Limbaugh's Encore at CPAC For some reason FoxNews didn't broadcast Rush's Karaoke ode to himself.  ¶ 9:42 PM 0 comments

  Balloon Payment Tell me again that a gas tax hike would go for infrastructure rather than to debt service:

State Administration and Finance Undersecretary Jay Gonzalez told lawmakers Thursday he believes it’s “quite likely” that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority’s bond insurer’s credit rating will be lowered further, which would leave the fiscally ailing agency on the hook for a balloon payment valued on Wednesday at $363 million.

This is just nuts that we've allowed fiscal neglect and structural neglect to go on so long. And now, at the worst time in our economy in may decades, we are going to have to dig deep to pay down the state's credit cards because we legally cannot run a deficit. This debt service, especially stupidly avoidable stuff like balloon payments, eats cash, lowering the amount of money that will actually go into the real-world economy. Friggin' brilliant.

(Link via BMG)  ¶ 8:32 AM 0 comments

  Weathering of the Creative Economy in Recession Speaking of MCLA profs, Greg Sheckler has a short essay about the Mortgage Crisis up and while I agree with him that the "Howitzer" approach to government intervention is warranted, it's the second half of his piece that caught my eye.

He is spot-on that the so-called creative economy is not an economic engine that is noted for creating the tangible assets in a manner that can grow an economy out of recession. His fears that the global crunch will keep things like MCLA's new science building from happening are not paranoid. I've had candid discussions with a couple of folks who are in a position to know, and regardless of his verbal promises, Governor Patrick has still not pulled the trigger on construction. This worries me.

I've never seen a quantifiable number that I consider inclusive, but the bedrock institutions that make up the base of this sector, the museums, the theaters, the colleges, etc... employ many thousands of our regions residents directly and many times more indirectly. With the exception of a few smaller organizations and galleries, all of these "companies" will most assuredly still employ people during and after this deep recession is but a chapter in a history book. And steady employment is the key to weathering a recession.

Anecdotally, most of the tourist *destinations* in the area have reported strong numbers through the last six months. I am guessing that just like frozen pizza in a grocery store, day trips and weekends, will grow inversely to the economic contraction as people curtail bigger vacation plans for the city folk we depend on. The local tourist driven businesses that are not the destinations themselves will obviously not see the level of discretionary spending that they did during flush times, but hopefully, the well run places will find ways to hang on with decreased, but steady, revenue.

So what's my point?

Check out a pass from the library and go to a museum. When you get home, call the Governor's Office and tell him to make sure that MCLA get's the damn science building that has already been funded by the legislature, gets built. It's a far bigger deal than most people realize.

UPDATE: The nation's mayors chime in on the arts economy in response to Bobby "Kenneth" Jindal:

The mayors noted that Louisiana -- according to Dun & Bradstreet -- "is home to 7,013 arts-related businesses that employ 27,117 people." And it says that in 2008, Louisiana received 27 grants worth $1.3 million from the NEA.

"Mayors clearly understand the important contribution of the arts to our local communities, financially and in terms of the quality of life for our residents," said the letter signed by Miami Mayor Manny Diaz.

  ¶ 11:39 AM 9 comments

  Buh Bye Mr. Clark Billings is retiring from MCLA and the North Adams City Council. I hope he finds the serenity and happiness in Rhode Island that seemed to elude him here.  ¶ 11:24 AM 4 comments

  Is All Publicity Good? Just once I would like to see an article about the charter school that is not premised on the point of view of North Adams' Mayor. I mean no disrespect, but the story of BArT's long scheduled open house and their administration being prepared for questions rising from the likely closure of Conte Middle School does not strike me as terribly controversial. Well, that is, until you start including accusations of poaching students from a "rival" district.

We all know that the equation for funding charter schools hurts traditional school districts. (Anybody who reads the paper *already* knows the Mayor's position on this) Frankly the way the budgeting is mandated by the state sucks. And from what I gather, charter schools aren't exactly thrilled by it either. (There has to be a better way. Dan? Ben?)

BUT...

