'Poetic suggestion'
“New England Village,’’ by Henry Ward Ranger (1858-1916). Many of his paintings, including this one, came from his years along the Connecticut shore. He once said: “I feel that my little bit of New England, which I know and love so well, is reeking with poetic suggestion.
Llewellyn King: Business dating introduces start-ups to big potential suitors
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
The lovelorn have computer dating: Cupid is digitized. But computer dating is not just for romantic love anymore.
An intriguing new company, founded by two computer professionals, is helping start-up companies find love with big enterprises. The results, so far, are wedding bells for a great variety of companies.
The matchmaker is Hunterz.io (yes, spelled with a “z”) and the proposition is straightforward: Start-ups register and are connected with the all-important “hunterz” -- people who have worked for large enterprises and know the lay of the land inside. They are people who have been laid off or have retired or are consultants; they make introductions and direct the start-up to the right people and right part of the large enterprise. Sometimes a hunterz is employed by a large entity, but mostly they are or were associated or employed there.
The co-founders of Hunterz.io are Noam Weisman, a veteran of giant Cisco Systems, and Yuval Shalev, who used to work for Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies.
Weisman told me that things were going well for the matchmaker before the coronavirus crisis, but there has been stratospheric growth since it began. “We have more than 10,000 hunterz on the platform, and we are active in 69 industries in 55 countries,” he told me. Although as a New York-based company, the emphasis is on North America, Weisman said.
An example of Hunterz.io at work is the successful linkup between Intellivisit, a Madison, Wisc.-based virtual health diagnostics company, and Rush Hospital, in Chicago. A hunterz made the introduction and Intellivisit found a role at the hospital. Weisman says that kind of linking is happening all the time to the benefit of the large enterprises and the start-ups. No more banging on closed doors, shooting off emails to unknown players who, as likely as not, will trash them. This way willing start-ups and willing partners -- investors or purchasers -- meet each other.
“It was great to connect with some of the more innovative start-ups I have met,” said Kevin Serfass, manager of Global Telecom Partners. “My contacts appreciated me introducing these start-ups to them as they were in the process of looking for such solutions for a while now.”
Another hunterz, Othmar Knoll, an executive heath-care consultant said, “Being a full-time consultant, it was a welcome change of pace to have vendors contact me for my services. Instead of me having to look for new vendors. It was simple and quick.”
To my mind Hunterz.io is the wave of the future -- a wave I have been anticipating. New start-ups are likely to flood the market as we get to the “new normal.” That presumes that we will not suddenly revert to the status quo ante; that U.S. and global business will be dramatically restructured with new players, technologies and vision.
Since the beginning of business linking within the business sphere has been a problem. With Weisman’s company a new kind of efficiency has entered the marketplace.
Most of us have heard the plaintive, “Do you know anyone at this company? I think they would love my start-up, but I don’t know how to get their attention?” Or the equally sad, “I used to know someone whose wife worked there. Maybe she could help.”
As dating went from happenstantial to computer-matching so, too, businesses have always needed to know of each other. The big need the innovation of the small, and the small need the patronage of the big.
How many start-ups with wonderful product ideas have failed and left the field for want of an introduction? Introductions are the oxygen of business and the more efficiently they can be made, the brighter the future looks -- particularly at a time when, in so many ways, the future is cloudy.
After upheaval, like the current one, there is always innovation. But innovation needs to be known for it to find partners, patrons, purchasers.
When I was publishing magazines in New York in the 1960s, the struggle was to get a new magazine displayed on the 110,000 newsstands in the United States. We more-or-less bribed our way onto them.
Business has always had the equivalent of the newsstand problem: How do you tell them you are there? Now they can find each other.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com and he’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.
'The city is rigid'
Custom House Tower in the early 20th Century.
Cross-hatchings of rain against grey walls,
Slant lines of black rain
In front of the up and down, wet stone sides of buildings.
Below,
Greasy, shiny, black, horizontal,
The street.
And over it, umbrellas,
Black polished dots
Struck to white
An instant,
Stream in two flat lines
Slipping past each other with the smoothness of oil.
