Thomas Content takes a look at Wisconsin regulated utility CEO compensation.
Las Vegas Centenary – in Pictures
The BBC commemorates Las Vegas Centenary, in pictures.
Local Tech Firm Sonic Foundry’s Annual Meeting
Andrew Wallmeyer summarizes Sonic Foundry’s current state of affairs and provides a useful bit of history in terms of their stock mania and subsequent losses. The tech business can be brutal. We’ll see how SF navigates these waters.
“When you look at the number of tech companies that didn’t make it when the bubble burst, it’s truly amazing that this company was able to get it under control and survive that period,” he said. “The carnage was so absolute.”
If some of this smacks of boosterism, that’s because it is. Aside from their personal financial interest, many of the stockholders at the meeting said they root for Sonic Foundry because they want to see a local company succeed.
“I’ve been up and I’ve been down with the company,” said Hughes, who once watched his Sonic Foundry holdings fall from $100,000 to $1,000. “But it’s nice to be in a Madison company, being from Madison.”
Income Movements Out of Southeastern Wisconsin
Paul Gores takes an interesting look at income flows from Southeast Wisconsin – via a new Public Policy Forum report. Essentially people who leave make more than people moving in. In addition: “Every county is southeastern Wisconsin loses more income to Madison’s Dane County than it gains from Dane County”.
Vienna VR Scenes
Peter Winkler has posted some great VR scenes from Vienna.
A Good Sign for Madison’s Culinary Scene – Odessa Sightings
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L’etoile Restaurant, has been seen on recent Saturday Mornings (Farmer’s Market) at the Cafe. I told here that I thought she was moving on. She mentioned that she would be cooking more often, which, I think, is good for Madison. |
GM’s Troubles Ripple Locally: Tower Automotive
Thomas Content discusses Milwaukee auto parts supplier Tower Automotive’s ongoing layoffs. Tower will have less than 200 employeees next week. Tower supplies steel car and truck frames to the domestic auto manufacturers. Content’s article arrives the same week as GM’s announcement that they were talking with Toyota about hybrid components. Sadly, these increasingly popular parts will likely come from Toyota’s network, rather than domestic sources…
Stifling Creativity
Eugene Zinovyev (A UC Berkeley undergrad):
Today, entertainment lobby groups are consciously trying to prevent technological and creative progress in the United States.
Late in March, Ted Olson, the former solicitor general under the current President Bush and counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America, wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal arguing against peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, likening them to services that allow users to exploit others’ property illegally with no legal repercussion. Yet, the analogy between his scenario and the sharing of music and movies is deeply flawed, because digital movies and songs are not property in the same sense that a car or a pair of shoes are.
Lind: 17th Century Spain = 21st Century USA?
When people ask me what to read to find an historical parallel with America’s situation today, I usually recommend J. H. Elliott’s splendid history of Spain in the first half of the 17th century, The Count-Duke of Olivares: A Statesman in an Age of Decline. One of the features of the Spanish court in that period was its increasing disconnection with reality. At one point, Spain was trying to establish a Baltic fleet while the Dutch navy controlled the Straits of Gibraltar.
UW’s John Webster’s Taser Study
UW Professor John Webster dropped an adviser tied to the Taser Company from his proposed taser experiment on pigs after USA Today revealed that the adviser was a paid consultant for the company that makes the stun guns. Google News