The Truth Is Out There: CAVE Dwellers, ObamaCare, State Lawmakers Killing Massachusetts Retail -- March 24, 2016

The truth is out there.

One just has to search for it.

These are the big three killing retail in Massachusetts:

• high energy costs (thank you, warmists and CAVE dwellers)
• high health care insurance premiums (thank you, Mr Romney and Mr Obama)
• high labor costs (thank you, Mr Congresswoman)

From today's Boston Globe:

The Retailers Association of Massachusetts said it saw a 34-percent surge in members who dropped out of the organization because they went out of business.
The statistic was particularly noteworthy because the number of closure-related dropouts held steady from 2011 through 2014, in the 130 range annually, before rising to 174 last year.

“We were taken aback by it,” said Hurst, whose statewide group has roughly 3,500 members, most of them mom-and-pop shops and other small businesses, including restaurants. “It’s a little scary. I’m kind of concerned that there’s a real profitability issue. Too many of them are going out of business, and new entrepreneurs aren’t coming in to replace them.”

The retailers association continues to push a bill that would eliminate Massachusetts’ time-and-a-half pay requirement for workers on Sundays and holidays, a requirement that Hurst said is shared by only one other state, Rhode Island.

Hurst said the group’s members are under assault from online competitors that don’t have the same cost structures or regulations. He places the blame for the rise in closures on that competition, as well as on high labor and energy costs and double-digit percentage increases in health insurance premiums: “All of these things are piling on.”

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Yellow Journalism Out West

Is this much ado about nothing, to quote the bard?

The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

The Port of Los Angeles paid a Chinese government-owned shipping company $5 million in 2005 to equip cargo vessels to plug into electric shore power while at dock to keep their massive diesel engines from polluting neighborhoods near the harbor.

The company, China Shipping, used the money to upgrade 17 ships, but the city didn't get all the promised environmental benefits. Most of the vessels stopped traveling to Los Angeles in 2010, a Times review of shipping industry data showed.

The ships that took their place on the Asia-to-Los Angeles route were not all equipped for shore power. From 2010 to 2013, a period in which residents were promised that virtually every vessel docked at the terminal would plug in, half left their engines running, port records show. In 2012, 88% left their engines running.

Since 2014, nearly all ships that dock at the China Shipping terminal have plugged in because the newer, larger vessels plying the route now are generally built with shore power in mind, port spokesman Phillip Sanfield said.

Okay, there was a bit of "smoke and mirrors" between 2005 and 2014, but it's "all good" now. 

I doubt this story has any legs.