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Start-Ups Needed. Desperately.
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakMassachusetts has had some good short term news, creating jobs at a faster clip than the rest of the country. (Although, given the weak manufacturing data and general market weakness, I’d be concerned about popping the corks prematurely.) But our state has a long-term problem. Massachusetts takes a long time to recover from recessions — It also took us almost two and a half times as long as the rest of the country to regain the jobs we lost in the ’90-’91 recession. We never fully recovered from the 2001 recession, while the rest of the country created millions of jobs before the 2007 recession hit. In the diagram below, you can see that the national number of jobs (the […]
STUDY: START-UPS KEY TO RECOVERY FROM RECESSION
/in Economic Opportunity, Press Releases, Press Releases: Economic Opportunity /byCompanies that are three years old or younger have been the key to creating Massachusetts jobs in the wake of the last two recessions, according to a new study from Pioneer Institute.
Red/Blue Connector? Gone.
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakLast week, MassDOT did the right thing – effectively ending the Red/Blue Connector project. The project had some logic to it – the Blue Line ends abruptly at the Bowdoin Street station right near City Hall Plaza and the Connector would have extended it to the Charles/MGH Red Line station, connecting the two lines directly while giving Blue Line riders access to MGH and Red Line riders a single transfer trip to the Airport. The state committed to the project in a different time and place. The Big Dig was only supposed to cost a few billion dollars, most of that Federal money, so committing ourselves to some big transit projects must have seemed logical. The current reality is much […]
Pay No Mind to the Thieves from NH
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakHow do we create jobs? If you read media accounts, you’d think it was luring companies to relocate from other states. And politicians feed that beast, issuing press releases every time a company relocates (scroll through the press releases from the Mass Life Sciences Center to see multiple examples). A few weeks back, the Globe had an entertaining piece on the “thief” sent by the New Hampshire to talk Massachusetts employers into moving over the border. (And New Hampshire seemed pleased with the attention, particularly to their low cost business climate.) Guess what? It’s all relatively meaningless. Of course the loss or gain of any jobs is important, but in the big picture, firms relocating in and out of Massachusetts […]
The MBTA Gets One Right
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakIt has almost become blood sport in these parts to pick on the MBTA. I’m not sure if its the ability to gripe in real time through social media, the hyperavailability of the MBTA’s new General Manager Rich Davey, or the crushing maintenance backlog hobbling their operations. Probably a combination of all three. But they are doing some thing right, really right. If you are a regular rider and not using any of their tracking apps, you should give it a try. These apps turn the unknown of taking the T (how long do I have to wait for the next bus? When is the next train arriving?) and turns it into a known. You can now track 3 of […]