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• Source: Seacoastonline

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• Source: Unionleader

Published May 14, 2012 at 3:00 am (Updated May 13, 2012) HANOVER — Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is scheduled to deliver a public lecture at Dartmouth College Tuesday afternoon. The lecture is being sponsored by the Dartmouth College Office of the President.

Read more at: www.unionleader.com

David Salafia

Is the real estate market heating up along Lake Winnipesaukee?

“Could the era of numerous big dollar waterfront sales be returning?” That’s the question Roy Sanborn, a realtor in Meredith, NH, posed in a column on Saturday in the Laconia Daily Sun.

According to data compiled for the month of April from the Northern New England Real Estate MLS System, the average sales price of a home on Lake Winnepesaukee — $2.15-million — was more than double the average sales price last April.

Paula Hinckley of Lady of the Lake Realty in Sanbornton says her experience selling waterfront homes confirms Sanborn’s observation. “In years past there would be heavy negotiations,” Hinckley says, and buyers would get 20 percent off the asking price. Now, “those deep discounts are not happening.” Today, she says, negotiations are more often within five percent of the asking price.

Thibeault is, however, feeling optimistic. “My own sense is that we’re bouncing off the bottom.” He suggests that Granite Staters might find trends in Florida hopeful, based on the fact that Florida and New Hampshire share a similar demographic of home-buyers.  There, according to Zillow’s chief economist Stan Humphries, “we’re seeing home value appreciation rates which are quite frankly surprising at this stage of the recovery.”

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• Source: Nhbr

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 USA Springs could continue to pursue financing that has so far proved elusive in an attempt to bail it out of bankruptcy, or it could put itself up for auction, but it can’t do both for very long, said Judge J.

Read more at: www.nhbr.com

Nancy D. Regan / Flickr

Many grocery stores don’t have the kinds of safety rules in place that DeMoulas recently agreed to

Recently,Tewksbury, Massachusetts-based DeMoulas Supermarkets, Inc. settled with the feds on a laundry list of major safety violations at Market Basket stores.  As we’ve previously reported, OSHA slapped DeMoulas with $589,000 in fines following store inspections in Concord and Rindge.  Then, after considering a the number of serious, repeat, and willful violations, the agency went so far as to demand that DeMoulas systematically overhaul safety practices at all 66 stores in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

That’s only the second time OSHA’s gone to that extreme.

And while DeMoulas was able to settle the case with the feds, Patrick Meighan of the Nashua Telegraph reports that resolving the issue didn’t come cheap.  The company still has to pay most of the fine–$400,000–and make franchise-wide safety improvements:

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“These improvements include a full-time safety and health director with the full authority and responsibility to develop, implement, monitor and enforce the requirements of the company’s safety and health program, OSHA announced.

Other improvements include a written safety and health program for each workplace that will include inspections to monitor and evaluate the program’s effectiveness as well as provisions to identify, document and remedy any hazards or violations, according to OSHA.

Also, DeMoulas agreed to implement a written disciplinary program for all workplaces and all employees, including management; create the position of a safety and health liaison for each supermarket department; implement formal safety and health training for all new employees and all new and existing employees on an annual basis; and include a safety and health evaluation as a material element in annual performance reviews of all store and department managers.”

Why go so far?  As New Hampshire Grocers Association President and CEO John Dumais explains to StateImpact, “It’s probably a bit more aggressive than normal.  They’re probably doing more than they need to, but it’s probably something everybody should be doing.  They’re being very proactive in what they’re doing.”

Given this unusual case, we’ll be looking into what, exactly, OSHA found during the course of its investigation, and why it cracked down on DeMoulas.

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• Source: Seacoastonline

Bill Rosgen / Flickr

Now in its second year, RGGI is saving millions of dollars in energy usage

The region’s controversial cap-and-trade system is working–at least as far as grant-funded energy cuts are concerned.  A new report released by UNH–based Carbon Solutions New England found that between the summers of 2010 and 2011, companies cut their emissions by 18,900 metric tons.  As David Brooks reports for the Nashua Telegraph:

“Grants from money paid by electric utilities as part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative…helped businesses reduce energy use by more than $5 million in the second year of the program, according to a new analysis…

For every dollar invested, the report said, there would be a return of $4.67 in energy savings over the lifetime of the projects: The lifetime savings from the $18.1 million spent from the fund are projected to be $84.5 million in energy costs based on current energy prices.”

As Brooks points out, RGGI has takes some heat at the statehouse,“because the cost of buying carbon-dioxide offsets is paid by utilities like PSNH, and thus helps raise electricity rates.”  Supporters, however, argue that over the long run, cap-and-trade will cut down energy use, thus saving consumers money in the end.

Sarah Reid / Flickr

The StateImpact posts that dazzled the most

Happy Friday!  If you’re suffering from a spot of pre-weekend ennui, check out our roundup of the top five weekly posts.

A Closer Look at Brewery Accidents After The Deadly Redhook Explosion: After the terrible keg explosion at a NH craft brewery, we looked into federal stats and old OSHA reports to determine how rare these kinds of accidents actually are.

Staying Afloat: One NH Fisherman’s Struggle To Keep Fishing: This popular post looks at the effects of overfishing and controversial policy changes on one fishing family.  And, it includes a slideshow.

