2008 Wisconsin Public Records Audit: 3 in 10 public-records requests not properly fulfilled,new study finds

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Bill Lueders & Jason Shephard:

A statewide public records audit found that one in 10 requests for basic documents were denied or ignored by local governments.


Another two in 10 requests were fulfilled only after records custodians required the requesters to identify themselves or explain why they wanted the documents, in violation of state law.


The audit, conducted by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, involved 318 public records requests filed in 65 counties.


“We were not trying to trick anyone,” says Bill Lueders, the Council’s elected president and news editor of Isthmus newspaper. “We asked for basic information that no one should have any problems getting. And yet there were problems.”

Pabst Theater Slideshow

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Photo by Jack Orton

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

It’s a Friday night in Milwaukee, and a crowd of young men in jackets, jeans and boots is beginning to assemble outside the Riverside Theater, the old vaudeville hall and movie theater transformed into a modern music shrine.


Behind the locked doors, inside the grand lobby, the ticket takers, ushers and bartenders go through their final countdown, making sure the jumbo-size $6 bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale are on ice, the floors are swept, the cash registers are ready.



Eight floors above the lobby, members of the rock band My Morning Jacket sit down to eat dinner in a warm, inviting room that is done up in shades of gray, with banquet tables covered in white linen and a Mortal Kombat II arcade game stashed in a corner. A waitress serves food from a buffet table overladen with meats, vegetables, salads and sweets. Some of the band members and crew cut into slabs of prime rib the size of Frisbees. Others pick at salads.



Amid the calm before a rock ‘n’ roll storm sits Gary Witt, a 49-year-old with a shaved head, trimmed mustache and goatee. He dresses casually in jeans and work shirt.

Has the Fed Mortgaged Its Own Future?

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Jack Willoughby:

The Fed’s highly leveraged balance sheet will make it hard to fight inflation.


IF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK WERE A COMMERCIAL LENDER, it would be a candidate for receivership, based on its capital ratios. Bank examiners generally view any lender with a ratio below 2% to be dangerously undercapitalized. The Fed’s current capital ratio, or capital as a percentage of assets, is 1.9%.



The Fed has provided so many loans and emergency credits — to banks, brokers, money funds and foreign countries — that its balance sheet, viewed one way, is as leveraged as any hedge fund’s: Its consolidated assets amount to 53 times capital. Only 11 months ago, its leverage on this basis was a more modest 25 times, and its capital ratio 4%. A caveat: Many of the loans are self-liquidating facilities that will disappear in a few months if the financial crisis eases.


Although the Fed’s role as a central bank is much different from the role of a private-sector operation, the drastic changes in the size and shape of its balance sheet worry even some long-time Fed officials. Its consolidated assets have swelled to $2.2 trillion from $915 billion in about 11 months, and contain at least a half-dozen items that weren’t there before. Some, like a loan to backstop the purchase of a brokerage, Bear Stearns, are unprecedented. (See table for highlights.)

Oregon Gears Up For Chinese Auto Imports

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Bertel Schmitt:

Last week, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski clinched a deal to bring Nissan’s pure-electric cars to his state. Then, he went on to Shenzen, China. “At BYD Auto Co., China’s fast-growing automotive star, a plug-in electric hybrid sedan is just weeks from meeting millions of Chinese consumers” writes the Oregonian. “The F3DM, which runs up to 80 miles on a single charge and packs a 7-gallon tank, will probably launch in the United States by 2010.” The Governor wants it to be built in Oregon. On Friday, he met with BYD President Wang Chuanfu. On a 10-day business trip through Asia, Kulongoski had laid out his vision to automakers in Japan and China: Electric charging stations every 60 miles along interstates. Tax incentives for Oregonians to buy electric cars. Tax bonuses for drivers to build car chargers in their garages. And, unspoken, but you can bet on it: generous incentives for those who bring their factories to Oregon. Then, Kulongoski has guanxi, connections, indispensable for a successful Chinese deal…

Time to look at bonds but keep an eye on our heroes

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Hugh Hendry:

Someone once said there are certain things that cannot be adequately explained to a virgin, either by words or pictures. It is therefore with some trepidation that I attempt to outline our investment policy. We are bullish on agriculture and bearish on the financial community. For 10 years we have contended that equity markets can, and do, stagnate for periods as long as a quarter of a century. Accordingly, we have refused to follow the market, choosing instead to invest in unleveraged sectors which have endured long bear markets.


However, there are complicating cycle considerations. A process of debt liquidation is under way that resembles a turning point heralding weaker global growth. This undermines almost all risk taking, including agriculture, and for this reason we presently favour only government bonds.


According to Prada: “There is a rejection of fakeness – the fake avant-garde.” And the inflation scare that took the price of oil to almost $150 per barrel, and created a hawkish central banking community, was perhaps the biggest head-fake of all. Certainly, the market for 10-year government bonds is beginning to think so. It is trading near a record high.



And today, even those regional Fed governors and hawkish European central bankers seem to see it as well. As I say, this is the time to own government bonds. But we are aware of just how out of sync we are with our heroes. Can the combined intellectual weight of Mark Faber, George Soros and James Grant all be wrong? Why do they insist on shorting Treasuries during the worst financial crisis since the Depression? I blame the Romans.

Memorandum to US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson

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Michael Lewis:

A former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. does not mingle with boat dealers; he mingles with investment bankers; and the first rule, before handing out taxpayer money, is to have mingled with the people you want to hand it to.(That way they know whom they owe). I admire your ability to recognize your “circle of competence” and live within it.

Still, I do feel that in me, and my little literary business, there is opportunity for you, and your $700 billion. Allow me to explain why.

Be Fair

1) By giving the money to me, instead of someone less deserving, you will make the world a fairer place.

As much as I admire all of your decisions I can’t help but notice that the main qualification of the bankers to whom you have been giving money, so that they might make smart loans, is that they have gone almost bankrupt by making stupid loans.

As your mind is subtle, I can only assume that you secretly believe that the American economy right now needs not smart loans, but more stupid ones — and thus that you have targeted the bankers who have proven they can make them.

I, unfortunately, have not flirted with bankruptcy, or made any stupid loans. But here’s my point: I haven’t been given the chance! Allow me to prove my financial ineptitude to you. I swear to you that when I return for my second round of assistance I will have proven myself fully qualified to receive it.

You’ll fit right in being poor in Berlin

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Brittani Sonnenberg:

If you show up in Berlin strapped for cash, you’re in good company. The German capital’s sizable student population, high unemployment rate and swelling starving artist contingent makes penny-pinching a citywide obsession.


This is, after all, the city that has not only been dubbed one of the hippest in Europe because of its raging nightlife, plethora of museums, independent art galleries and concert spaces, but it’s also known for being wracked with debt. So much so that in 2003, Mayor Klaus Wowereit lent it the accidental slogan: “We’re poor, but sexy.”