Rick Romell, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Published 8:20 a.m. CT Nov. 23, 2018 | Updated 7:33 p.m. CT Nov. 23, 2018
The first structure on the Foxconn construction site, a 120,000-square-foot "multi-purpose building," is up, with the building expected to be substantially completed late this year. Construction is well underway at the site of the Foxconn Technology Group $10 billion manufacturing and research complex in Mount Pleasant on Monday, October 22, 2018. The eventual 2,800 acre facility will produce high-definition display panels. - Photo by Jim Nelson and Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel(Photo: Jim Nelson and Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
The state's deal with Foxconn Technology Group is done and the contracts signed, but the recently unveiled agreements between Amazon and New York and Virginia have put Wisconsin’s subsidies for the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer in the spotlight again.
Comparing the deals is muddy work, but even by the most generous reckoning, it appears Wisconsin is paying more per job than will go to Amazon for its much-watched “second headquarters” developments in New York and Virginia.
Whether Wisconsin’s huge incentive package proves to be worthwhile — and Amazon comparisons aside, many question the wisdom of the very practice of public subsidies for corporations — won’t be known for years
.
Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Published 12:12 p.m. CT Nov. 16, 2018 | Updated 3:38 p.m. CT Nov. 23, 2018
Greg Septon returns a young peregrine falcon to its nest box on the roof of a Veolia North America building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The bird and three other nestlings were banded as part of the Wisconsin Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project led since 1986 by Septon.(Photo: Paul A. Smith)
The bird specimen bottle had been sealed for nearly 60 years, collecting dust in a storage area at the Milwaukee Public Museum.
In December 1979, Greg Septon, then 27 years old and a taxidermist for the organization, grew curious about its contents.
He held up the jar of murky alcohol and looked for clues. His heart jumped: A notched beak was pressed up against the glass.
A
licensed falconer and raptor bander, Septon immediately knew the jar
held falcon chicks. Once opened, the container produced
three young peregrine falcons.
A tag inside the bottle revealed the birds' origin.
Wednesday, November 21, 2018 at 9:00 AM by Tamarine Cornelius
http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org/wisconsins-tax-system-requires-the-least-from-those-who-have-the-most-2
Wisconsin is a better place for everyone when hard-working families
are able to provide for their families and climb the economic ladder.
But when the lion’s share of economic gains goes to a small number of
wealthy and well-connected individuals who have rigged the system for
their own benefit, it is more difficult for Wisconsin families to get
ahead. Wisconsin’s tax system contributes to the growing concentration
of wealth by calling on the richest residents to pay the smallest
share of their income in taxes, and requiring residents with low and
moderate incomes to pay more than their fair share.
Wisconsin residents with the lowest incomes pay about a third more of
their income in state and local taxes than the wealthiest residents,
according to new figures from the Institute on Taxation and Economic
Policy. The poorest 20% of Wisconsin residents—a group with an average
income of $14,700—pays 10.1 cents out of every $1 of their income in
state and local taxes on average. In comparison, the richest residents
of Wisconsin, who have an average income of $1.2 million, pay just 7.7
cents out of every $1 in income in state and local taxes.
Wisconsin is one of 45 states that taxes poorer residents at a higher
rate than richer residents. Our neighbor Minnesota is one of the
states that provides a model for a better tax system, one that taxes
poorer residents a smaller share of their income and the richest
residents a higher share. In Minnesota, taxpayers in the lowest 20% by
income pay 8.7% of their income in state and local taxes on average,
lower than the 10.1% paid by the lowest income group in Wisconsin.
That relationship is reversed at the highest income level: The top 1%
in Minnesota pays 10.1% of their income in taxes on average, compared
to just 7.7% in Wisconsin.
Our rigged tax system is a major driver of inequality and contributes
to the increasing concentration of income and wealth in a few
hands—hands that are most likely to be white, due to a long history of
racial discrimination. The recent tax changes at the federal level
under the GOP Tax Plan also demonstrate how our tax system can be
manipulated to funnel resources to a small group of wealthy, typically
white individuals. The tax cuts that President Trump signed into law
last year reward white wealth at the expense of the economic security
of poor, middle-class households and households of color. On average,
white households receive $2,020 from the Trump tax cuts, Latino
households receive $970, and Black households receive $840, according
to research from the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy. Even
among the ultra-wealthy, whites fare better, because the law gives
bigger tax cuts to income earned in ways that are more typical of
white individuals than individuals of color.
