This sequester is hitting us hard. It is too bad we are losing this forum. I have learned a lot. View Comment

Hello Mass Politicians, you think we all live in a vacuum. Taxes are going up on the Federal Level, State Level, and town level. You cannot keep raising taxes and crippling the economy. No one is going to have any money to spend. Tax revenues will shrink because people and jobs will be leaving the state. I agree that our state government should fix all the broken programs that continue to waste our tax dollars. Unfunded pensions need to be reformed, public transportation needs to be managed better, corruption cracked down on. View Comment

Companies leaving. Fidelity to NH and RI. Evergreen to China than BK, PNC Bank to Minnesota. Many of the big companies may shift their employees to other business friendly locations such as State Street, EMC, Raytheon, Biogen, Genzyme to name a few. We rank 3rd on a list of states that have lost the most jobs to China. http://www.nbcnews.com/business/states-have-lost-most-jobs-china-1B5929263 We will see how Gov. Patrick's plan will effect the economy going forward. He is looking for revenues. View Comment

I think it has finally come to their attention that the companies are fleeing MA because of all the burdens that have been piled on them. Maybe they see that they need the private sector to create jobs now that the federal money is drying up. Deval is ratcheting up the taxes and will hit us all in some way or another. As you said, someone has to pay but they are not going to pay if they lose their jobs. View Comment

I would like to see some reform in this area but the devil is always in the details. You can read the resolution one day and it changes the next. Thanks for the info. View Comment

Why don't they add all the foriegn contributions that came into the recent Presidential and our own senatorial race. They cannot even trace where these contributions came from. At least we know the motives of our corporations. What are the motives of these foriegn donors. http://www.humanevents.com/2012/10/08/obama-campaign-part-of-foreign-campaign-donation-scandal/ View Comment

Liberal, The "pigs" you talk about employ our people and fund our government to pay for the programs that our Congressman thinks up in his dreams. They fund investments like Evergreen Solar and Solyndra with their tax money. Once the corporations get driven out, there will be no more country. You guys should be a happy with the power that you have because if you swing the pendulum to far, it will come back to bite you. View Comment

Maybe we should have our own expert witness to rebutt their expert witness. The State Fire marshall was not happy and it will be interesting to hear his testimony. View Comment

I wouldn't enter into a contract with a firm unless we do the due diligence of the company and the track record of their management. I do not have enough information on the details but if they are relying on Tax Credits from our government, there is a risk of them not receiving them and then what. I am reading a Barrons article right now saying how vunerable the Solar industry is right now because they are functioning on government subsidies that will dry up this year. The other point is that I would not enter into a long term contract. The 4.3 million in saving for 20 Years is absolute fiction and fantasy based on outrageous assumptions. Say that in the next five years they develop fuel cells that would be able to power buildings and the cost of a Kilowatt will come down to 5 cents. If this were the case according to their logic, the town would be losing millions of dollars for not waiting on this. Point is we should not enter into long term contracts with companies in infant industries that cannot sustain themselves on their own. Another risk is the possible unleashing of the fracking for Natural Gas. We could be the next Saudi Arabia of Natural gas with the fracking technology. This abundance would make Nat Gas so cheap that it would kill the solar industry. I would like these questions answered by our TA and to see if he has even though about this. View Comment

Max, My apologies for omitting Festivus. My outlet for grievances are usually aired here in these spaces as I seek the opinions of the townspeople such as yourself. Did you actually see this segment? I am a channel surfer and I watch a bunch of left leaning and right leaning shows for entertainment purposes only. By the way, that 27 yr. old girl vacationing in Hawaii really looked like she was starving. She needed all the food stamps that she should get. Maybe I can draw you out of your shell or take down your guard to share where I am going wrong in my thought. You maybe right and I may be completely wrong. All the Best. View Comment

Truth, your assumption is that there will be no other tankers of other chemicals such as Benzene and other solvents in the proposed rail yard. Maybe this assumption is correct but I have not seen the plans or understand if there are restrictions on what can be near the propane tanks. View Comment

John, First off, thanks for sending this info. I appreciate the detail that you bring to these discussions. I guess I deem these actions a success because I am not a fan of the IMF or any of the Central Banks. I believe that many financial problems with our countries and financial institutions are caused by unregulated derivative contracts basically betting on the demise of countries and institutions. I look at Iceland's move as keeping their independence from the World Banks. Yes they were shunned, threatened. They also took their pain of extreme Austerity and lost all their food imports for a while but they are back on their feet and are starting to get in the good graces of their European neighbors. The historical perspective of this by the press will pit this as very negative to Iceland but the people who believe in independence from the World Banks believe what they did was the way to go. If you compare this situation with Greece, my opinion would be that Iceland would be the way, even though painful, to go. There is hope there. Greece has no hope and people are starving. The amount of suicides are extremely high. John, Thanks again for the detail. View Comment