Stimulus Funding Dries Up For Eco-Biz Incubator: A follow-up to our coverage of the Green Launching Pad.  UNH began the start-up incubator and sustained it with federal stimulus money.  Now, GLP’s looking for private support to keep up its mission of growing New Hampshire’s green economy.

Why NH’s Economy Is Especially Important For The 2012 Election: All nine swing states, including New Hampshire, are in different stages of economic recovery.  But whether these states–including New Hampshire–will go Republican or Democratic this season hinges on a lot more than “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Five Reasons Why Angel Investors (Think “Shark Tank”) Matter To The Economy: Using a report from UNH, we lift the curtain on this obscure sector of investment.

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• Source: Boston

If you have kids, you’ve probably gotten used to handing them your phone so they can play games or watch videos. So what about handing them your phone so they can insert it into a Nerf-like ball and toss it around? That’s the idea behind a new product from Physical Apps in Hollis, New Hampshire.

Read more at: www.boston.com

Amanda Loder / StateImpact New Hampshire

A new report says “high road” policies help grow manufacturing economies

Although tourism is something of a signature industry for New Hampshire, the largest sector of the state’s economy–by far–is advanced manufacturing.  So-called “SMHT” (Smart Manufacturing/High Technology).

Looking back on the exodus of shoe and textile factories, the slow death of the wood products industry, and the decline of high-tech in the 1990’s, you’d be forgiven for chalking-up the growth of SHMT to the miraculous.

But according to a new report released by the Brookings Institution on American manufacturing, there are three main reasons why New Hampshire’s seeing a renaissance in this sector.

1. Geographic Clustering: According to Brookings researchers, the best-case scenario for a state’s manufacturing economy is to have a number of different factories, specializing in similar areas, close together.  These days, companies are less likely to make all, or even most, of the pieces in a single product.  Instead, they outsource to other companies, creating an intricate supply chain.  So if you have a bunch of factories making computer parts situated close together, other firms look at an area and say, “Hey, if we move there, we can save money on transportation and have access to a decent labor pool.”  Companies naturally like to do this.  And the notable thing about New Hampshire’s manufacturing sector is that there are some pretty clear specialties clustered in key parts of the state.  For example, the Seacoast and Upper Valley are particularly strong in high-tech manufacturing, while the Monadnock Region and Merrimack Valley are known for their advanced machining.  In other words, when it comes to clustering, success breeds success.
2. The Boston Feeder: This is related to clustering.  The Brookings report notes that nearly 80 percent of manufacturing jobs are concentrated in metropolitan areas.  Why is this an advantage?  It’s all about proximity.  Recently, we posted a piece looking at urban vs. rural productivity in the US.  On average, highly-urbanized states are much more productive.  It doesn’t take as long to make deliveries, pick up supplies, or meet with potential customers.  Metros also tend to have a lot more in the way of high-tech infrastructure, like broadband access, which is helpful for companies.  From the manufacturers’ perspective, once you’ve clustered numerous, similar factories in the same city, that’s not just access to a specialized labor pool; it’s access to a large specialized labor pool.  And since urban economies tend to be highly diverse, they have easy access to other things they need: accountants, engineers, consultants, etc.  The Brookings researchers found that counties relatively close to urban areas also benefited from this clustering.  So thanks to Boston’s status as a high-tech mecca, the Merrimack Valley, Seacoast, Upper Valley and Monadnock Region disproportionately benefit.

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   Topics

   How NH’s Building A New Manufacturing Economy

   NH Took The “High Road”: According to Brookings, this is the most important thing states can do to help grow the manufacturing economy.  Making what researchers call “high road” decisions is when states encourage industry clusters by providing a skilled workforce and encouraging research and development and innovation. As the researchers explain, “Geographic benefits are not simply natural advantages but also advantages created by public policy…Geographic high-road policies build on the strengths that come when firms locate near each other.”  To understand what this means, it’s helpful to contrast the high road with what researchers term the “low road”:

“All too often [states] pursue policies that encourage firms to compete on the basis of low wages, using low-skilled workers and leaving innovation to chance.  Those policies include tax abatements and other locational subsidies, efforts to compete for geographically mobile businesses…by lowering wages, and policies that favor the location of manufacturers in low-density nonmetropolitan areas and outlying metropolitan counties.  Such policies promote a low-road manufacturing sector in which state and local governments“race to the bottom” to attract manufacturers and manufacturers have artificial incentives to move away from the locations where the social benefits of clustering are greatest.”

New Hampshire’s typically been wary of this “smokestack-chasing” approach.  While the Granite State does work to bring in firms from outside, the state doesn’t offer special tax incentives.  Rather, it aggressively markets the fact that there’s no broad-based sales, income, inventory or capital gains taxes, among others.  Efforts to create workforce training programs through the Community College System and bi-partisan Senate push to double tax credits for research and development also fall under this “high-road” model.

And so far, it’s paid off.

One exception, however, could be the House’s push for a Right-To-Work law, which Brookings puts into the “low-road” column:

“These geographic low-road policies are based on the assumption that the main thing that makes a location desirable is low wages for production workers, even though such wages typically account for far less than 20 percent of a manufacturers total costs.  Indiana’s recent enactment of a right-to-work law shows that some policymakers continue to find the low-road approach attractive.”