Wisconsin can improve its state and local tax system in a way that
gives all families greater access to opportunity, regardless of race,
ethnicity, or income. Here are four steps state lawmakers should take
to make sure Wisconsin families and communities can thrive, and what
they’re doing instead:
Boost tax credits aimed at supporting taxpayers with low and moderate
incomes. Instead, Wisconsin lawmakers have cut and/or restricted
eligibility for two important tax credits in recent years: the Earned
Income Tax Credit (EITC), which gives a bigger tax refund to working
parents, and the Homestead Credit, which keeps property taxes
manageable for people with low incomes.
Reduce tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy. Wisconsin lawmakers
have introduced several new loopholes in recent years that direct
resources into the pockets of the very highest earners and shut out
nearly everyone else. One example is the state’s Manufacturing and
Agriculture Credit, which allows the owners of manufacturing companies
and some other businesses to pay next to nothing in income taxes.
Implement highly progressive income tax brackets and rates. An income
tax rate structure that taxes people with higher incomes at higher
rates can counteract the effect of regressive sales and property
taxes. In Wisconsin, the record on this is mixed: In recent years,
state lawmakers broadened the gap between the top and bottom marginal
tax rates, but also collapsed two tax brackets into one, giving
taxpayers with moderately high incomes a significant income tax rate
cut.
Design a state tax system that relies more on the income tax than the
sales tax. States with no income tax typically have a very high sales
tax, and shift the responsibility of paying for schools, roads, and
communities onto those who can least afford it.
Tamarine Cornelius
RACINE COUNTY — The rise of
technology and the smartphone have resulted in many people documenting
their lives through social media. Whether it’s Snapchat, Twitter,
Instagram or Facebook, many people share their most important moments —
and their mundane ones — on social media platforms.
This
has provided a unique opportunity for law enforcement, providing police
with an additional tool to assist in their investigations, particularly
when it comes to the activity on a suspect’s Facebook account.
http://rockythedog.net/spooky/NROp1.html
It's always strange.... because my cousins had a Rocky the Dog - who
actually would retrieve thrown rocks - got to visit them once in
California - Granada Hills area.
Well, my Uncle Ron worked overseas until he died at an early age - he
enjoyed Cottage Cheese, Vodka, and Winston Cigarettes for Breakfast!
Spoke Farsi and lived under the Shah - kicked out under Kohmenini -
went to live on in Saudi and eventually dies while working in Oman for
the Minister of Defense.
He dressed in traditional Arab dress! White Robe and coiled red
headdress! I have a pic somewhere.
This Trowbridge Ford is an interesting guy - with his "wacky claims" -
but there is a lot of truth in there.....
Trowbridge Ford is a former US Army Counter Intelligence Corps
analyst. Now retired in Sweden, he theorises about deep events and
deep politics.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Trowbridge_Ford
Akihiko Kondo, 35, who teaches at a middle school in Tokyo, married Hatsune Miku, a virtual hologram of a teenage girl, earlier this month, Reuters reports. The hologram, which takes the shape of a 16-year-old girl
with long, turquoise ponytails, "is a singing voice synthesizer featured
in over 100,000 songs,” according to Crypton Future Media, the company behind the digital character.
I remember Chalmers Johnson once describing to me his surprise on
discovering that, after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union
imploded, the whole global military structure that Washington had set
up -- which he later came to call “America’s empire of bases” or our
“globe-girdling Baseworld” -- chugged right on. It didn't matter that
there was no real enemy left on Planet Earth. It was, I believe, what
finally convinced Johnson that this country was indeed an empire. And
here’s the strange thing, though it goes remarkably unnoticed in our
world: that vast global structure of military garrisons, unprecedented
in history, ranging from some the size of American towns to small
outposts, has remained in place to this very second. Though little
attention has been paid in recent years -- despite the fact that it
couldn’t be a more prominent feature on this planet, geo-militarily
speaking -- there remain something like 800 American garrisons
worldwide (not counting, of course, the more than 420 military bases
located in the continental U.S., Guam, and Puerto Rico), as David Vine
reported in his path-breaking 2015 book, Base Nation.
There’s never been anything quite like it, not for the Roman Empire,
the British Empire, or the Soviet one either. And as TomDispatch
regular and U.S. Army Major Danny Sjursen reports today, with our
military now in the process of transforming the whole planet into an
even more militarized place, those bases will be all the more
relevant.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/
And a comment from Mr. Roboto!