Like a four-sided wedge
The Custom House Tower
Pokes at the low, flat sky,
Pushing it farther and farther up,
Lifting it away from the house-tops,
Lifting it in one piece as though it were a sheet of tin,
With the lever of its apex.
The cross-hatchings of rain cut the Tower obliquely,
Scratching lines of black wire across it,
Mutilating its perpendicular grey surface
With the sharp precision of tools.
The city is rigid with straight lines and angles,
A chequered table of blacks and greys.
Oblong blocks of flatness
Crawl by with low-geared engines,
And pass to short upright squares
Shrinking with distance.
A steamer in the basin blows its whistle,
And the sound shoots across the rain hatchings,
A narrow, level bar of steel.
Hard cubes of lemon
Superimpose themselves upon the fronts of buildings
As the windows light up.
But the lemon cubes are edged with angles
Upon which they cannot impinge.
Up, straight, down, straight -- square.
Crumpled grey-white papers
Blow along the side-walks,
Contorted, horrible,
Without curves.
A horse steps in a puddle,
And white, glaring water spurts up
In stiff, outflaring lines,
Like the rattling stems of reeds.
The city is heraldic with angles,
A sombre escutcheon of argent and sable
And countercoloured bends of rain
Hung over a four-square civilization.
When a street lamp comes out,
I gaze at it for fully thirty seconds
To rest my brain with the suffusing, round brilliance of its globe.
“Afternoon rain in State Street’’ (Boston), by Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
Chuck Collins/Helen Flannery: America needs emergency charity stimulus
Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy a Puck magazine cartoon by Louis Dalrymple, 1903.
From OtherWords.org
BOSTON
We are living through a time of unprecedented challenges: a major public health crisis and a deepening recession.
Congress has already authorized trillions in stimulus funds. But millions of Americans are still relying on the support of local nonprofits such as food banks and human services. These nonprofits are going to need major infusions of support from charitable donations and foundations.
Fortunately, Congress can help them come up with $200 billion — without costing taxpayers another dime.
We have heard many heartening stories of charitable foundations and individual donors stepping up to fund emergency responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. But this moment has also unmasked a basic design flaw in the U.S. charity system: Donors can contribute to charitable intermediaries that then may sideline the funds for years — or forever.
Right now, there’s an estimated $1.2 trillion in wealth warehoused in private foundations and donor-advised funds. While the donors to these funds have already taken substantial tax breaks for their contributions — sometimes decades ago — there are few incentives to move the money out to charities doing urgent, necessary work.
In fact, America’s 728,000 donor-advised funds, or DAFs — which hold an estimated $120 billion — aren’t legally required to pay out their funds at all, ever. While some DAFs, especially those administered by community foundations, pay out in a timely way, other accounts can languish for years.
America’s 86,000 foundations, which hold over $1 trillion in assets, are mandated by tax law to pay out 5 percent of their assets each year. But many treat that 5 percent as a ceiling, not a floor. And even that 5 percent can include overhead expenses and investments in profit-making companies, rather than direct support for nonprofits.
Remember: these donations are subsidized by ordinary taxpayers. For the wealthiest donors, every dollar parked in their foundation or DAF reduces their tax obligations by as much as 74 cents, leaving people of more modest means to cover public programs.
These wealthy donors have already claimed their tax breaks. Now — in a crisis — ordinary taxpayers need to see the benefit of the funds they subsidized flowing to charities on the ground.
Over 700 foundations have signed a pledge to “act with fierce urgency” to support nonprofit partners and communities hit hardest by COVID-19. And the community foundation sector has set up emergency response systems in all 50 states to channel donations to COVID-19 response efforts.
These are inspiring voluntary efforts. But in this unprecedented emergency, it’s time to mandate an increased flow of funds.
As part of the CARES Act stimulus, Congress increased incentives for charitable giving. In the same spirit, we urge Congress, as part of its next relief bill, to support an “Emergency Charity Stimulus” to inject more than $200 billion into the economy, protect jobs in the nonprofit sector, and help fight the coronavirus disaster.
