Paul Tittl's Little Shop of Horrors

Why Paul Tittl's business model is bad for Wisconsin.

Freshman Assemblyman Paul Tittl is a pleasant enough personable guy.  He has to be in the tough small retail business he has made a hardscrable living at for a couple of decades now.  He sells sewing machines and vacuum cleaners in an ancient general store in downtown Manitowoc.  You don't survive in small retail unless you develop some skills.  He is a fast talker who can reel off the virtues of the latest Hoover and leave you convinced that you got a pretty good deal.  He can never compete with the big retail stores like Wal-Mart that sell the same basic product  and if he can't sell it to you he will fix the big box unit when it breaks.  He takes what he can get.




His experience in his shop have trained him well for fiscal conservativism.  The notion of investment and growth has never occurred to him.  Instead, his spending is trimmed to what ever business walks in the less than inviting door.   The lack of investment shows.  Hard times or good, the spending determines profits or loss.  Never what lack of spending does to sales.  Never what lack of sales does to profits.   Success is defined as lack of failure.   He has not failed but has failed to thrive.

Paul Tittl's Vacuum and Sewing Center customer base is essentially women.  While this may rankle feminists who do not want to hear any statements tying women to domesticity.  Sewing is a gender dominated activity and while house cleaning may be a more level playing field these days (I do the vacuuming in our house) significantly more vacuum purchases are made by women than men.  Retailers ignore gender at their own peril.

And then of course, there are the politics.  With abortion and guns at the top of the list and the shop often doubling for Republican HQ, inhabited by a collection of gruff TEA Party men even a more moderate male customer would rather avoid.

A self fulfilling anti-customer agenda

Any politics can be bad for business but his support for so called "personhood" amendment and the much hated "ultra-sound" legislation are seen by many as anti-woman, a customer class a sewing shop cannot afford to alienate.  Certainly  there are conservative women.  But successful businesses spend a great deal of time trying to attract customers and avoid controversy and alienation of their key demographic.  You will never see Fleet Farm supporting PETA.

But, Paul cannot see the customers he does not have so the dire nature of the economy is confirmed.  If customers do not come into the shop it must be because of the government and high taxes. Tight spending is validated.  The downward spiral is business as usual.  He is a survivor of hard times of his own making.

Tittl's shop is the perfect metaphor for the Walker economy.  Its just scraping by which means it has to be working because it hasn't crashed yet.  In reality,  our economy has lagged since Walker took over.  Just like Tittl and his shop Walker believes in his own mistakes and uses the outcomes to validate them.  Just like Paul, Scott fails to acknowledge the commerce that could have been.

But in Tittl's case perhaps the shop is not his first priority?  In a past Legislative run he adopted the slogan "Your full time Representative"  expressly promising to close his shop if elected.  While he has back tracked on this more recently he still used the slogan in the 2012 race.  It is in fact the only full time job with benefits Paul has ever held.  With now frequent absences of the shop's key man the future of the shop will be interesting to watch.  Fifty thousand plus retirement and benefits can look like easy money to a guy used to just scraping by and the office space is maintained a little better.

Campaign promise to close his shop still deployed in 2012

Jim Brey's Fun House!

Because Jim Brey is just a funny guy!

The voters always love a good stunt.

Keeping his energy up.

Looming large!

Making a good impression in Chilton.

Dressing for success at the Valders Parade.

But sometimes Jim Doesn't seem so funny.

Sometimes he doesn't seem so funny.

"I have said all along that there were parts of Act 10 that were necessary for the long term stability of not only the State but local municipalities and school districts as well.  Most will agree with me that public sector employees needed to pay more for their health insurance and contribute to their retirement.  I think the employees affected by this also realized this.  Many of them have also told me so."
                        Jim Brey... on his campaign website.

Are we having fun yet?

Winds of Change Blow in Kewaunee County

The following is my letter to the editor published this week in the Herald Times Reporter:

The location with two miles of lake frontage
and 600 acres of mostly undeveloped land
makes it an ideal location for a dual on and off
shore wind farm.

