Wisconsin based Oshkosh truck build’s “Severe Duty” trucks. These include ambulances, fire trucks and military vehicles, among others. Driving around Washington, DC recently with the local NPR station (WETA 90.9/89.1FM) on the radio, I smiled as I heard that this portion of the program was sponsored by Oshkosh Truck Corporation. Someone, somewhere evidently felt that placing their name on the DC NPR station would generate good will and perhaps a few orders.
Category: Politics
Edwards Presidential Campaign Rolls into Milwaukee
John Edwards, running hard for 2008, spends time party building and raising money for State Democrats in Milwaukee Monday evening. Wispolitics has more. 5 x 7 glossy’s are available.
Trusting Big Tech Companies with Democracy?
David Horsey sticks it to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo for rolling over to Chinese censors.
Northwest Airlines’ Fortress Midwest Strategy
Susan Carey writes about Northwests’ “catering to travelers between small and midsize cities in the Upper Midwest. This “heartland” gambit aims to keep fares higher and discourage discounters from flying there. …. Going one big step further, Northwest also has been expanding aggressively with nonstop flights between nonhub cities, so that more passengers don’t have to make connections through one of its hubs when flying to some domestic cities.”
This strategy has manifested itself with 50 seat jet non-stop flights between Madison and Washington’s Reagan National Airport (though at inconvenient middle of the day times) and a variety of non-stops from cities like Milwaukee and Indianapolis to New York, Washington and other east coast destinations. This is also an attempt – futile, I think to kill Midwest Airlines.
Northwest is largely betting that flyers will put up with the small, uncomfortable jets in an effort to grow frequent flyer miles (the hidden secret here is that frequent flyer miles are growing more difficult to use by the day, unless you use a lot of them…..)
On a related note, the Boyd Group has written about the declining utility and economics of 50 seat jets for some time. They recently mentioned growing demand for 100 seat planes. I think, unfortunately, it will be difficult for Madison to grow service with 100 seat aircraft – I hope I’m wrong on this. Microjets will likely be one popular alternative in places like Madison.
Edwards in Wausau
Former Democratic VP Nominee John Edwards spoke to a number of David Obey’s supports at a Wausau Fund Raiser Sunday. WisPolitics’ J.S. Decker has more.
Schneier Disects the TSA’s “Trusted Traveler Program”
I’ve already written about what a bad idea trusted traveler programs are. The basic security intuition is that when you create two paths through security — an easy path and a hard path — you invite the bad guys to take the easy path. So the security of the sort process must make up for the security lost in the sorting. Trusted traveler fails this test; there are so many ways for the terrorists to get trusted traveler cards that the system makes it too easy for them to avoid the hard path through security.
The Tax Mess: Sticking It To Us. Presidio Fires Back
Lynnley Browning sort of misses the point of Presidio’s lawsuit against the US Government. Browning focuses on the personalities, rather than the larger constitutional question.
Presidio’s suit is an attempt to test how the tax code’s ambiguities and complexity stand up in a federal court.
It’s easy to find zero sympathy for the wealthy, however, recent tax law changes, including large corporate giveaways supported by our “populist” US Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl demonstrate the problems (and opportunities) that our tax law spaghetti creates.
Growing tax code complexity simply means more opportunities for the wealthy and growing hassle for the rest of us….. Disclosure: One of Presidio’s principals is a good friend of mine.
UPDATE: Andrew Ross Sorkin takes an interesting look at a Wall Street case that NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer lost. Sorkin digs up quite a quote from a juror:
The jury was split 11 to 1 – with all but one juror prepared to acquit Mr. Sihpol of all charges. The lone juror told reporters that she was convinced of Mr. Sihpol’s guilt because she just could not believe the government would bring a case if there wasn’t something to it.
Having said all that, if Presidio did break the law, then they will deal with the consequences. It’s difficult for me, a laymen, to understand all the nuances of our tax system. Time to start over, I think.
Wisconsin Tinkers with the Minimum Wage
Wisconsin this week became the latest state to raise its minimum wage. Wisconsin employers must pay at least $5.70 an hour through June 2006, when the minimum wage rises again to $6.50 an hour. The Federal Minimum wage is $5.15. Fool economics contributor Charlie Wheelan talks about the economics of the minimum wage.
Washington Flees from a Flea – Lind
Two weeks ago, a small, single-engine plane inadvertently strayed into the closed air space above Washington. The result was panic. Both the White House and the Capitol were evacuated, with police shouting “Run! Run!” at fleeing staffers and visitors. Senators and Congressmen abandoned in haste the floors of their respective Houses. Various RIPs (Really Important People) were escorted to their Fuehrerbunkers. F-16s came close to shooting the Cessna down.
Schneier on Touch Screen Voting
Supporters of touch-screen voting claim it is a highly reliable voting technology, while a growing number of critics argue that paperless electronic voting systems are vulnerable to fraud. In this paper we use county-level data on voting technologies in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections to test whether voting technology affects electoral outcomes. We first show that there is a positive correlation between use of touch-screen voting and the level of electoral support for George Bush. This is true in models that compare the 2000-2004 changes in vote shares between adopting and non-adopting counties within a state, after controlling for income, demographic composition, and other factors. Although small, the effect could have been large enough to influence the final results in some closely contested states.