For three years, Congress should require private foundations to double their annual required payout, from 5 percent to 10 percent. For each one percent increase in payout, an estimated $11 billion to $12.6 billion will flow to charities annually. The same standard should apply to donor advised funds as well.
America’s taxpayers have already effectively paid for these funds. Now we need them deployed to working charities.
Chuck Collins directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies. Helen Flannery is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. This op-ed was adapted from Inequality.org and distributed by OtherWords.org.
Like going to another country
The harbor of Matinicus island, Maine. It’s the easternmost inhabited island in the United States.
New Englanders like to visit their many islands in the summer, especially Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and those seemingly innumerable islands along the Maine Coast. Even visiting a big if often over-crowded island such as Martha’s Vineyard can give a nice sense of escape, almost like going to another country. Unlike a lot of travel, just getting there, mostly by boat, is part of the pleasure. On the other hand, this year many of us feel that we’ve long been trapped on our own little islands on the mainland.
— From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Disappearing act
“The Preparation” (photograph on textured surface), by David Lee Black, at Galatea Fine Art’s (in Boston) online gallery.
See:
A certain ripeness
“Hypotenuse,’’ the Newport home of Richard Morris Hunt (1827-95), who designed many houses for the Gilded Age elite, including his own.
“The atmospheric tone, the careful selection of ingredients, your pleasant sense of a certain climatic ripeness— these are the real charm of Newport, and the secret of her supremacy.’’
—-Henry James (1843-1916), in “Newport’’
Plant-based art
”Art de la Mer’’ (Falmouth, on Cape Cod) (archival pigment print), by Bobby Baker. Copyright Bobby Baker Fine Art
Philip K. Howard: Create panel to streamline government in wake of virus, including fixing extreme pensions, work rules
Worker disinfects a New York City subway car in the current pandemic. New York State’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority operations are rife with astronomically expensive and outdated work rules and extravagant pensions. Ditto at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
NEW YORK
Howls of outrage greeted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R.-Ky.) suggestion that Congress should resist further funding of insolvent state and local governments because the money would be used “to bail out state pensions” that were never affordable except “by borrowing money from future generations.” Instead, Senator McConnell suggested, perhaps Congress should pass a law allowing states to declare bankruptcy.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo immediately countered that the bankruptcy of a large state would lead to fiscal chaos, and called McConnell’s suggestion “one of the saddest, really dumb comments of all time.”
Indeed, the lesson of the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy was that a bail-out would have been far preferable, less costly as well as less disruptive to markets.
But McConnell is correct that many states are fiscally underwater because of irresponsible giveaways to public unions. About 25 percent of the Illinois state budget goes to pensions, including more than $100,000 annually to 19,000 pensioners, who retired, on average, at age 59. These pensions were often inflated by gimmicks such as spiking overtime in the last years of employment, or by working one day to get credit for an extra year.
In New York, arcane Metropolitan Transportation Authority work rules result in constant extra pay — including an extra day’s pay if a commuter rail engineer drives both a diesel and an electric train; two months of paid vacation, holiday and sick days; and overtime for workdays longer than eight hours even if part of a 40-hour week. In 2019, the MTA paid more than $1 billion in overtime.
Cuomo has thrown out rulebooks to deal with COVID-19, and recently mused about the need to clean house: “How do we use this situation and …reimagine and improve and build back better? And you can ask this question on any level. How do we have a better transportation system, a …better public health system… You have telemedicine that we have been very slow on. Why was everybody going to a doctor's office all that time? Why didn't you do it using technology? … Why haven't we incorporated so many of these lessons? Because change is hard, and people are slow. Now is the time to do it.”
Cut red tape, reform entitlements
Perhaps McConnell and Cuomo are not that far apart after all. While bankruptcy makes no sense now, since states can hardly be blamed for COVID-19, federal funding could come with an obligation by states to adopt sustainable benefits and work practices for public employees.
Why should taxpayers pay for indefensible entitlements? How can Cuomo run “a better transportation system” when rigid work rules prohibit him from making sensible operational choices?