This week Dominion shut down their forty year old reactor at Kewaunee. It will mean the loss of 650 jobs which will impact not just that town and Algoma but Manitowoc as well. In the 1950s it was promised that nuclear power would become so cheap that it wouldn't pay to send a monthly bill. Built at a time when that promise was already being questioned, in the end the irony of the plant's demise was that it was simply too expensive to operate.

Proponents of nuclear power point correctly to the short term environmental advantage of producing no green house gasses. And, new gas “fracking” which helped put the plant under has some extremely worrisome local effects well beyond the release of massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Economically Wisconsin produces no gas so the money will be sent out of state to pay for it.

Despite all this an extraordinary opportunity stands before us if we have the vision to see it. The Kewaunee site consists of 600 acres of mostly undeveloped land with two miles of Lake Michigan shore line. It is perhaps the best location for a wind farm anywhere in the state. The power lines still stand waiting to transmit electricity into the grid and its relative isolation (not to mention contamination) make it unlikely to raise much opposition or competition for other uses. While it's true that even a large wind farm would not replace all 650 jobs, it can replace some as well as some of the lost property taxes.

The Blue Sky Green Field wind farm in Fond du Lac County

Wind produces no harmful gasses or long term toxic waste. It can and will produce competitive energy, jobs and revenue for decades to come. But the opportunity is now before it slips away making the losses permanent.

See HTR page here:

UPDATE:
On May 16th the HTR printed a rebuttal from Jerome Hlinak - long time wind NIMBY and conspiracy theorist.  He wrote ... 

Letter: Wind turbines are not welcomed

"Bernard Starzewski’s letter to the editor on May 9 is clear indication of someone who believes in “We the Government” instead of “We the People” as written in the Constitution. Nowhere in the letter does he mention residents of the town of Carlton in Kewaunee County, where the nuclear plant is located, should have a say in what should happen after the decommissioning. Instead Mr. Starzewski pushes his pro-wind propaganda without facts backing his statements.
He claims the wind turbines can and will produce competitive energy, jobs and revenue for decades. He also claims it will not likely raise much opposition or competition for other uses. In fact, wind energy is subsided around $23 per Megawatt (MW) compared to 25 cents per MW for nuclear. Any revenue and job income is nothing but a tax burden and electrical utility rate increased expense. The global warming issue supported by pro-wind was not mentioned, as no one could defend that argument this year.
If Mr. Starzewski were to drive in the town of Carlton area he would see posted signs opposing wind turbine development. The majority of the 900 acres he would destroy are, and have been, rented to local farmers for cropping purposes. Agriculture is the backbone of our state economy. Due to the fact that there are high line transmission lines crossing various directions, it would be very limited where turbines could be placed, unless you disregard the engineering standards on debris thrown from blades.
Mr. Starzewski should attend a meeting at the town of Glenmore, Shirley Wind Project, where he can educate the people as a self-proclaimed expert from Manitowoc, with no life experience on wind energy. After he educates that crowd, I welcome him to Carlton. 

Jerome Hlinak
Tisch Mills

See letter here

 In response to Mr. Jerome Hlinak's accusation of distorted facts regarding wind power in the conversion of the Kewaunee plant site I offer the following rebuttal.

His own figures are grossly distorted. There is no direct subsidy for wind tower operation. The tax credits used to encourage their construction are largely accelerated depreciation which will be recovered over time. In fact they closely mirror oil and gas exploration credits. Because these are tax credits and not outright subsidies there is in fact no “burden” on taxpayers as he claims. And, Federal tax credits do not apply to local property taxes which would go a long way in replacing the lost revenue from the nuclear plant. Neither does it apply to payroll taxes or the property taxes their employees would pay.

This winter while Mr. Hlinak was busy promoting yet another wind moratorium to the county board in the same session the Town of Carlton also submitted a resolution to the board requesting help from Legislators in bearing the cost of services to the nuclear waste site located there, an all too real burden he chooses to ignore. Fortunately, the County Board voted overwhelmingly to support the Town of Carlton and not Mr. Hlinak.