Hey Max, I know what your saying and I am sure you are not deaf to all the examples of the new transformation. It sounds like you are a committed liberal. You know I talk to a lot of liberals on this sight, it would be great to hear of some of your ideas and may be you can straighten my thinking out. Especially your comment that you congratulated me that I hate Government. Does that mean you love Government? I could have some very good reasons why I feel this way. You could point out to me where I may be wrong. Who knows. Unfortunately you remind me of little me being irritated by the detail of where I got the newsclip. Believe me, life is too short to be too high strung. If it helps to let me have it, than I do not mind your wrath. I invite all ideas whether I agree or disagree. I am not here to change people. I hope you have a Merry Christmas or a Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year. View Comment

Dear John, I am a trader in all and follow all the economic news on a daily basis. Do you really think the Government is going to let the stock market go down in a reelection year? This almost never happens. Do you ever ask the question why has gold gone up from $250 an ounce to a recent high of $1900 an ounce? There maybe a little message in there that our dollar may be in a little more trouble than you think. Did you ever ask the question why our Government changed the Accounting FASB rules? This allows for Banks to carry the original cost of properties on their balance sheet rather than the market value. Do you wonder what the balance sheets would look like if it was market value. Do you wonder what the stock market would look like if interest rates were raised to around 5%? Putting your money in cash would have lost you around 3% in the last two years with inflation (something like that). Anyway, John, thanks for the info. We all do what we have to do to survive in this life. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year.. View Comment

Maxi, I knew I could not slip this one by you. No matter where it came from, the point is the point. Do you think MSNBC would ever say something negative about a Democratic program? Why is it an Anti-Obama anecdote? Does he deserve all the credit? I would like to give credit to all of Government for doing such a bang up job of screwing everyone in this country. Politicians are ranked just above used car salesmen. None of these guys are my heros. View Comment

There was an amusing segment last night where they were interviewing this twentysoming white girl who was VACATIONING in Hawaii. She was asked who she voted for and why. She said that she voted for Obama because she needed to keep her foodstamps. View Comment

How do you define rich? China owns us. When are you going to give Obama any of the blame? Obama doubled Bush's 8yrs deficit in four years. I am not thrilled with any party and I am disgusted with government stealing our money and wasting it. Making us pay more for items when they trash they trash our value of our currency. I know John B. is a proponent of this but it is like your trickle down argument. I am not seeing the benefit in the economy. View Comment

John, This is cost push inflation. The main sources of this is wage increase and increases in raw materials. These sources of a decrease in aggregate supply operate by increasing costs. All our natural resources are steadily going up such as metals, wheat, corn, sugar, cocoe, etc... The government has done QE1, QE2, QE3, what has it done for demand. We are still at 8% unemployment. The QE program is just printing money out of nothing. We are buying are own Treasury bonds to finance the trillions in spending that are government is doing. Why has it not worked? We are heading for 22 Trillion dollars in debt by the time the Obama term is up. I will give you a success story, Iceland, There currency went under and they protected the people of Iceland's deposits. They did not want to be held hostage by the central banks. The took a hit for 2 years and now they are on a stable financial ground with an improving economy. With your thought process, what did you think happened during the Weimar Republic, the French Revolutions, American Civil War and the Green backs, and the 400 currencies that went under in history. They are doing the same exact thing we are doing. Greece, Spain, England: Where governments allowed the abuses of elaborate pensions, early retirement ages, entitlements that can never be paid for. All the spending in these countries will not correct their economies. View Comment

"We are the richest, most powerful nation on Earth" says Rep. McGovern. We have over a Trillion a year deficit in the annual budget and we are on the road to a plus $8 trillion added to our National Debt in the next 4 years. You should stop the bleeding of the outrageous spending which is devaluing our dollar and taking purchasing power away from the people. This is how the Government is starving it's own people with the inflation. We are not the richest nation in the world, we are probably the biggest debtor nation in the world. I know I will take some grief for these comments but this article is full of fluff with no ideas what so ever. We are better off funding local farms and developing our own year round vegetables using the hypotopic methods to provide our own food supply. This would be much better than funneling millions of dollars to Congressman McGovern's pipe dream. He should work on getting government under control. If our dollar crashes, we will not have food on the grocery shelves and they government will be the reason why we all are starving. View Comment

ALamp, it is my understanding that the railroad did not give any details of the plan last Spring. You cannot fill out paperwork if you do not know what is going on. They did not even know about the work until the neighbors brought it to their attention. Correct me if I am wrong here. View Comment