Taxpayers are reeling from these indefensible burdens. The excess baggage in public institutions is hardly limited to public employees. The ship of state founders under the heavy weight of red tape and entitlements that have, at best, only marginal utility to current needs.
Bureaucratic paralysis is the norm, whether to start a new business (the U.S. ranks 55th in World Bank ratings) or to act immediately when a virulent virus appears (public health officials in Seattle were forced to wait for weeks for federal approvals).
Well-intended programs from past decades have evolved into inexcusable entitlements today — such as “carried interest” tax breaks to investment firms and obsessive perfection mandated by special-education laws (consuming upward of a third of school budgets).
Partisanship blocks reform
Government needs to become disciplined again, just as in wartime. It must be adaptable, and encourage private initiative without unnecessary frictions. Dense codes should be replaced with simpler goal-oriented frameworks, as Cuomo has done. Red tape should be replaced with accountability. Excess baggage should be tossed overboard. We’re in a storm, and can’t get out while wallowing under the heavy weight of legacy practices and special privileges.
McConnell and Cuomo each have identified the madness of tolerating public-waste-as-usual. But toxic partisanship drives them apart. Nor would ad hoc negotiations work to restore discipline to government; too many interest groups feast at the public trough.
The only practical approach is for Congress to authorize an independent recovery commission with a broad mandate to relieve red tape and recommend ways to clean out unnecessary costs and entitlements. This is the model of “base-closing commissions” that make politically difficult choices of which states lose military bases.
Recovering from this crisis will be difficult enough without lugging along the accumulated baggage from the past. A streamlined, disciplined government would be a godsend not only to marshal resources for social needs, but to liberate human initiative at every level of society. That requires changing the rules. But change is hard, as Cuomo noted. Broad trust will be needed. That’s why the new framework should be devised by an independent recovery commission. =
Philip K. Howard, a New York-based lawyer, writer, civic leader and photographer, is founder of Common Good. His latest book is Try Common Sense. Follow him on Twitter: @PhilipKHoward. This piece first ran in USA Today.
Chris Powell: Alleged Biden, Kavanaugh victims took easy way out; is due process sexist?
MANCHESTER, Conn.
How times change. Two years ago the loudest and most politically correct voices in the country were proclaiming that all women accusing men of sexual misconduct were to be believed without question, no matter how dated, uncorroborated and opportunistic the accusations, no matter even if the accuser and accused were minors at the time of the alleged misconduct.
No, ordinary due process of law was sexist and anyone who believed in it should just shut up.
Brett Kavanaugh
Of course what those voices really meant two years ago was that basic fairness was not so important amid the stakes involved, political control of the Supreme Court -- that basic fairness should be waived to prevent the appointment of another conservative Republican to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh.
Now that the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, former Vice President Joe Biden, has been accused of sexual misconduct by a woman who was on his Senate staff 27 years ago, many of the politically correct voices from two years ago are silent. Their silence means that preventing President Trump's re-election is infinitely more important than fairness to Biden's accuser and any exploration of Biden's character.
If the politically correct voices could have been candid about this with Kavanaugh and if they could be candid about it now with Biden, they might be persuasive. People who very much wanted a conservative majority on the Supreme Court were not inclined to grant credibility to Kavanaugh's accuser or to let the nominee's fitness for office be defined by something he may have done before he was old enough to vote. Similarly, people who consider Trump reprehensible personally and his policies abhorrent have reason to support Biden regardless of his personal deficiencies.
After all, the accusers of Kavanaugh and Biden never came forward contemporaneously -- never followed the rules of fairness and due process whose benefit they now seek for themselves, never complained to the police. Yes, that might have made their burden heavier, but due process isn't a mere personal convenience. It is fairness to all society.
Joe Biden on the stump.
— Photo by Michael Stokes
Besides, politics has always been a matter of judgment, degree, and tradeoffs and often a matter of the lesser of two evils. Even if the accusers of Kavanaugh and Biden have told the whole truth about the misconduct they allege, when it happened they took the easy way out, if understandably enough, and then, decades later, tried to overturn national politics and policy with their personal grievances. What they allege cannot be proven to judicial standards, so construing it is left to politics, which is now so riven that the character of officeholders means little and the results of policy almost everything.