Cheap conventional light-sweet crude oil peaked in early 2006, but it
doesn’t seem like it to an awful lot of people living in the “big
shitties of the FSA” (hat-tip to RE) because improvements in
extraction and refinement technology, tar-sands, and shale-oil
fracking are artificially extending the peak, albeit very tenuously.
However, the price we will pay for doing so will be a “toboggan-sled
ride” down once world terminal decline in liquid fossil-fuel
production hits, probably in 2021 or 2022. And the central-bank
printed-money force-feeding of the world financial economy has
resulted in steroidal inflation of the markets that will make the
crash that happens in ’21 or ’22 that much harder. After all, when you
prevent the self-rebalancing of a dynamic system by forcing even more
imbalance, the rebalancing will be that much more severe in its
effects when it finally does happen. So if the way things are right
now gives us the likes of Orban, Bolsonara, and Trump, I shudder to
imagine with whom the future I envision will gift us!
https://www.economic-undertow.com/2018/10/06/finance-crisis-political-crisis/#comments
Hello, my dears! How are you? Most of that nasty white stuff has melted away, but there's still some out there. Be careful. I almost fell on my dupa the other day. Winter has started early and that puts me in a bad mood.
The Packers' performance also put me into a bad mood. There's all this supposed talent on the team, yet they can't put together two consecutive wins. Aaron Rodgers should reimbirse the team for the time he didn't play. I would feel terribly guilty collecting all those millions while I sat at homr "healing." Trade Rodgers. He breaks too easily.
Here are the Irregular Football League's standings:
Omg, I've dropped two places while Mr. OrbsCorbs has gained two. At least I still have a playoff spot.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Hurray! Señor Zanza will be cooking the turkey. We have a very traditional meal. Afterward, Junior is cleaning up. Hurray! There's always a ton of leftovers, so let us know what your needs are. The food will be delicious.
Let's not lose sight of the real meaning of Thanksgiving. It's a day to give thanks. Give thanks no matter how embittered you are. Give thanks you live in the USA and not Africa. Give thanks for your clothing. For the roof over your head and the walls that keep out the weather. Give thanks that you can give thanks. In some countries, you'd be shut down.
The fires in California have taken hundreds of homes and people Be grateful that you don't live there.
The list is almost endless. We are blessed in this country, so very blessed.
I wish all of you the very best meal. Happy Thanksgiving!
I love you all. Enjoy what you can of the weather. School buses are out, so watch out for them and their passengers. The days will shorten until the winter solstice, then start to lengthen. Merry Christmas! _________________________ Please donate: paypal.me/jgmazelis If you don't like PayPal, send me a note at madamezoltar@jtirregulars.com and I'll send you my street address so you can send a check or money order. Thank you.
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, here we are, another Thanksgiving for crying out loud. Didn’t we just have one last year, what the fock? What more can I say, so stop me, or don’t, if you’ve heard this before that you shouldn’t expect much of an essay this week from me for your Thanksgiving-holiday needs, no sir. I don’t have time to self-importantly gasbag some kind of treacly tripe about what we all have to be thankful for. My personal Thankful List runs from A to A, with A being that I’m thankful I’m not serving hard time with no chance for parole.
Although I could be convinced to be thankful that our focking Packers still have a chance to win six, seven games total this season—eight is a little optimistic for my blood—but I do think they’re a lock for third place in their division, I kid you not.
So no essay ’cause I got to get to the store and pick up fixings for my Thanksgiving feast, for which I enjoy boiling up a nice ring baloney because I cannot eat turkey out of respect for our Founding Fathers who dang near made it our national bird for christ sakes—I’m guessing because of the turkey’s much ballyhooed beauty and intelligence, what the fock.
And I guess had they made that decision, we would now be basting and carving the traditional Thanksgiving eagle come the fourth Thursday each November. Well, maybe not necessarily the eagle, but whatever bird it would be (tufted titmouse?), it sure as hell wouldn’t be the turkey ’cause you just don’t cram a thermometer up the butt of the national bird, I don’t care who you are.
But if it were to be the eagle for Thanksgiving, you know what? I got a sneaking hunch that it doesn’t taste just like a chicken, no sir. In fact, I got a funny feeling that the eagle tastes just like a woman’s saddle shoe, size seven, shoelace included. And so I guess I could be thankful that the Founding Fathers failed to make the gobbler our nation’s fowl symbol for all that’s noble and strong about our country. Besides, the turkey carries enough symbolic weight as it is, witnessed by the fact that we elect so damn many of them to Congress every couple years.
