There’s a reason economics is known as the dismal science. And the latest report from the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis makes the case quite eloquently.
The team from UConn dug into numbers from the National Bureau of Economic Analysis and found reason to doubt Connecticut has yet to escape the clutches of the Great Recession.
It seems the national recovery started in mid-2009 still hadn’t reached the Nutmeg State by mid-2010 and, perhaps, hasn’t yet statistically arrived.
The economists recalibrated the state’s gross domestic product and lowered the Q4 2009 number by about 7 percent, from $204.5 billion to $190 billion. That’s $14.5 billion of economic output that never really happened. And apparently we still haven’t gotten back to where we were in 2007.
Fold in new data that shows the median home sale prices in Connecticut fell more sharply in the second quarter of this year than in any other state.
Add a splash of bad job news — the economists see no net job growth over the next 18 months.
The result is the kind of toxic economic brew that suggests Governor Malloy’s re-election run could face choppy waters.
Could these economists be right? Could a prolonged effort to toss hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies at business — in First Five, Next Five, Small Business Express and whatever inducements Malloy may offer the Chinese during his upcoming trip — result in a net job gain of zero? Could the largest tax increase in the state’s history only allow us to break even in economic development and not make a real dent in the state’s debt picture?
The analysis by the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis is the kind of stuff that keeps politicians up at night. And that may be the silver lining here. Since the economy has been keeping business leaders up at night for several years, maybe now the two groups can find common ground and start working toward a real solution to Connecticut’s troubled business climate.
The death of columnist Laurence Cohen Aug. 27 caught us all by surprise. Age 64 is far too young to exit.
It’s only natural for thoughts to turn to what we’ve lost, how much we’ll miss his amusing yet prickly missives that held us all to a higher standard of performance.
Sure, Cohen the Columnist would have had some well chosen words about the size of the monument he’d like to see constructed in his honor, perhaps an obelisk rivaling the Washington Monument and looking down on the state capitol dome. But within a few paragraphs he would refocus the conversation on the issue at hand, in this case a life well lived.
In 40 years, he left an indelible mark on Hartford. He started out writing news at the Hartford Courant. He showed his versatility by handling public relations duties for two of the region’s largest companies — United Technologies and the Hartford Insurance Group. As a speechwriter, he put words in the mouths of captains of industry. As a columnist, he had politicians muttering. Later, as a consultant and teacher, he shared what he’d learned with the next generation. He was widely honored by his peers. And, of course, he delighted readers with an array of columns individually crafted for the unique audience, whether it was here as ‘The Artful Strategist’ or in the Courant as a cranky everyman engaged in a he said/she said debate.
Glastonbury adman Ira Yellen, Cohen’s longtime friend, points out that Cohen never had a mean word for anyone. “He was a kind, generous and a ‘mentsh’ (Yiddish: An honorable, decent person, an authentic person, a person who helps you when you need help). We will miss him deeply,” Yellen wrote in a note to friends.
We couldn’t agree more.
