We’re all supposed to shift into high gear after Labor Day, returning to the work world feeling rested and invigorated after a relaxing summer of care-free slugdom. I never found that to be true. I tend to drag for a few weeks after Labor Day, the body and mind refusing to adjust to the new norm. And that partly explains why I didn’t produce a weekly Hub Blog newsletter this week. I was dragging and didn’t have that much to say. But the newsletter will be back next week! Or at least I think so.

— Pathetic: “Tech CEOs Take Turns Praising Trump at White House Dinner” (WSJ)

— She pans the new Tom Brady statue but praises another: “A Truly Great Statue of a Sports Hero” (Atlantic)

— Another disgruntled businessman thinks he can do better than an elected official: “Alan Leventhal, former ambassador to Denmark, considering running for governor in 2026” (Herald)

— Really? Even if the number is cut in half, people can’t possibly make intelligent decisions on so many referendum questions: “In ‘record-breaking’ year, Mass. attorney general approves 44 ballot proposals, including one restoring rent control” (Globe)

— More than 26,000 tenant complaints were filed against the firm in just five years (yes, 26,000): “Apartment Landlord Faces Ban from Massachusetts” (B&T)

The problem: Bristol is closer to Springfield than it is to NYC: “ESPN Employees’ Favorite Sport: Lamenting Their Home Base” (WSJ)

More evidence that Democrats have become the elite: “The political ‘diploma divide’ now applies to members of Congress” (Washington Post)

And yet more evidence that’s something’s very wrong in collegiate sports and academia in general: “The UMass system’s 2025 payroll total $1.7 billion” (BBJ)

I had no idea the firm was based in Everett: “After a century as a New England secret, Teddie peanut butter goes national” (Globe)

It always happens: “Her $80,000 Furniture Budget Turned Into a $1 Million Renovation” (WSJ)

The BBJ got its wish: Treasurer Deb Goldberg has finally been held accountable, or at least partially accountable, for the mess at the Cannabis Control Commission, thanks to Suffolk Superior Court Judge Robert Gordon’s ruling this week that Goldberg wrongly fired CCC chair Shannon O’Brien in 2023. The 50-page ruling is so brutally worded and full of common-sense observations, you’d think Goldberg would cut her losses and let the controversy slowly fade away. Nope. Goldberg has served notice she plans to appeal Gordon’s decision, prolonging the CCC’s years-long bureaucratic agony for Lord knows how much longer, as GBH’s Adam Reilly reports. … The Globe’s Joan Vennochi has an excellent column that gets to a core truth about the controversy: Goldberg’s attempt to use woke-ism to justify her firing/canceling of O’Brien. It backfired on Goldberg, big time. … Meanwhile, a Globe editorial gets it right on two points: Goldberg needs to give it up, while O’Brien needs to declare victory and walk away.

Update – 9.5.25 — And from the Globe’s Kevin Cullen: “Having read a judge’s sobering take on the state of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, I have just one question: What are they smoking up there?” …. Fyi: Kevin found a copy of Gordon’s strongly worded ruling here.

The Globe’s Jon Chesto reports that the recent return-to-office trend seems to have stalled in Boston – and what we see today might be as good as it gets. But, wait, the BBJ’s William Hall reports that many employers he’s contacted say they plan to “require staffers to spend greater time onsite this fall or at the start of the new year.” … I haven’t a clue who might be right. But what I find interesting is that San Francisco, the office basket case of all office basket cases, is lately seeing a strong rebound in its office market, thanks to AI firms, the WSJ reports. From the Journal: 

“In the latest sign of renewed market confidence, Houston-based real-estate investment manager Hines launched a city review process of a planned 1,225-foot-tall office tower at the site of the old Pacific Gas & Electric headquarters. It would be the tallest building on the West Coast and just 25 feet shy of New York City’s Empire State Building.”

File under: For what it’s worth.

There’s no silver-bullet solution to our housing crisis. It’s going to take a lot of big and small ideas to move the housing-construction needle here. With that in mind, here are two rather simple ideas to help build and preserve housing in these parts and across the U.S. … First, Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, senior fellow at University of Texas and economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, writes that deleting just five words (“built on a permanent chassis”) from the Mobile Home Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 would “unlock vast” modular home construction and ownership potential in the U.S. – and not mobile-home potential. Think smaller modular homes in general. …  I’m not sure about the ‘vast’ potential part. Certainly not here in Massachusetts, home to some of the most fanatical and snobby NIMBY species in the country. But it’s an idea that could move the needle a bit. … I briefly addressed the modular-home issue last week. … Fernández-Villaverde piece via RCM. …

… The second idea comes via Jonathan Berk at B&T, who bemoans the loss of historic buildings and historic neighborhoods across the state and nation. The culprit: parking requirements. … Parking requirements hobble new housing construction in general. New Hampshire recently addressed this issue by passing legislation that prohibits towns from requiring more than one parking space per unit for residential construction. It’s one of many smart housing-related items recently passed by lawmakers up north. Massachusetts lawmakers, take note.

