Niche Inc. To Lay Off 400 (Massachusetts)

Details are sketchy on this mass layoff story. Here is SouthCoastToday.com with the details:

Niche Inc., a South End manufacturer of parachutes, has laid off about 400 workers after losing out on a contract, four sources said Wednesday.

Leonard W. Coriaty, executive director of the Greater New Bedford Workforce Investment Board, said the 400 layoffs at Niche occurred "over the last two days."

The sources said the layoffs took place when the company lost out on a contract and that Niche is trying to land a couple of new contracts. The company hopes to call some of the workers back if it lands those contracts.

Roland Letendre, president of Niche Inc., could not be reached for comment.

A manager who refused to give his name confirmed Wednesday there were some layoffs but said the company is waiting for new contracts to come through and hopes to hire the employees back. He would not provide other details.

A former employee said she and other workers learned Tuesday that they were losing their jobs. The worker, who spoke on the condition that her name would not be used because she hopes to work at Niche again, said a manager told the employees they will hire people back if they can.

The manager told them the layoffs could last for "a couple of weeks to a couple of months," the former employee said.

"A lot of people lost jobs," she said. "Who knows for how long?"

The Greater New Bedford Career Center's Rapid Response Team has been dealing with those laid off, most of whom are low-skilled workers, sources said.

The career center reaches out to companies when layoffs are imminent to assist the employer and employees, from handling unemployment claims to providing training and counseling, said Steve Martins, the center's operations manager and City Council president.

"Our staff is on deck and ready to go once we find out about any significant layoffs in the area," Martins said.

City officials have been trying to

get a handle on the scale of the layoffs.

Mayor Jon Mitchell said the city has reached out to the company and has not yet received information on how many people lost their jobs.

"The company has been unable or unwilling to give us that information," he said.

And so it goes.

One Town's Desperate Casino Gamble To Fix Unemployment

In putting together the posts for this blog, I have to read a lot of depressing stories. It kind of goes with the territory. As depressing as reports of factories closing, or college students being saddled with unpayable debts or retiree pensions getting slashed may be, the most depressing stories are those in which desperate people are given false hope by some business-as-usual scheme that is destined to fail. Here is the Boston Globe with one such story:

Tom Hoye called a casino resort a one-time chance for this struggling city. Mashpee Wampanoag chairman Cedric Cromwell lavished praise on Taunton’s movers and shakers. And many residents here, accustomed to decline, predicted that a gambling emporium would revive a city that lost its luster long ago.

That buzz of good feeling enveloped the interim City Hall yesterday, as Hoye and Cromwell announced the beginning of a complex process to build a destination casino costing at least $500 million near the heavily traveled intersection of Routes 24 and 140.

“This proposal has the potential to create thousands of employment opportunities for our residents,’’ Hoye said to applause and Native American whoops. “This could potentially be the shot in the arm that our city needs to once again be the gem of Southeastern Massachusetts.’’

The officials stressed that their announcement was merely a beginning and that many hurdles must be cleared before a casino could be built by the Mashpee Wampanoag on a 77-acre, privately owned site in the Liberty and Union Industrial Park.

But yesterday, none of the legal minutiae and mazelike complications seemed to matter to many residents. They spoke of jobs, first-class entertainment, even access to gambling as benefits for a city that has hemorrhaged the mill and precious-metal jobs that once inspired its nickname of Silver City.

“Walk down the streets here and see everybody that’s out of work’’ said Jim Gillon, 59, as he sat at the counter at Joe’s Diner. “It’ll bring jobs to the city. A casino’s got to go somewhere, right? I’ve seen all the silver places and factories go out of business. It’s time to bring some jobs back.’’

Joe Resendes, a 57-year-old landscaper, gave his thumbs-up during a stop at City Hall.

“Taunton needs a kick,’’ Resendes said. “Taunton may be on its last breath. Let it have some air. I’m all for it.’’

The Mashpee Wampanoag hailed the potential for doing business here.

“I have goosebumps, and that’s a good feeling,’’ Cromwell said. “It’s good medicine.’’

“I’m excited about the opportunity for prosperity for our people,’’ said tribal secretary Marie Stone.

Could that set of quotes be any more pathetic and sad? Legalized gambling is already in big trouble in places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City because so many of the players suckers are tapped out, but these people do not seem to have noticed. Worse still is the idea that it is at all desirable to try to rebuild a local economy decimated by globalization by centering it around a predatory industry that often preys on those who can least afford to lose their money.

There was a time in America, not much longer than a generation ago in fact, when legalized gambling faced a steep uphill battle all across the country because of the moral objections and concerns about the ethics of raising revenue on the backs of the vulnerable. But now the desperation out there has grown to the point where a whole community now embraces the idea without hesitation despite the mounting evidence that, moral and ethical questions aside, it no longer works as a form of economic stimulus.


Bonus: Doug Stanhope has a different take on the lost factory jobs

Boston Becomes the Latest City to Cut Back Mass Transit; Impose Fare Increases

I've written here several times on TDS about the madness of our nation cutting back on our already fairly limited public transportation services at a time when the need for those services has never been greater. Yes, most such local transportation authorities are deep in the red these days, but that hasn't prevented governments at all levels from stupidly pumping more public dollars into building roads and highways even as the number of total vehicle miles traveled has been dropping due to high gas prices and a sluggish economy and will no doubt continue to drop.

