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More Bailout Fun

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First, the nonsense — signaling the illogical end of this process, the…ahem…adult entertainment industry has put in for its share of funds. Next, the impossible overreach — a Massachusetts firm has put in for $1.84 billion loan to construct production facilities. Now, don’t get me wrong — I hope the company succeeds in its efforts to make next generation batteries that might catalyze the use of more electric vehicles. But, for a company with around $40 million in yearly revenues and only $205 million in assets, this is a massive bet with our money on a specific company and a specific technology. Its good business on the company’s part — they’ve found an investor willing to take equity-type risk that […]

I hope I am or at least the Governor is misinformed

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I have heard from folks who listen to the Eagan-Braude show on WTKK that Governor Patrick today was saying that he is not anti-charter. OK. Then, according to these listeners, he went on to say that his lack of urgency around raising the charter cap was a “red herring” or similar. Not OK. The calls from the Boston Globe, Lowell Sun, and many other places to raise the cap on charters comes on the heels of a great report done by Harvard, MIT and Duke for the Boston Foundation. Is this really the Governor’s line? He is right to say that there is a cap of 120 charter schools statewide and that we have currently 61. He is right again […]

Told You So

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My colleague, Jim Stergios, mused a few weeks ago about Bernie Madoff and the lack of trust out there right now. And Jim is exactly right. In a previous life, I was part of group that attempted to raise an investment fund (obviously it didn’t work out, did it?). My colleagues were forever pitching the idea to a variety of placement agents, fund-of-fund operators, and miscellaneous middlemen. These gentlemen were always impeccably dressed, impossibly self-assured, and gave off a well-monied whiff that, by virtue of pedigree, education and/or previous employer, each had some link to sources of capital. That fund never got raised (obviously) but I was reminded of those particular types as I read Harry Markopolos’ devastating critique of […]

Thickheadedness

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A rather odd article by Jamie Vaznis of the Globe on charters and pilots. The Boston Foundation-commissioned study does exactly what Vaznis notes in the first sentence: “A new study indicates that Boston charter schools significantly outperform the city’s traditional schools, but raises new questions about the city’s experimental pilot schools.” But then he goes on to use most of the rest of the article to question pilots. A little more of the clearly good news about charters would have been helpful–and less story fishing. The story is very good–just so heartening as to our ability to address the achievement gap. By comparing students who got into charter schools by lottery against those who were not chosen by lottery, the […]

Overstimulated

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Ed Glaeser has an interesting and thoughtful piece in today’s Globe on the various stimulus ideas floating around. I am a bit concerned about the rush to spend billions of dollars willy-nilly. The stimulus package has turned into a Christmas Tree of sorts, with every group hanging their desired ornament on it. But I fear most people are not paying attention to the details. The State has cranked out its list. There are some worthy projects here, but there is also a lot that has not been fully vetted. $200 million for rebates for biomass pellet furnaces? $200 million buys you about 60,000 of those furnaces outright (against a housing stock base of around 2.5 million) and it increases as […]