Also no essay since it’s been my experience that regular readers aren’t up to navigating my little section of this here back page this time of year anyways on account of either being struck down by the dropsies from the too-much holiday feasting or they’re busy navigating their way out of county jail due to the aggravated battery charge acquired right before the pumpkin pie was served at the extended-family Thanksgiving get-together. Yeah, I know, sometimes the in-laws really do deserve what’s coming to them, civil ordinance be damned, what the fock.
But before I go, it’s a yearly tradition of mine to provide to those of you’s who indeed may read this page before trotting off to your holiday obligation, a little something you can take along and share at your gathering, so you don’t just show up empty-handed as the free-loading fockstick your relatives, friends and acquaintances have come to expect, if not dread. So if you’re too damn lazy or depressed to bring a dish to pass, a humorous story would be a nice alternative, ain’a? So a bunch of preachers are having a little ecumenical confab in the rectory of a Catholic priest. Just as they’re silently girding up to air out some of their differences, the good father offers each of them a whiskey to ease tensions, to clear the air of religious napalm, so to speak. “Don’t mind if I do, thanks,” says the Methodist vicar, who belts down a good three fingers of Wild Turkey. “And you?” asks the priest of the fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist Baptist Bible-thumper. “What?!?!!” shouts the born-againer, shocked to his core. “Drink alcohol?! I’d rather debauch in a whorehouse!” At this, the Methodist spits his whiskey back into the glass and hollers, “Whoa, Nellie! You mean we get a choice?” Ba-ding!
OK, “’nuff said,” ain’a, except to say that wherever you find yourself this Thanksgiving time of year, god speed and remember to fight the good fight, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
Let the parsing begin. Wishful thinking presented as fact by Wisconsin commerce types. Even Tommy Thompson says he'd have negotiated a better deal. Mt. Pleasant just signed on to the whole deal with no questions asked.
On a per-job basis it appears Wisconsin paid more in incentives for its economic development prize Foxconn Technology Group than New York’s and Virginia’s incentives for Amazon.com Inc., but those involved in Wisconsin’s Foxconn deal say the state will get more bang for taxpayers’ bucks.
Wisconsin’s state financial incentives to Foxconn will reach $3 billion if the company spends $10 billion on its Racine County plant and equipment and hires 13,000 employees at an average wage of $53,000-plus.
Initial reports on the Amazon HQ2 incentive packages showed $1.5 billion in incentives from New York and $573 million for northern Virginia. The company plans to hire 25,000 employees at each location with average annual salary of $150,000.
However, the total bundle for New York is $2.8 billion including both state funds and tax breaks from the city, according to the Washington Post. And the Virginia package reaches $1.85 billion when including promises of state investments in higher education and improving the transportation system, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC), points out that $1.35 billion of Wisconsin’s incentive package specifically ties to jobs Foxconn creates, while the rest is for construction. He compares it with job-creation incentives of about $1.7 billion each in New York and Virginia. Using those figures, Wisconsin is paying $103,00 per job while New York and Virginia each are paying about $68,000, Sheehy said.
“Wisconsin paid significantly more per job as an incentive,” he acknowledges.
On a per-job basis it appears Wisconsin paid more in incentives for its economic development prize Foxconn Technology Group than New York’s and Virginia’s incentives for Amazon.com Inc., but those involved in Wisconsin’s Foxconn deal say the state will get more bang for taxpayers’ bucks.
Sheehy also responded to the fact that while Foxconn agreed to pay an average annual salary of $53,875, Amazon says it will pay an average of $150,000 at its HQ2 sites. Sheehy believes the average Amazon employee will not receive that kind of salary and the figure is skewed by higher-paying positions in the $300,000 to $400,000 range.
