because U.S. intelligence had been convinced that the Soviets would never install nuclear missiles in Cuba. The EXCOMM quickly discussed several possible courses of action, including:[36]
  1. Do nothing: American vulnerability to Soviet missiles was not new.
  2. Diplomacy: Use diplomatic pressure to get the Soviet Union to remove the missiles.
  3. Secret approach: Offer Castro the choice of splitting with the Russians or being invaded.
  4. Invasion: Full force invasion of Cuba and overthrow of Castro.
  5. Air strike: Use the US Air Force to attack all known missile sites.
  6. Blockade: Use the US Navy to block any missiles from arriving in Cuba….

On this day in 1968, the Milwaukee Bucks play their first game:

On this date the Milwaukee Bucks opened their first season with an 89-84 loss to the Chicago Bulls. The loss was witnessed by 8,467 fans in the Milwaukee Arena. The starting lineup featured Wayne Embry at center, Fred Hetzel and Len Chappell at forward, and Jon McGlocklin and Guy Rodgers in the backcourt. Larry Costello was the head coach. The Bucks had its first win in their sixth game of the season with a 134-118 victory over the Detroit Pistons. [Source: Milwaukee Bucks]

Here’s the final game in Puzzability‘s weekly series, Series Cancellations:

This Week’s Game — October 12-16
Series Cancellations
Let’s see what you can put together for this week’s TV viewing. For each day, we’ll give you a series of clues, each of which leads to a word. You must drop one letter out of each of these answer words and put them together (in order), adding spaces as needed, to get the full name of a current TV drama.
Example:
Macabre illustrator Edward / elf’s boss / rock opera by The Who
Answer:
Grey’s Anatomy (Gorey / Santa / Tommy)
What to Submit:
Submit the TV show’s name and the smaller words (as “Grey’s Anatomy (Gorey / Santa / Tommy)” in the example) for your answer.
Friday, October 16
Otherwise / convened / person who certifies a legal document

 

Business, Food, Restaurant

The End of Tipping?

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I’m not sure what to make of this, but New York restaurateur Danny Meyer contends that ending tipping at his establishments is the right decision:

Big news out of Manhattan: Dining out is about to get turned on its head. Union Square Hospitality Group, the force behind some of New York’s most important restaurants, will announce today that starting in November, it will roll out an across-the-board elimination of tips at every one of its thirteen full-service venues, hand in hand with an across-the-board increase in prices. It’s a radical move — while many individual high-end restaurants have eliminated tipping, this is surely the first time zero-gratuity will be the universal policy for a major American restaurant group — casual restaurants included. Never before have so many diners been faced with such a sea change in how they pay for a full-service meal, and what they are expected to understand a fair price (and a fair wage) to be.

Why?

Under the current gratuity system, not everyone at a restaurant is getting a fair shake. Waiters at full-service New York restaurants can expect a full 20 percent tip on most checks, for a yearly income of $40,000 or more on average — some of the city’s top servers easily clear $100,000 annually. But the problem isn’t what waiters make, it’s what cooks make. A mid-level line cook, even in a high-end kitchen, doesn’t have generous patrons padding her paycheck, and as such is, on average, unlikely to make much more than $35,000 a year.

The fact that the people cooking your food often earn less than the people who serve it is a troublesome issue not just for the cooks themselves, but also for their employers — especially in a high cost-of-living city. “We’ve never faced a shortage of talented cooks like we have this year,” Meyer told me. “We’re in a day and age where there are more talented cooks than there ever have been, but fewer of them who want to live in New York to start a fine dining career.”

Curious to see how this turns out…

Via New York Eater.