Who cares much anymore if your candidate is a rapist or even a mass murderer as long as you get what you want from the government?
Sad as all this is, it is funny to watch the leading women prospects for the Democratic vice presidential nomination proclaiming their belief in Biden's denial of misconduct, and funny to watch Connecticut's senior U.S. senator, Richard Blumenthal, ignore the accusation.
Two years ago Blumenthal was the most fervent in the “believe all women without question” mob. Now the best he can do is to delay his endorsement of Biden. With the tables turned, Blumenthal can offer only "social distancing."
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.
N.E. responds: Beth Israel-B.U. gear project; Dartmouth sets up COVID-19 ICU
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, in Lebanon, N.H.
— Photo by Jared C. Benedict
From The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com)
BOSTON
As our region and our nation continue to grapple with the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic, The New England Council is using our blog as a platform to highlight some of the incredible work our members have undertaken to respond to the outbreak. Each day, we’ll post a round-up of updates on some of the initiatives underway among Council members throughout the region. We are also sharing these updates via our social media, and encourage our members to share with us any information on their efforts so that we can be sure to include them in these daily round-ups.
You can find all the Council’s information and resources related to the crisis in the special COVID-19 section of our website. This includes our COVID-19 Virtual Events Calendar, which provides information on upcoming COVID-19 Congressional town halls and webinars presented by NEC members, as well as our newly-released Federal Agency COVID-19 Guidance for Businesses page.
Here is the May 4 roundup:
Medical Response
Boston University, Beth Israel Develop Improved Medical, Testing Equipment –Boston University (BU) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) are collaborating to improve the equipment used to diagnose and treat COVID-19 patients. The partnership has already produced a more rapid diagnostic test, an improved ventilator design, and new models for testing swabs. The Brink reports.
Dartmouth Hitchcock Establishes COVID 19 Intensive Care Unit – The neurocritical care unit at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center has been transformed into a new intensive care unit for COVID-19 patients. This change will ensure that the hospital does not exceed capacity for patients or deplete its existing stockpile of medical supplies and protective equipment. Read more in the Sentinel Source.
Economic/Business Continuity Response
Framingham State Moves Elderly Learning Program Online – Framingham State University is transitioning its learning program for senior citizens online to provide a social outlet and educational opportunities to the most vulnerable, and most isolated, during the pandemic. The program had been postponed due to stay-at-home orders but will now offer the free courses in literature, songwriting, and more. The Worcester Business Journal has more.
Northern Essex Community College President Calls for More Aid – President Lane Glenn of Northern Essex Community College (NECC), in a virtual event with Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), called for more aid to community colleges in Massachusetts as they support 100,000 students in the state during this crisis. President Lane noted that community college students are more likely to be low-income and minority residents and are experiencing housing and food insecurity at higher rates. Read more in the Boston Business Journal.
Community Response
Ascentria Care Alliance Provides Support for Resettling Refugees – More than 100 refugees living in Concord, N.H., are receiving support and care from Ascentria Care Alliance as they resettle in the United States. The healthcare provider, through its Services for New Americans department, is helping these families navigate the resources available to them amid these challenging times. Read more in the Nashua Telegraph.
TD Bank Launches Community Resilience Initiative –TD Bank has announced the TD Community Resilience initiative, dedicating $25 million to organizations supporting community response and recovery efforts from the pandemic. From healthcare workers in community health centers to local banking offices in the United States and Canada, the initiative will seek to support communities as they recover from the virus. Read more from CSRwire.
Turkey Sends Medical Equipment to United States – Turkey sent a plane of medical equipment to the United States to aid the response to COVID-19. The Consulate General of Turkey in Boston shares that country provided 500,000 masks, over 500 gallons of disinfectant, and other essential materials in a continuation of its humanitarian aid around the world. ABC News has more.