His claims about the destruction of farming are false on their face. Anyone taking a trip through the Blue Sky Green Field at Malone where I have many friends and family will see farming and wind power living side by side with no apparent conflicts. Finally, contrary to Mr. Hlinak's bizarre conspiracy theories, no one is sick, their pockets are a little fuller and their taxes a little lower. That is all the “real life experience” I or anyone needs including Mr. Hlinak.

Editor's note:
Accelerated depreciation uses an 8 year schedule instead of the usual 30 allowing the normal investment deductions to be taken faster making it more attractive to investors.
Over the same 30 years the taxes paid by any tower will be the same.
During that time and from the first day, the units will pay the same rate of property taxes as everyone else.
The tax revenue from wind farms that are never built is ZERO.

WEDC - Voucher School of Crony Capitalism

When I made the presentation of the first Manitowoc Dems Proxmire Golden Fleece Award I thought we had heard everything about the WEDC and that perhaps at least some steps would have been taken to staunch the bleeding.  But in the Walker administration presentation is everything and delivery is for schmucks.  The stories of confusion, incompetence and malfeasance just keep piling on.

Last week we heard that the new CEO lasted exactly one day after first accepting the job and then reneging taking the CEO position at his former employer instead leaving most to believe he was never serious and was probably using the Walker

people as a stalking horse to get the real job of his dreams.

This week we learn that the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has flunked the fledgling pseudo agency for a phalanx of gross mismanagement of public funds.  Their list of sins is long.
They....

• Had no policies in place to handle delinquent loans
• Ignored State Statutes for financial verification of recipients.
• Gave loans and tax credits to companies for ineligible projects, recipients and projects.
• Exceeded set limits for awards.
• Handed out awards for job creation when the jobs had already been filled prior to execution of the contract.
• Sent awards to companies for investments without any verification of the incurred expense.
• Used public funds for things like alcohol and Badgers season tickets.

In short is has been little more than a cash pipeline for the well connected.
See report highlights here:  http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lab/reports/13-7highlights.htm

But why is this any surprise?  Walker is noted for passing the loot to close cronies simply because they asked for it.  As Milwaukee County Executive he simply handed over their Purple Hearts fund to another crony Tim Russell who looted it for his own political and pleasure purposes and is now serving a stiff prison sentence.

The WEDC has become the voucher school of crony capitalism, funded by taxpayers, entirely unaccountable with no evidence of success.

Like voucher schools much was promised but we have not seen it in practice.  The Republican propaganda machine has achieved a great deal of electoral success in simply making wild claims of opportunities with little or nothing to back it up.  But in the absence of success after the election that can only last so long.  When the failures begin to pile up people learn and a well educated public even from the school of hard knocks is much harder to be sold on the same bill of goods again.  It is up to us, those who already learned those lessons to drive them home.  No outsourced agency is going to take up that curriculum for us.  The real vouchers are redeemed in the voting booth.

==================================================================

Current WEDC corporate logo

A more appropriate logo

The logo of the organization is a silhouette of Wisconsin inside a circle with the word "in" imprinted in the middle.
I have no bloody idea what this means!

I suggest that we expand that logo to "in like Flynn".  For the younger readers out there this is a reference to the actor Errol Flynn - star of swashbuckle movies like Robin Hood and Captain Blood back in the
40's who had a reputation to be able to bed any starlet he chose at will and was even accused of molesting a girl scout.

Errol Flynn

The Republican penchant for raiding the state's coffers has no less libido that Flynn's when it comes to money and how to get it for themselves and their friends.

Environmental Astro-turf - Strange Bedfellows of the Right

Last February I submitted the following letter to the editor of the Herald Time Reporter documenting the strange relationship between right wing industrialist Sheldon Lubar and the environmental movement who in some ways were duped into engaging in a competitive war ultimately seeking to benefit Lubar's business the Lake Express.
See htr article here:

What I didnt know at the time was that Lubar is an even bigger hypocrite than even I expected.
It seems that Lubar is heavily involved in the oil and gas industry and recently attempted to drill in a Michigan State Forest!

Sheldon Lubar (NASDAQ:HNRG)  owns a 45% equity interest in Savoy Energy, L.P., a private oil and gas company ...

