(5.18) [Additional Note: The meeting will go on as planned. See ProJo.] This Monday, May 18th, State Rep. Aaron Regunberg will be hosting a forum at Hope High School along with Councilman Zurier, Rep. Ajello and Sen. Goldin regarding the baseball stadium proposal and to hear opinions from community members on the issue. We are …
(5.13) Here is a chance to learn about the economic impact of baseball stadiums from an impartial expert, Victor Matheson, professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. Or you can go with the $225/hour advisor (sports economist Andrew Zimbalist) hired by House Speaker Mattiello whose sole purpose seems to be providing …
As an engine of economic growth surely the biotech industry is to be preferred above hotdog vending and parking lot attending. But guess which way our state leadership is heading. Certainly PawSox co-owner James Skeffington behaves as if his 10,000-seat stadium on the riverfront is a done deal. At his press conference Thursday (ProJo) Phineas …
Facts are stubborn things. So are Republicans, who always insist that they are the party of finance and business. The results are in for 2013; The Standard & Poor’s 500 had its best year since 1997 [under President Clinton – Democrat], ending up 29.6 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average also turned in a stellar …
Politifact did itself great credit this month by calling out the “American LeadHERship PAC” — the political action committee concocted to support the prospective gubernatorial campaign of Wall Street acolyte Gina Raimondo — on its shameful hit-piece about her likely Democratic opponent, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. The PAC’s prospectus implies the preposterous slander that Taveras …
Raimondo And American LeadHERship PAC Insult Our Intelligence Read More »
My new favorite person is . . . a banker . . . from Texas! Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas since 2005, spoke to a gathering in Washington D. C. about the problem of the still too-big-to-fail megabanks and how we can avoid further taxpayer-funded bailouts. New York Times …
Cutting Megabanks Down To Size By Taking In The Safety Net Read More »
(1.31) Chrystia Freeland, author of Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, will speak Thursday at the Watson Institute at Brown University. There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it means to be rich …
This is cross-posted at Naked Capitalism. It’s an $80 billion beat that only a handful of people are covering. The New York Times published an expose this week on Texas’s regime of business incentives, but for anybody who pays passing attention to so-called municipal and state economic development schemes, there wasn’t much news: Our states …
If you want a robust economy, and a job, put a Democrat in the White House. Some facts from Uncle Bill. You see, we believe that “we’re all in this together” is a far better philosophy than “you’re on your own.” (Cheers, applause.) It is. So who’s right? (Cheers.) Well, since 1961, for 52 years …
Obama Talking Point Three — Prosperity And Growth Read More »
We’ve just launched a new campaign over at Demand Progress. Please take a few seconds and sign on: An elitist, technocratic multi-millionaire who disdains dissent and made a fortune on Wall Street, Larry Summers typifies what ails the Democratic Party. For the last two years he’s served as director of President Obama’s National Economic Council …
Urge Obama To Replace Summers With A Progressive Read More »
Governor Carcieri does not seem able to distinguish between jobs and the promise of jobs. And what does this man know about the video game industry? Gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chafee however is not blinded by celebrity and asks the RIEDC to slow down before guaranteeing the $75 million loan to Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios video …
According to today’s ProJo, the Economic Development Corporation heard the word “jobs” and voted 8-to1 to guarantee a $75-million loan to Curt Schilling’s gaming company ’38 Studios’, a company that has yet to actually bring anything to market. (Only one person had reservations?)* Like many New England fans I can vividly remember Schilling beating the …
Reflections, at the corner of Wickenden and Governor for the last 8 or so years, has closed. It initially appeared to be a temporary thing, but is now looking like it’s permanent. A real loss for Fox Point. Their website, which is insane, has a blurb up that gets at some of it. But any …
We probably disagree more frequently than we agree when it comes to economic development policy, but he’s right on here, from the Projo: I strongly believe that the public sector should encourage the continued expansion of our colleges and hospitals. The state and local governments benefit handsomely from the presence of colleges and hospitals in …
Scott Wolf has a great column in the Projo, ripping up the absurd concern our state has for the Forbes and Tax Foundation business climate rankings, and our culture of pervasive pessimism: Before we all give up on our state and move to high-ranked business climates such as South Dakota, Nevada or Wyoming, it is …
I do not know if there’s much meaning to this, but I was bored a couple months back, and looked at state-by-state employment percentages: the percentage of the total population that is employed, calculated using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data from July. I think there’s a general understanding that unemployment rates don’t mean all …