Stay tuned for more updates each day, and follow us on Twitter for more frequent updates on how Council members are contributing to the response to this global health crisis.
Gray matter
“Dance in Charcoal,’’ by Jo Ellen Reinhardt, co-founder of The New England School of Fine Art, in Worcester.
With COVID-19 having temporarily closed her school, she has started creating YouTube videos to keep teaching.
What you would have missed
In downtown Darien.
“This is the day. You might have died
And never seen Rowayton in the rain,
Or morning glories bloom in Darien.
This is the day you might have died.’’
Dick Allen (1939-2017) , in his poem “On the New Haven Line’’
'Too perfect'
An arial view of Woodstock, Vt.
“A sinking feeling that here is a transient, a tourist, a caretaker, and not the householder; that men live in New England as the Venetian lives in Venice….All this white and green and blue is precariously too perfect.’’
Robert Lowell (1917-77), in “New England and Further,’’ a long essay on New England poets.
David Warsh: In Mass., a qualifier on social-distancing directive
— Photo by GoToVan
SOMERVILLE, Mass.
On March 20, the World Health Organization officially expressed a preference for the term “physical distancing” as opposed to “social distancing’’ in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to a question about appropriate behavior on the first day of spring, in Iran in particular, physician Mike Ryan, head of the U.N. agency’s Health Emergencies Program, warned that crowds were to be avoided, whatever the reason. “I think we need to be exceptionally careful… not to bring too many people together too closely at any one time.”
His technical director, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, chimed in: “If I can just add, you may have heard us use the phrase ‘physical distancing’ instead of ‘social distancing’ and one of the things to highlight in what Mike was saying about keeping the physical distance from people so that we can prevent the virus from transferring to one another; that’s absolutely essential. But it doesn’t mean that socially we have to disconnect from our loved ones, from our family…. We’re changing to say physical distance and that’s on purpose because we want people to still remain connected.”
The change came too late. Social distancing has become the standard desideratum at every level of discourse and has proved all but impossible to dislodge. What’s at stake? Perhaps more than you think. Consider an example last week from May Day, in Massachusetts.
After a very cold and wet April, temperatures finally rose above 60 degrees on the first day in May. There was even some sun in the afternoon. Gov. Charlie Baker seized the occasion to issue an executive order requiring citizens statewide to cover their faces outdoors, calling it “common sense.”
“This is going to be basically a way of life,” Baker said. “No ifs, no ands, no buts, no doubts. If you can’t [socially distance] inside or outside, you’re going to be expected to wear a face covering or a mask.”
Glossed over in those brackets in The Boston Globe’s front page account was the qualifier. Whatever the governor actually said last Friday at the point of what seems to have been an elision, what he meant was “if you can’t physically distance yourself,” at least when you are outdoors. The story seemed to acknowledge as much it its first paragraph.
Millions of Massachusetts residents will be required to cover their faces when they shop for groceries, take public transportation, or even go for a jog if they can’t distance themselves from others, under a statewide order Governor Charlie Baker issued Friday.
It is not just jogging at issue, but walking along sidewalks, paths, or simply standing around. Baker was artful in making it clear, at least by the act of omission. Municipal officials have taken sterner views. Suburban Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville ban pedestrian activity without masks, whatever and wherever the case. Big fines are involved, at least in principle.
The Washington Post reported a few days ago that there were 64,000 confirmed Covid-19 deaths in America so far. Massachusetts had the third highest count of cases in the nation and the fourth-largest number of deaths. The number of newly identified cases remains high. More than half of the deaths have been in long-term-care facilities.
There seems to be some widely shared sense of gain from the show of social solidarity among mask-wearers. If it helps slow the virus, whatever the odds, goes the reasoning, it is a small price to pay.
Out enjoying the spring blossoms?
But two kinds of losses are involved when pedestrians are required to wear masks. One has to do with the dismissal of the sense of personal responsibility – to give others a wide berth on the sidewalk (which even the masked-up do automatically these days); to acknowledge one another in passing; to be cheerful. Civility is diminished by masks.