Federal Judge Blocks Oil Drilling in Michigan Forest

Published July 14, 2008

Associated Press

A federal judge has overturned a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to allow oil and gas drilling near a forest and a river in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula.

U.S. District Judge David Lawson of Detroit ruled Thursday the agency had acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in 2005 by giving Savoy Energy LP of Traverse City a permit to drill an exploratory well near the Au Sable River's south branch.

The proposed wellhead would be located in the Huron-Manistee National Forest about three-tenths of a mile from the Mason Tract, a 4,679-acre wilderness area prized by anglers and other outdoor recreationists.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,381254,00.html#ixzz2Ol108OwP

Feb 27, 2013 htrnews.com Letter to th editor.

During last year’s Assembly primary I attempted to raise the alarm over political meddling in the fortunes of Lake Michigan Carferry’s Badger. LMC’s application for a stimulus grant had already been shot down. So was its designation as an historical landmark. The EPA’s exemption for coal ash dumping was ending.Why? Now, a pending issue of Outer Boundary Magazine brings it to light. Lake Express owner Sheldon Lubar has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbyists feigning environmental concerns while also blocking sensible government aid that could have corrected it in order to gain a monopoly on lake crossing services.From the article: “The SS Badger is a competitive threat to Lake Express and launching an expensive environmental campaign is a great way to eliminate competition without looking like an angry toddler, upset with someone else playing in the sandbox.”  Through it all freshman state Rep. Paul Tittl has ignored it. He touts his support for our crumbling transportation system by supporting a $6 billion road budget even while breaking his pledge not to raise fees or taxes. The Manitowoc to Ludington route has long been designated an extension of Highway 10, yet there is not a dime for the Badger.  
Republicans like Tittl call that “picking the winners.” This week while waiting to hear its fate LMC has optimistically announced its spring schedule, starting two weeks early in order to haul Manitowoc made wind towers to Michigan. At the same time Tittl has introduced a bill that proposes to reclassify nuclear power as renewable energy, effectively negating wind development in the state.
What district does Paul Tittl represent? The winners he has picked appear to live somewhere else. Without legislative support there is only one winner and that’s Sheldon Lubar of Milwaukee, the same place Tittl’s new taxes will be spent.

The Golden Fleecing of Wisconsin

The late Senator William Proxmire was famous for presenting his "Golden Fleece" awards to government agencies guilty of waste fraud and abuse.  The Manitowoc Democratic Party has long held their fundraiser dinner in honor of Proxmire and so it seems entirely natural that this year we decided to reinstate the award.  I was particularly honored to present the first award!

The following are my notes for the presentation.

See full video here!

• Where did the WEDC come from? The Republican legislature is always loath to levy new taxes so taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another has become a fine art!
• The WEDC has a special herritage within this state and a connection to our fine Wisconsin environment. Under AB-35 WEDC's initial funding was “converted” from the State's RECYCLING FUND and derives its primary funding from THE RECYCLING SURCHARGE which was RENAMED the ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SURCHARGE!
• Yes, you heard that right! The State's newest quasi private agency was quite literally built on a pile of garbage!
• We all know that a private entity can never lose money right?
• creating a private agency to hand out cash to questionable start ups would be a FOOL PROOF plan!
• Walker appointed as its head former Green Bay Mayor Paul Jadin because who knows more on running a private company than a man with a degree in political science and never held a job in the private sector? These things run themselves, right?
• Jadin was the obvious choice.
• After all, all of Walker's other top picks were already facing felony charges.
• Time for some new blood!
• Accompishments of Mr. Jadin
• Offering special tax breaks to Skyward Software of Stevens Point IF Skyward won their bid on school software.
• Too bad that's illegal huh?
• Side note: Skyward lost that bid to a Minnesota company and is now threatening to leave the state! How's that for economic development?
• On being notified that the WEDC had lost track of $8 million in loans Governor Walker called for a full investigation and radical changes!
• Wait! I thought the WEDC was radical change??????
• The investigation showed that the number was actually $69 MILLION! (Daoh!)
• But where one door closes somebody jumps out of a window!
• In evidence of a true meritocracy Mr. Jadin has now moved on to the Madison Chamber of Commerce economic development organization known as ---- THRIVE!
• And he landed on his feet!
• He has gotten a very substantial raise from his state salary of $120,000.
• OH... those poor people..... :(
• 
  
