To download the whole report as a .pdf go to:
URL for full report Staying Power: The Future of Manufacturing in Massachusetts
http://www.tbf.org/uploadedFil…
For additional discussion and analysis:
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/…
http://www.boston.com/business…
To sum it up: a cheap dollar isn’t all bad. Made in America is still a selling point. A balanced economy requires a strong manufacturing component AND with the dramatic increase in shipping cost, made local can be made cheaper and better.
Please share widely!
that it’s important to create policy that encourages more regional factories. It’s safe to say that shipping is both expensive and very bad for the environment, and it’s also safe to say that we could use more blue collar jobs in this country. What better way to help the environment and create more jobs than by creating incentives for companies to build things in America – and maybe even in several regions of America.
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p>Also, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Massachusetts is outpacing the rest of the country in this area. Not only are we high tech, but we’ve long had a very strong industrial base in this state, the kind of base that has always built things that were often complicated – such as the tens of thousands of jobs that used to exist at the GE in Lynn, making aircraft engines. There’s still several thousand there. I’d imagine some of the same people, or their kids, are now the ones filling in this industrial gap today, with these new and surviving industries. Hopefully, we’ll continue to see plenty of growth in this vital sector of our economy.
As time goes on, I find myself more and more in favor of local control. From schools to power, I see where local control is more responsive to citizens rather than investors. This may mean municipal, regional, or county, but I’m not sure that the loss of responsiveness is effectively built into “economy of scale” modeling.
certainly has merit, but we may have bought into it a little too deeply. After all, we need to create economies that work for us, which means jobs available in all 50 states, within all the various parts of those states. Furthermore, we didn’t (and probably couldn’t) foresee some of the environmental implications with our bigger-is-better-in-all-things mentality. We don’t need huge-arse nuclear power plants, but we could really use wind turbines in every city and town, along with solar, etc. The best part is these will provide good jobs available to people from any background all across the country, which is far more important than saving a few cents a month… and, in the end, it’s those kinds of policies that will save us from ruining the Earth in the not-so-long medium run.
We have our own Gas & Electric Dept. in Middleborough, and I love it. You walk down the street and talk to a real person who knows the town…not press 1 for this and take a number for that. And according to a recent flier, we’re paying 85% of what NStar customers pay. Plus, our local has a senior discount and even a holiday discount. There’s something to be said for serving your neighbors rather than your stockholders.
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p>Oh, and Ed O’Reilly gets this.
are awesome. I’ve yet to see one that doesn’t do better than the private sector. A lot of them even cover more things, like internet, etc.