The other thing damaged is trust. Trust in the judgment of officials, when no scientific support is advanced for the effectiveness of new measures of contagion-suppression. Trust for news media that pass along orders without questions.
Instead of reporting the science behind Governor Baker’s decision last week, or the politics that went into his decision, The Globe sent more than 20 reporters and editors around the eastern part of the state to count noses, to produce a story designed to shame pedestrians not wearing masks.
Yes, I admit that I am a habitual walker. No one, as far as I can tell, doubts the wisdom of requiring masks in stores, offices and on airplanes. Vice President Pence seems to have been universally condemned for deliberately flouting house rules when he visited the Mayo Clinic without one. He donned masks for appearances the next day when visiting a General Motors plant.
Much will be learned from this pandemic about the interplay of public health measures, economic activity, and voter confidence. Next time even the most rudimentary integrated assessment models will take account of the difference between social and physical distance.
. xxx
What turned Rebecca Henderson from a leading innovation economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology into the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at the Harvard Business School? As much as anything, it was HBS’s determination not to be eclipsed, as it had been during the financial crisis, when the climate change becomes more of a crisis.
Henderson was hired in 2009 to become the school’s next thought leader. The course she organized, “Reimagining Capitalism,” attracted 28 students in its first year. But word gets around. It now enrolls nearly 300 (when it enrolls at all). And Henderson’s book, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire appeared online last week.
“The key to prosperity for both business and society at large is to understand free markets and free politics as complements rather than as adversaries,” she writes. Fine words, you say, as long as the president, the Congress or the Conference Board doesn’t try to put this into practice.
It might pay to remember, though, that the time before last that HBS made a big bet on a champion was when it hired Michael Jensen away from the University of Rochester, in 1985. Jensen was the most influential apostle of the gospel that maximizing shareholder value was the only way corporations should be expected to serve public purpose.
Then read the first chapter of Henderson’s book: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? {a line from John Maynard Keynes} Shareholder value as yesterday’s idea.” Or watch this half-hour lecture.) Get ready for the era of ES&G (energy, society and governance) investing.
David Warsh is an economic historian and veteran columnist. He is proprietor of economicprincipals.com, where this piece originated.
'Pages of the hillside'
Above and just below, in the Old Burying Point Cemetery, Salem, Mass. It was laid out in 1637.
—Photo by Max Anderson
“The graveyards of New England can be gay or sad, humorous or severe, bleak or beautiful, but they are are always intensely interesting. The spiritual history of our first two hundred years is nowhere written down more clearly than in these slate and granite pages of the hillside, these neglected Americana of the open air.’’
— Odell Shepard, in The Harvest of a Quiet Eye.
Point of Graves Burying Ground, Portsmouth, N.H. It was laid out in the 17th Century.
Rocky reward
In Quoddy Head State Park, Maine.
— Photo by Fredlyfish4
“The passage through all rocky galleries of the Pine Tree State culminates at Quoddy Bay in a masterpiece.’’
— Samuel Adams Drake, in The Pine-Tree Coast
Eastport and Passamaquoddy Bay (1839), by William Henry Bartlett. That was a time of prosperity in extreme Downeast Maine.
N.E. responds: Amgen works on treatment; New Balance repairs masks and more
BOSTON
From our friends at The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com)
As our region and our nation continue to grapple with the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic, The New England Council is using our blog as a platform to highlight some of the incredible work our members have undertaken to respond to the outbreak. Each day, we’ll post a round-up of updates on some of the initiatives underway among Council members throughout the region. We are also sharing these updates via our social media, and encourage our members to share with us any information on their efforts so that we can be sure to include them in these daily round-ups.
You can find all the Council’s information and resources related to the crisis in the special COVID-19 section of our Web site. This includes our COVID-19 Virtual Events Calendar, which provides information on upcoming COVID-19 Congressional town halls and webinars presented by NEC members, as well as our newly-released Federal Agency COVID-19 Guidance for Businesses page.