• Having run out of cash the Republicans proposed that the state invest another $200 million in new funds because if a little is good, A LOT is better!
• That 200 MIL was to be “borrowed” from THE STATE EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT FUND!
• A ground floor investment opportunity in misplaced loans!
• With garbage for collateral!
• Nobody runs out of garbage!
• Especially not the Republicans!
• Why.... It could make up for Act 10!
• Somebody tell Leehman Brothers!
• Daoh!
• When asked why the retirement fund – new CEO Reed Hall said “I THINK WE NEED TO RESESABLISH OUR CREDIBILITY...”
• I guess the Milwaukee County Veterans fund was all tapped out, huh?
• Daoh!
• Then..... Republicans planned to continue the agency's environmental legacy by dumpster diving for 40% of the anticipated Penokee mine revenues.
• Whenever that happens...
• (yeah sure... right!)
• However, it seems they decided it would be about as valuable as taking it out into the middle of Lake Superior and dump it there because that idea has been trashed too.
• With a little luck maybe some day we can just recycle the whole idea.

Time to take out the trash!

Dan Ariens - charter WEDC board member now appointed CEO
Yeah, that'll fix it!  :P

Its Still About The Biology

You cant fool mother nature.  Biology and doing herd counts still matter despite Dr. Deer telling us that opinion matters more.  Opinion still needs to be based on facts and science is the only way to obtain them.

Here are some notes I made after listening to the DNR presentation on the deer herd at Reedsville Sportsman's Club this week.

The notion that wolves live in Manitowoc County was pretty much debunked. While the biologist said that there is probably "not a county in the state that has not had a lone wolf passing through..." No wolf packs have been established outside of the northern range. The "northern range" was defined as north of highway 64.

In discussing deer ability to regenerate he said that deer in the southern range can explode their population by 70% in a single season.  Keawaunee County was sited in particular.  In northern ranges its more like 40%. Fawn mortality studies show that while about 38% die in their first year in the south in northern ranges as many as 70% are killed or die from starvation and such. Much of it has to do with harsher winters as well as predation but state wide coyotes remain the #1 predator state wide largely debunking the idea that wolves are decimating the herd. In the north the deer herd is in decline because the forests are maturing again after the total clear cutting of the northern forests in the 19th and 20th centuries. Deer do very well in young forests but not so well in mature woods where there is less cover and forage. (I see this in my own woods) Its also interesting that this was mentioned in the Krohl report which seemed to advocate increasing cutting of timber as a deer management tool. Never mind that the Krohl supporters have considerable backing from the Kochs who happen to own paper interests like Georgia Pacific. The herd in the south is by far the more numerous which is the total reverse of a century ago.  Farming practices that keep the land open and food available along with less severe winters were sited. 

The second thing that jumped out was that much of the recent count study has been funded by a windfall in revenue owing to the 11% excise tax on firearm sales because after Obama's election gun sales jumped yielding over 2 MILLION in wildlife conservation funding. The tax was put in place over 100 years ago by sportsman to fund such things which lead to the formation of the DNR and the ultimate resurgence of the deer herd in this state. The speaker smilingly speculated on a second windfall with all the new guns sales springing from the Newtown and other shootings.

 While the Krohl report discounts the value of deer herd counts a lot of count data was presented that showed why a lot of deer hunters might be convinced that there arent any deer. I.e. deer tend to localize. In one county example a helicopter count in a 1 mile grid of an entire county showed that in any given mile you could have as many as 146 deer while a bordering grid point could have none at all!  Yet the Krohl report says that opinion should trump counting in deciding deer policy.
Go figure!

What it all comes down to is that its still about the biology and opinion matters not at all.  However, if this forces hunters to consider the biology instead of making rash claims about how there "aint no deer" then maybe some good will come out of this in the end.

You still can't fool mother nature.