Economic Competitiveness

[CtownMikey]

http://www.projo.com/business/content/proj...2x.812c99c.html

[MikeR]

It certainly makes sense, and is almost certainly correct, but it's highly simplistic (as it needs to be for a newspaper article) and more complex than he leads on (which he certainly knows). To a large degree, this is a regional issue and to an ever larger degree a Northeastern issue. While RI government could and should do more to help, there are much larger forces here in which we're only a bit player.

A lot of our runup wouldn't have happened without Boston's more amazing runup, and we've almost certainly benefited economically from individuals and companies being priced out of that market.

Think Boston is rediculous, try the New York Metro... The median home price in Westchester County, NY is 850,000 dollars, and that's including the traditionally depressed areas of Yonkers and New Rochelle. To afford the cheapest home in Westchester, a household income would have to be about $160,000... The average apartment price in Manhattan is well over a million dollars. Amazing stuff...

The Northeast in general has to do something about its costs. Forget RI... This entire region of the nation is being killed by legacy costs (infrastructure, schools, energy, bloated and inefficient governments). Some of it we can't do anything about. If the Midwest needs more housing, they just sprawl it over cheaper land. We're built out and have far greater environmental regulation (as we should), but that carries some costs with it. And there's no incentive for those sprawling communities to put the brakes on it and kill their competitive advantage (and trust me, they know its a huge advantage...).

For example, I'm in medicine. In medicine, actually, the Northeast actually has some of the lowest salaries in the nation and often some of the highest malpractice costs and rates (RI is #2, I believe, in the US). I've watched for years as physicians have left the Northeast, where their income buys them a nice 3-4 bedroom home in Barrington, Newton, or Fairfield County, CT, and go to the South, Midwest, or Southwest, where their salaries can be 30%-100% greater at a minimum and their same Northeast income can buy them a 10 acre compound plus a summer home elsewhere.

Where I trained in Minnesota, it wasn't unusual for a two income family making $80,000 to have a new 4 bedroom colonial with 3 car garage, a boat, and a cabin "up North on a lake" for the weekends. That'd be unheard of here.

As Cotuit is fond of saying, this is one of those issues that the representatives from Pennsylvania to Maine need to sit down together and work through together, because its killing us.

- Garris

Great post. Spot-on for everything said. What we need in RI now is voter initiative; the General Assembly is in too deep with special interest deals and shams to pass fundamental leglisation like this!

[Frankie811]

R.I. workers earn above national average

http://www.projo.com/business/content/proj...y7.e3ef64f.html

[ruchele]

R.I. workers earn above national average

http://www.projo.com/business/content/proj...y7.e3ef64f.html

. . . 8% higher than national average, yet buying a house costs 41% above national average.

Earnings alone don't mean much of anything unless they are weighed against cost of living. If we pay 25% more to live here than the national average (I don't know the real #), it means we actually earn way LESS, in real dollars.

[CtownMikey]

http://www.pbn.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/120307

I had no clue that Providence had a tax problem...

[Cotuit]

Providence bond back at highest point since early '90s [ProJo 7to7]

[Cotuit]

Biotech company to add 450 workers. At the news conference announcing the expansion by Amgen Inc., House and Senate leaders unveil new legislation to keep biotechnology and biomanufacturing companies expanding in the state. [ProJo.com]

[CtownMikey]

god this is soo bad for our economy........ i am moving down south!

[pete11]

This is the type of thing that historic tax credits should be used for. Those 450 salaries at a $55,000 median is about 25 million yearly. I know some of it is timing, but I applaud efforts such as this.

[runawayjim]

this is great news... this might even help graduates from our colleges stay in RI rather than leave for other states...

[Garris]

Biotech company to add 450 workers. At the news conference announcing the expansion by Amgen Inc., House and Senate leaders unveil new legislation to keep biotechnology and biomanufacturing companies expanding in the state. [ProJo.com]

Wow, some good economic news of late. Excellent!

This is the type of thing that historic tax credits should be used for. Those 450 salaries at a $55,000 median is about 25 million yearly. I know some of it is timing, but I applaud efforts such as this.