 

— Nantucket, move over: “Springfield Was the Hottest Market in Nation in July” (B&T)

— I was thinking the same thing: “The new capital of global coffee could soon be . . . Burlington?” (Globe)

— Lynn, Lynn, the city of … : “The new Seaport District? Restoration of Lynn’s waterfront has developers closing in on the city’s South Harbor” (Commonwealth Beacon)

— They’re going to have to pry him from office: “What Tip O’Neill understood that Ed Markey doesn’t” (Globe)

— Brooks is mostly right about the cause-and-effect of our current political mess: “The Rise of Right-Wing Nihilism” (NYT)

— It’s definitely started: “Gallego gives Democrats blunt advice in New Hampshire, fueling 2028 talk” (MSN)

— Another 250^th anniversary piece on George Washington’s historic days in Boston: “When America found its first great leader” (Washington Post)

— This is just dumb, unfair and a complete waste of taxpayer and private dollars: “Trump administration shuts down R.I. wind farm that is 80% complete” (BBJ)

— Reminds me of the recent downfall of another iconic U.S. company, i.e. Boeing: “The Long, Painful Downfall of Intel” (NYT) 

— I thought its origin was tied to lobster rolls. Wrong: “How New England split with America over hot dog buns” (WBUR)

A new report by MassBio warning of tough times ahead for the state’s biotech sector rightly got a lot of attention this past week, via WBUR and the Globe, etc. But as MassBio chief executive Kendalle Burlin O’Connell told the Globe, the sector’s current woes and future challenges aren’t exactly surprising. … What I find interesting is the slow, long decline of Massachusetts’s other tech sector, i.e. the software-development sector. The BBJ recently reported that the traditional tech sector lost 8,200 jobs last year, a job loss exceeded only by California. … The rise of AI may or may not have played a major role in those 2024 job losses. But AI is expected, sooner or later, to start taking a bigger and bigger bite out of the local tech market. Take a gander at some of these headlines about the AI threat to traditional software-development jobs, jobs often filled by recent college grads. From the WSJ: “There Is Now Clearer Evidence AI Is Wrecking Young Americans’ Job Prospects.” … From the NYT: “The 1970s Gave Us Industrial Decline. A.I. Could Bring Something Worse.” … And this is my favorite headline, also via the Times: “Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle.” … Not all is AI doom-and-gloom. From the WSJ: “These AI-Skilled 20-Somethings Are Making Hundreds of Thousands a Year.” But you get the idea.

My point: Massachusetts’s economy is getting squeezed on two key tech fronts these days, not just one, and I’m not sure what can be done to help them. But I do know keeping the state competitive, in terms of taxes, regulations and general cost-of-living issues, is critical. I’m not sure this has sunk in yet with our policymakers.

They really do look like ‘Starship Troopers-like ICE recruitment ads,’ as Universal Hub describes them. And now they’re coming down at Shopper’s World in Framingham. … They should come down, but not only because of the ICE angle. I’ve never liked the use of ‘homeland’ to describe America. It represents blood-and-soil pride in America, not love-of-ideals pride, as John McCain once famously put it. … And then there’s the Starship Trooper movie, which I happen to like, in a so-bad-it’s-good way. But have you ever read Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi book on which the movie is based? It’s a series of long political harangues surrounded by a thin sci-fi tale– and we’re talking hard-core militarist, right-wing harangues about the inferiority of democracies, etc.

Photo below of ICE recruitment ad via Samantha McGarry.

Some interesting funding news to report. First, we’re close to finding out whether Massachusetts is home to one of the coolest breakthrough companies of the clean-energy era or one of its biggest busts. The BBJ has the latest on Devens-based Commonwealth Fusion system, which just raised another $863 million, bringing its total capital raised to nearly $3 billion … Nvidia and Google obviously have confidence in Commonwealth Fusion’s future. But I still have my nervous too-good-to-be-true doubts, based on having seen (and written about) way too many clean-energy busts over the years. …  I’ve previously posted about Commonwealth Fusion here.

Meanwhile, Andover-based Reframe Systems may not be the coolest startup, but it’s definitely a cool and fascinating housing startup. B&T reports Reframe Systems has raised $20 million to “build a series of ‘microfactories’ to crank out modular buildings like ADUs and three-deckers.”  … Sounds great. But it all depends on how local towns and cities react. They haven’t exactly embraced modular construction in the past, unfortunately.  … One of the firm’s triple-decker products looks pretty damn good to me. 

The NYT’s M. Gessen has a moving story about Russian opposition journalist Peter Ruzavin, who concluded he could no longer just write about the Russo-Ukrainian war. He decided he had to fight. So he became a solider in the Ukrainian army, measuring his oppositional contribution in a new and entirely different way.