Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures and What We Can do About It By Don PeckNew York, Random House, 224 pagesreviewed by Mark Erlich fifteen years ago , I borrowed a visual image from economist Bennett Harrison’s book Lean and Mean for a class I was teaching. Harrison divided the nation’s history […]
Cost of Living and Consumer Affairs
Posted inEconomy, Education, Health Care
97.4
the bay state economy expanded by more than 10 percent last decade—8 percent growth on a per capita basis after accounting for inflation. It’s not the Massachusetts Miracle, but given that we were nearing the peak of the tech boom in 2000, and in 2010 we were barely emerging from an even bigger bust, these […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
The lost decade
the past decade in both the United States and Massachusetts has been referred to as a “Lost Decade” for the economy and especially its workers. Nationally, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita grew by only 7 percent, the only decade in the past 80 years, including the 1930s Depression decade, in which the nation […]
Posted inEconomy
Time to get to work
the big dig was touted as saving time and money for commuters, but the most recent Census data show travel time to work for most cities and towns around Boston stayed the same or increased since 2000. According to US Census five-year community surveys, which have taken the place of the long-form census questionnaire, Cohasset […]
Posted inEconomy
Swan Boats, Sullivan’s get sweet deals from city, state
the swan boats in the Public Garden and Sullivan’s hot dog stand on Castle Island in South Boston are two of Boston’s most beloved businesses. But the landmark operations are showered with more than just the love of an adoring public; they also enjoy unusually generous leases from their government landlords. The state’s deal with […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Mooring mess
Robert Guimond is like a lot of retirees who stay in Massachusetts. The biggest attraction for him is the ocean, which is why the former salesman for General Motors and his wife left New Hampshire and took up residence in their one-time vacation home in Bourne. Guimond’s pride and joy, aside from his family, is […]
Posted inEconomy, The Back Story
Coakley’s regulatory retreat
In an embarrassing retreat, Attorney General Martha Coakley has quietly withdrawn regulations she proposed more than a year ago to protect auto insurance consumers. A three-paragraph message posted on the attorney general’s website says she remains concerned about unfair, deceptive, and discriminatory practices in the state’s auto insurance market and believes additional consumer protections are […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Economy, Health Care
Piloting global payments
Gerri Vaughan, the executive director of the Lowell General Physicians Hospital Organization, answers a question about the state’s rush to embrace a global payment system with a question. “If Pat the patient comes, how do we deal with Pat?” she asks. Dr. David Pickul, seated across from Vaughan in a conference room at Lowell General, […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Opinion
Overcoming tough times
Economic crises are social accelerators—things that were abstractly understood as trends are suddenly new and crushing realities. Twenty-five years ago, while the “Massachusetts Miracle” of growth charmed a generation of optimists, some observers of “deindustrialization” warned us about a looming vision of an hourglass economy of unequal incomes and unremitting pressures on single-parent families and […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
Jobs held hostage by housing
Like new england Patriots victories, high housing costs became matter of fact in Massachusetts over the last decade. As we rebuild from the Great Recession and the housing bubble that precipitated it, now is a good time to revisit whether the high cost of living is something the state can continue to take for granted. […]