Here is the latest (May 1) roundup:
Medical Response
Amgen Testing Potential COVID-19 Treatment – Amgen is testing its psoriasis drug, Otezla, as a potential treatment for COVID-19’s inflammatory symptoms. The biotechnology company is also partnering with other industry leaders to develop antibody treatments targeting the virus. CNBC reports.
New Balance Repairs 50,000 Face Masks for Boston Hospitals – After New Balance halted shoe production to supply hospitals with personal protective equipment, the manufacturer was able to salvage 50,000 masks that had been damaged for Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The company was able to deliver the repaired and fully-functional masks to hospital staff in under a week. WCVB5 has more.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Sees Increase in Telehealth Visits – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) has seen a hundredfold increase in users opting for telehealth medical appointments, from 5,000 to over half a million visits over the last six weeks. Due to the rapid growth of virtual appointments and popularity of the option, BCBSMA has certified almost 400 new providers to keep pace with increasing demand. Read more from WBUR.
Economic/Business Continuity Response
NEC Members Selected for Massachusetts Reopening Advisory Board – Executives from several NEC members, including Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Fidelity Investments, General Dynamics, and Massachusetts General Hospital, have been chosen by governor Charlie Baker (R-MA) to join the state’s Reopening Advisory Board. Composed of business and municipal government leaders, the 17-member board will advise Governor Baker on strategies for reopening the state’s economy in phases based on public health and safety data. Read more in the Worcester Business Journal.
CIBC Launches Online Hub for Financial Advice – CIBC has launched a new online resource center to provide financial information for its clients. Advice for Today delivers insights on personal finance resources, advice for families and individuals on government and market changes, and more. Newswire has more.
Citizens Bank Issues Grants to Small Businesses – 32 small businesses received grants from Citizens Bank to offset operating costs and revenue losses from the pandemic. The businesses, across different industries and the state, all received $15,000 from the bank as part of its $5 million commitment to small business support. Read more in MassLive
Community Response
Boston University Opens Campus Housing to Pine Street Inn Employees – Boston University is offering its now-vacant student housing to employees from Pine Street Inn as they isolate from their families and work long hours serving the homeless population in the city. The buildings offered by the university can house 75 shelter staffers as they work, while accommodating their shifts and reducing commutes. BU Today has more.
Red Sox Establish Fund for Food-Insecure Families – The Boston Red Sox have launched a new initiative, the Red Sox Foundation Emergency Hardship Fund, to aid families experiencing food insecurity by providing grocery vendor gift cards. The fund was established by a $300,000 donation from the Red Sox community and adds to previous donation from the team to causes such as educational relief. More from The Boston Globe
Stay tuned for more updates each day, and follow us on Twitter for more frequent updates on how Council members are contributing to the response to this global health crisis.12/19/2019 | READ PRESS RELEASE
Some colleges must reopen by the fall or die
The former Southern Vermont College, in Bennington, closed last year. It’s one of several small New England colleges put out of business by changing student demographics. COVID-19 is likely to kill more of them in the coming months.
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Kudos to Brown University and some other schools that are making dorm rooms available to house front-line workers in the pandemic emergency. With large parts of these institutions effectively closed, they have plenty of space to offer.
But what happens next September? Many colleges and universities are now agonizing over whether COVID-19 will let them safely physically reopen. If not, how many students and their parents will be willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to take classes via the likes of Zoom? The claims that online learning is almost as good as in-person classes are laughable. Zoom, Skype, et al., are technically impressive but frankly as a teaching vehicle they suck (to coin a phrase) compared to in-person instruction.
So I’d guess that many students will decide to take a “gap year,” with the idea of entering, or returning to, college in the fall of 2021. The trouble is that there won’t be many jobs available for them in the interim and that some of their colleges will die as the pandemic dries up their tuition and fees revenue.
It’s not clear how Trump’s latest immigration/foreign visitor orders might affect, at least indirectly, many foreign students at American colleges and universities, most paying full freight. The American Council on Education says that more than 1 million foreign students attend U.S. colleges and universities, contributing more than $39 billion to the economy and subsidizing American students.
In any case, a lot of these colleges must physically reopen by the fall or die.