On a per-job basis it appears Wisconsin paid more in incentives for its economic development prize Foxconn Technology Group than New York’s and Virginia’s incentives for Amazon.com Inc., but those involved in Wisconsin’s Foxconn deal say the state will get more bang for taxpayers’ bucks.Wisconsin’s state financial incentives to Foxconn will reach $3 billion if the company spends $10 billion on its Racine County plant and equipment and hires 13,000 employees at an average wage of $53,000-plus.Initial reports on the Amazon HQ2 incentive packages showed $1.5 billion in incentives from New York and $573 million for northern Virginia. The company plans to hire 25,000 employees at each location with average annual salary of $150,000.However, the total bundle for New York is $2.8 billion including both state funds and tax breaks from the city, according to the Washington Post. And the Virginia package reaches $1.85 billion when including promises of state investments in higher education and improving the transportation system, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC), points out that $1.35 billion of Wisconsin’s incentive package specifically ties to jobs Foxconn creates, while the rest is for construction. He compares it with job-creation incentives of about $1.7 billion each in New York and Virginia. Using those figures, Wisconsin is paying $103,00 per job while New York and Virginia each are paying about $68,000, Sheehy said.“Wisconsin paid significantly more per job as an incentive,” he acknowledges.
It would appear that Village President David DeGroot and his goose- stepping and unquestioning minions on the Board have been outfoxxed by the Walker/Trump inspired political theater aka Fox-Scam - if it even happens.
And there is no guarantee it will.....
Good luck to a reckless and unquestioning Village Board - except Gary Feest - while Village President David DeGroot takes Village Taxpayers on a ride to the "wild side"
One malfeasant crime after another - right? Village President David DeGroot?
Please join Cindy and I is JUST SAYING NO to allowing Wisconsin’s very own Gang of Four, Governor Scott Walker, Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave, City of Racine Mayor Cory Mason & MTP President David DeGroot to violate the Wisconsin Constitution (and their Oath of Office) by granting special rights to Corporate interests, stealing people’s property, destroying multi-generational Farms alongside an entire long established Community, loosening environmental protections, permitting heavy metals water pollution, instituting slave labor wages, providing taxpayer subsidies to multi-billionaire Corporations, and politician overreach.
Impoverishing the masses is merely conservation by other means.
Let the parsing begin. Wishful thinking presented as fact by Wisconsin commerce types. Even Tommy Thompson says he'd have negotiated a better deal. Mt. Pleasant just signed on to the whole deal with no questions asked.
I am concerned that a Business, located at 1661 Douglas Ave., known as Flatiron Village Mall, has a license from City of Racine to operate a Gambling Hall - a BINGO operation, yet has not paid the property taxes due since 2011, and is currently, according to Racine County records, $217,604.36 in arrears. In addition, the building, affiliated with the non-profit Northside Redevelopment Project Inc, is being allowed to blight the neighborhood, as proper maintenance has not been attended to.
Note that former County Supervisor Ken Lumpkin is the Chairman - from the referenced 2017 Form 990.
Why is a BINGO Hall allowed to evade paying their property taxes from 2011 to the present, thus forcing the cost on others, allow the property to deteriorate, and yet still retain a privileged business operating license?
Engaging in frank and honest discussions is always of utmost importance. Therefore, in case that the Foxconn Development does not produce the desired/claimed financial effects for SE WI - perhaps a Technocracy, guided by Artificial Intelligence, might produce the desired outcome.
M. King Hubbert - of Shell Oil and Peak Oil fame was a Technocrat. I made a pilgrimage to visit the Georgia Guidestones - to see for myself. I also traveled through the Appalachians and visited the beginning of the Appalachian Trail.
Technocracy INC.
We are a non-profit membership organization founded in 1933.
Our Mission is to serve local and global communities by providing an informational network in support of a functional and thriving planet. We will inform, educate, and empower the public toward new approaches to sustainable systems by modeling cooperative systems and incorporating scientific research and cumulative ideas.
The City of Racine doesn't need 5 in the Mayor's office - nor a County Executive and his costly staff - it just needs one AI computer which will be the most cost effective solution for all and free up monies for debt service and actual performed services which will benefit the entire Community.
The State of WI STILL continues to FAIL - as evidenced by the recent posts of Menzie Chinn who is Professor of Public Affairs and Economics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Please join Cindy and I is JUST SAYING NO to allowing Wisconsin’s very own Gang of Four, Governor Scott Walker, Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave, City of Racine Mayor Cory Mason & MTP President David DeGroot to violate the Wisconsin Constitution (and their Oath of Office) by granting special rights to Corporate interests, stealing people’s property, destroying multi-generational Farms alongside an entire long established Community, loosening environmental protections, permitting heavy metals water pollution, instituting slave labor wages, providing taxpayer subsidies to multi-billionaire Corporations, and politician overreach.
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