Nope, sorry. I don't see it as an either/or situation. We can have both. Those historic tax credits have pumped a LOT of money into the local economy.

A truly healthy region is able to do economic development, historic preservation, and stimulate construction. When they all work, they feed one another.

As others have pointed out, sometimes you even need to spend some money to make money. Going way back, would GTech and the dozens of projects we talk about daily be here without Waterplace and the Mall? How many of us would have been here without Waterplace and the Mall and the positive buzz it created?

- Garris

[pete11]

Wow, some good economic news of late. Excellent!

Nope, sorry. I don't see it as an either/or situation. We can have both. Those historic tax credits have pumped a LOT of money into the local economy.

You do realize tax dollars are not limitless? "Nope ,Sorry" Could you be more pompous?

[CtownMikey]

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/...m.143f0fda.html

[Frankie811]

http://www.pbn.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/120634

[Frankie811]

http://www.pbn.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/120635

[webbage]

The 2005 RI high school performance data is in.

For Providence, the good news is that Classical still performs on a par with Barrington, East Greenwich, and North Kingstown.

The bad news is that the other high schools continue to have dismal scores--sometimes in the single digits as a percent of proficiency.

http://www.ridoe.net/assessment/SchoolPerf...sifications.pdf

Sorry to dredge this up, but are there any reports that compare the public school scores to some of the private ones?

[Garris]

Sorry to dredge this up, but are there any reports that compare the public school scores to some of the private ones?

Probably not... I don't think the private schools have to participate in the standardized testing...

If you're interested in the privates, the best thing to do is talk to parents of students already there, as they usually shopped multiple schools and are intimate with the performance of their own...

- Garris

[Cotuit]

SATs would probably be the best way to compare private and public schools. Though there are likely many students in public schools who aren't on a college track and not taking the SAT making even those comparisons unreliable.

[Garris]

SATs would probably be the best way to compare private and public schools. Though there are likely many students in public schools who aren't on a college track and not taking the SAT making even those comparisons unreliable.

Absolutely. Talking with some teachers who've taught in both environments, they'll often argue that, correcting for the socioeconomic factors, the best of the public schools are often just as good as, if not sometimes better than, the best of the privates.

And in some states (New York comes to mind) where the public schools have requirements that their teachers have at least a master's in the area they are teaching, that the public schools often have better instruction than the privates that don't have that requirement.

I'm still somewhat stunned by the number of middle and upper-middle class parents with their children in private schools in this area. It's amazing.

- Garris

[Recchia]

As someone who went to both public and private schools, I can honestly say that private schools are no better. In fact, I'd venture to say they're grossly inadequate and are carried by their reputation only. The stellar catholic high school that I went to is known around the state to be this amazing institution. I could go on for hours about the incompetence I experienced there with the majority of teachers I had (some fresh out of college and more immature than some seniors). Private school teachers don't have to be certified in RI, this may be part of the problem. Not to mention the hypocrisy of this place, a so-called "catholic" school. Unless soliciting minors on the internet, impregnating english teachers out of wedlock and brainwashing students into being Rush Limbaugh fans are new Catholic values, then I could hardly consider this place being a model institution.

[runawayjim]

As someone who went to both public and private schools, I can honestly say that private schools are no better. In fact, I'd venture to say they're grossly inadequate and are carried by their reputation only. The stellar catholic high school that I went to is known around the state to be this amazing institution. I could go on for hours about the incompetence I experienced there with the majority of teachers I had (some fresh out of college and more immature than some seniors). Private school teachers don't have to be certified in RI, this may be part of the problem. Not to mention the hypocrisy of this place, a so-called "catholic" school. Unless soliciting minors on the internet, impregnating english teachers out of wedlock and brainwashing students into being Rush Limbaugh fans are new Catholic values, then I could hardly consider this place being a model institution.

while that's a very tongue-in-cheek response, i'll give my opinion on the matter as i was in public school for kindergarten and first grade, after which, my mother didn't have much choice but to send me to private school. i'll explain why.

i was getting more homework in first grade than i did in 8th grade. my teacher couldn't handle the class and anything that we didn't finish, she'd send home. my mother felt i would actually learn in school rather than at home if i was in a private school, so it was off to catholic school i went (i wasn't happy then, but i am now).