Now from the MetroWest Daily News, comes a story about the the latest proposed fare increases and service cutbacks for commuter rail in the Boston area:

MetroWest residents might soon think twice about taking a Friday night trip to Fenway Park on the commuter rail, or even about accepting a job in Boston. That’s because as part of its plan to get out of the red, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said it will likely raise commuter rail fares about 40 percent and eliminate weekend and late night service.

But local officials and legislators, not to mention commuters, say MBTA cuts and fare hikes will hobble MetroWest and take a sizable chunk from peoples’ pocketbooks.

“I have serious concerns about limiting the access to affordable public transportation and the impacts it will have on the quality of life of our residents and the economic vitality of our region,” said Sen. Karen Spilka, D-Ashland.

The MBTA, $5.2 billion in debt, recently proposed the first fare increase in five years.

“The MBTA is by no means pleased with the prospect of having to cut service, but we are struggling to deal with a $161 million deficit in next year’s budget,” said T spokesman Joe Pesaturo.

There are two MBTA proposals to reduce that deficit, both of which would eliminate all weekend commuter rail service as well as weekday service after 10 p.m. One would raise fares by 35 percent and the other by 43 percent.

The story goes on to discuss the impact this will have on people's lives:

“I’m thinking about starting to drive to work but that’s expensive,” said Framingham commuter Arun Radhakrishnan last week, stepping off the 6:31 p.m. train from Boston. “I feel I’m stuck with no choice.”

“We certainly understand the important role that the commuter rail plays in many lives,” Pesaturo said.

MBTA data shows that almost 5,000 people commute by train daily into Boston from MetroWest.

According to the state Department of Transportation, commuter rail ridership would drop by 20 percent with the proposed service cuts and fare increases.

And right here is the evidence of just how important this service has become in this era of permanently high gasoline prices:

Overall MBTA ridership increased nearly 6 percent last year, with 1.3 million trips taken every weekday. Matthews said rising turnpike tolls and gas prices have prompted many to turn to public transportation.

So once again we see evidence that collectively our society is not only not choosing to prepare ourselves as the effects of peak oil on the economy continue to mount, but we are actually making counterproductive decisions which are making things even worse. If you want to know why I am so pessimistic that things will start to turn around before we hit the wall, look no further than this story as an all too common example pointing to the contrary.


Bonus: I've never seen a teevee ad extolling the virtues of public transportation, but if there ever was, they ought to use this song as the background music. It's a ready made commercial jingle if there ever was one

States Doubling Down on Bad Gambling Bets

I've posted several stories here on TDS about recent decline of the gaming gambling industry in the United States as the throngs who used to fill the casinos find themselves unable to come up cash to throw away on the slots or at the Blackjack table. And yet despite all of the evidence that the industry is in deep trouble and no longer the cash cow it used top be, there are still plenty of localities lining up, hoping to boost tax revenues by overcoming their previous resistance to legalizing gambling and opening casinos of their own. MSNBC has the details:

A Malaysian company's plan to build a $4 billion convention center and big-time casino on the outskirts of New York City could be the biggest shot fired yet in a tourism arms race that has seen a growing number of Eastern states embrace gambling as a way to lure visitors and drum up revenue.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week that he would work with the Genting Group, one of the world's largest and most successful gambling companies, to transform the storied, but sleepy, Aqueduct horse track into a megaplex that would eventually include the nation's largest convention center, 3,000 hotel rooms, and a major expansion of a casino that began operating at the site in October.

The proposal came less than two months after once-puritanical Massachusetts passed a law allowing up to three resort casinos, plus a slot machine parlor, at locations around the state.

Ohio is poised to see its first commercial casinos open this year, after voters approved up to four gambling halls in 2009. Maryland's first casino opened last year, with more on the way. Pennsylvania's first casinos opened in 2006, and already the state is threatening to surpass Atlantic City as the nation's second-largest gambling market.

And in Florida, lawmakers are hotly debating a whopper of a bill that would allow up to three multibillion-dollar casinos, plus additional slot machines at dog and horse tracks. Genting appears confident the law will pass. It has already spent around $450 million to acquire waterfront property in Miami, where it wants to build a $3.8 billion complex that would include a casino, dozens of restaurants and a shopping mall.

States have embraced casinos, after years of trepidation about their societal costs, for two simple reasons: a promise of a rich new revenue source, plus the possibility of stimulating tourism.

The article itself actually does a very good job of raising questions as to whether this latest desperate revenue grab by the state governments is at all advisable:

Some experts, however, have questioned whether revenue bonanzas that large are realistic, and say states should be cautious about giving up too much to lure these projects. Competition for a limited pool of gambling and tourism dollars is already fierce, and recent years haven't been kind to casinos.

Nevada's larger casinos lost $4 billion in 2011, according to a report released this month by the state's Gaming Control Board, as the state continued to feel the effects of the global economic slump.

As gambling options have increased in the East, revenue has slid substantially at the pair of Indian tribe-owned casinos in Connecticut and declined by a dramatic 30 percent in Atlantic City, which has lost customers in droves to the new casinos in nearby Philadelphia, according to David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

So the latest players in the legalized gambling game plan to spend billions of dollars to spread the wealth that much thinner even as the slowly collapsing economy continues to squeeze the mass of players suckers they need to be able to make a profit.

How much more proof do you need that the so-called "leaders" of our society are completely out of ideas and have resorted to merely shuffling the deck chairs on the titanic?


Bonus: Wait a minute, is that music I hear on the promenade deck?