That is, of course, unless the dealer is showing a face card. There seem to be four, and as far as I can tell only four, newsworthy stories in the Commonwealth these days: the Patriot’s spy scandal, ’78 redux, higher tolls and gas taxes, and (can’t you just hear the incessant tingling of the slot machines) casino gambling. In the spirit of the press’ focus, we have devoted the entire Mass Media list on the homepage today to coverage of the Governor’s casino proposal, including editorial reaction from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Springfield Republican and South Coast Today. Tomorrow’s focus will be tolls and gas taxes. In the interim, if the dealer’s showing a 6 and you’re sitting on […]

The Boston Globe led today with Property tax bills soar as services fall. According to the story’s author, Matt Carroll, the average annual property tax bill for a single-family home in Massachusetts has climbed 50% in just the last seven years. To make it worse, the increases are not used to expand services, but go instead toward fixed costs – pension and other post-employment benefits for retired and retiring public workers, particularly healthcare, whose costs are quickly escalating beyond the ability of cities and towns to pay for them. Is it any wonder that voters, already facing such large increases on their tax bills, are casting an increasingly jaundiced eye on Prop 2 1/2 overrides? (See my post on Dartmouth’s […]

We’re always gratified when our work appears on Blue Mass Group. So, of course we read with interest today’s post comparing our report on the Longfellow Bridge with an article on infrastructure maintenance recently published in The New Republic. It was, however, not the post itself, but, rather, the comment string that caught my attention (and, I should say, the attention of my colleauges). The first comment reads, in part: We should demonstrate our commitment to rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure by fixing the Longfellow bridge ourselves. Wouldn’t that be cool of we spent some of the money we raise to fixing the brdge. We could make a picnic out of it and start working like busy little bees to fix […]

In our continuing effort to bring more and more information to you, our online readers, we have just unveiled our new home page. New features include Mass Media – links to articles of note in local media outlets, both those that reference Pioneer and those that do not (We are aware, sometimes painfully, that it is not a Pioneercentric universe.); direct links to our research centers, including their snazzy new logos; and our rotating quotes feature – each time you return to the home page you should see a different quote from such disparate sources as Frederick Douglass, F.A. Hayek and the Massachusetts Constitution. And, if you’ve been to our website recently, you may have noticed the donate button, not […]

To those of you in the blogosphere who miss the witty and sometimes irreverent posts of our research director, Steve Poftak: Steve has been blog-silent for good reason. He and his wife are celebrating the birth of their second child. All of us at Pioneer wish Steve and his family the best, even as we miss his wit and banter around the office.

As winter turns to spring, or the day of it, anyway, we can expect before summer arrives, I would like to turn my attention to nature. The winter moth was introduced to North America from Europe and has now spread over much of the northeastern United States and Canada. Like the gypsy moth, the winter moth loves to eat trees, but not just shade trees. No, the winter moth likes fruit too, particularly, I understand, apples and crabapples. Now this may not seem like all that big a deal. Unless, of course, you own or work in an orchard and depend on apples for your living. I suppose then it would be a very big deal. The reason I bring […]