my father wanted me to go to the public high school in town (to make a long story short, it's mostly because he's cheap). i ended up going to a catholic high school. here's why it was better. the teachers cared about the students, while you can get this in some public schools, it depends on the school. it's really hit or miss anywhere, but teachers in private schools tend to care more about the students than those in public schools. also, the public school in my town had just done away with class rank, and class divisions (honors classes, normal classes, and classes for the slower students) so everyone was together in the same class, making the slower ones work really hard to try to do well and the smarter ones bored and not learning much. there was no reason to try to do well other than personal gain. sure, there were those who did well and went on to college, but unless you really pushed yourself (which, and let's be serious here, high school aged kids sometimes haev a hard time doing), you didn't get too far. so in my situation, public school would've got me nowhere in life.

oh yeah, i grew up in a pretty well-off suburb in CT. goes to show you that public schools aren't necessarily good in those rich white suburbs.

my experience with the catholic high school was the opposite of what most people assume... religion, while a required class, was not forced on us. in fact, i don't remember praying during the day unless there was a mass or we had religion class that day. we were actually taught to be open minded and learned about other religions. granted, it was not a very conservative school (although i've heard it is now, but the principal i had was younger and really good). aside from the fact that it had a catholic name and crosses in the rooms, you wouldn't know it was a catholic school. and yes, we learned about darwin and evolution too...

so like everything, it depends on the school and the teachers. knowing the reputation our public schools in RI have, i am NOT surprised that so many middle-upper class parents send their kids to private schools.

[damus]

my experience with the catholic high school was the opposite of what most people assume... religion, while a required class, was not forced on us. in fact, i don't remember praying during the day unless there was a mass or we had religion class that day. we were actually taught to be open minded and learned about other religions. granted, it was not a very conservative school (although i've heard it is now, but the principal i had was younger and really good). aside from the fact that it had a catholic name and crosses in the rooms, you wouldn't know it was a catholic school. and yes, we learned about darwin and evolution too...

Heh... I went to catholic school from kindergarden to 3rd grade. Got pulled out because "we're already paying taxes for public schools", which weren't bad back then though now I hear the Norwich schools are getting bad. We prayed every morning (I think it was the "act of contrition" along with a hail mary and our father) at the same time we did the pledge of allegiance. We went to church every first friday.

I'd send my kids to catholic school if I had the chance. Class sizes are smaller, teachers seem to care more. I wish the government would pass school voucher legislation to open up these schools to people who can't afford them and force the public schools to compete for money/students.

[runawayjim]

Heh... I went to catholic school from kindergarden to 3rd grade. Got pulled out because "we're already paying taxes for public schools", which weren't bad back then though now I hear the Norwich schools are getting bad. We prayed every morning (I think it was the "act of contrition" along with a hail mary and our father) at the same time we did the pledge of allegiance. We went to church every first friday.

I'd send my kids to catholic school if I had the chance. Class sizes are smaller, teachers seem to care more. I wish the government would pass school voucher legislation to open up these schools to people who can't afford them and force the public schools to compete for money/students.

we prayed every morning in elementary school and went to church once a month in both high school and elementary school. there were actually a lot of non-catholics in both schools (lots of indians in my elementary school and some protestants in high school).

i would send my kids to catholic school or any private school. catholic school really helped me because of the smaller class sizes. they can also discipline their students better than public schools can. i feel like parents think they can run the school because they pay the tax dollars, while at the catholic school, if you act up, you're in trouble, no questions asked. i think that's the biggest difference. it's tough to get thrown out of public school, but catholic school, it's different.

[CtownMikey]

http://www.projo.com/opinion/editorials/co...s.129332e8.html

so tomorrow this goes to the full house.. and if voted for.. then thats it??

[Cotuit]

so tomorrow this goes to the full house.. and if voted for.. then thats it??

Not quite. It appears the Senate, which is usually the more conservative chamber (both socially and economically) has to pass the same bill and it appears they are going a different direction. Both houses need to pass the same bill then send it to the Gov. for signature. If it's a bill that can at all be spun as a tax cut, it seems almost a given that Cacieri will sign it seeing as it is an election year.