Why does the angle on a simple story about a school's open house have to be about "the controversy?" I don't get it.  ¶ 9:39 PM 4 comments

  Dan's Getting Righteous Indignation about the current gas/mileage tax proposals is the right reaction from my point of view.  ¶ 5:30 PM 0 comments

  We've only just begun... Pulitzer Prize Winner David Cay Johnston, who wrote the amazing book "Perfectly Legal" about how the super rich and mega corporations have completely gamed the tax system, writes a great essay about some relatively simple fixes to tilt the playing field back towards the working class:

For anyone born after, say, 1970, the world has been shaped by Ronald Reagan's remaking of government's relationship with private interests—a vision of lower taxes, less regulation, and maximum economic leeway for those at the top. In this view, the pursuit of wealth is the warp and weft of America; everything else will follow.

By contrast, the preamble to the Constitution tells us the nation's reason for being in 52 words that can be reduced to six principles: society, justice, peace, security, commonwealth, and freedom. Individual riches don't make the list. They are a product of American society, not its guiding purpose. Progress, then, must begin with a return to the best of the values that created this Second American Republic—one born, it's worth remembering, from the failure of the Articles of Confederation, whose principles (weak government, unfettered capitalism) found their resurrection in the economic policies of the past three decades.

Who's gonna' tell the Dittoheads that our constitution's framers were "socialists?"  ¶ 9:07 PM 3 comments

  $1.3 Million for North Adams Schools in the "Stim" Our old friend Noah Hoffenberg writes about Title I and IDEA funding in the recently passed stimulus package. From iBerkshires:

The money comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which President Obama signed on Tuesday in Colorado. The ARRA, the latest stimulus act, will provide billions of dollars in an attempt to boost the national economy, in addition to providing billions to pump up school systems across the country.

The act allots $13 billion in Title 1 funding, which provides for the poorest students, and $11.3 billion in IDEA funding, which is for students with disabilities. It also provides for school construction and modernization tax credits with $24.8 billion, as well as a $53.6 billion for state stabilization funds, of which the Bay State's use will be determined by Gov. Deval Patrick.

$1.3 million for North Adams will go a long way towards keeping a fragile system from crashing.  ¶ 8:40 PM 0 comments

  Thank You North Adams Library! I've gotta' say, the free museum passes available at our local libraries are one of the best kept secrets in town. Today was the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge! Saved $30!

(Remember your local library the next time some right-wing crank starts blabbing about "Socialism!" Taxes pay for things.)

UPDATE: And now I see that the lovely woman who loaned out the museum pass to me isn't screwing around when it comes to overdue materials. Yikes. I'll return the pass first thing in the morning:

Last week, 15 patrons with laundry-lists of overdue books and movies were summonsed to Northern Berkshire District Court for show-cause hearings, she said.

"It was very successful -- about 3/4 of the cases were settled either before or on the day of the hearing," Gross said. We had several people bring in the missing materials before the court date."

  ¶ 7:29 PM 0 comments

  Jae's Inn Update It looks like Jae got the life preserver on before he sank. From yesterday's Transcript:

Rumors began circulating last week after a foreclosure notice for the 11-acre South State Street property was published as a legal advertisement. According to the Northern Berkshire Registry of Deeds, Chung took out a $474,000 mortgage on the property last April.

"We're not closing," Chung said Thursday. "I've met with the president of the (Adams Co-operative) bank and we've made a deal. We have restructured the loan.

I hope this works out for Jae. We ate there this past Tuesday night (Cheap Sushi night!) and my fear was that it would be the last time.

As for the rumors swirling around the Freight Yard and Taylor's, I've heard them, but they've never been more than speculation. The one part of the Colleen and Sean empire that did change hands recently was the Cobbleview Pub and Pizzeria in Chesire. If I understand it correctly, Sean sold his interest the business to Holly Drosehn, the partner he opened it with.

Stay tuned. Nationwide, the casual sit-down segment of the restaurant business is off by over 30% from the previous year. When the economy finally recovers, the restaurant landscape will surely look a little different.  ¶ 9:22 AM 0 comments

  Pontiac The NYTs and Wall Street (and the average American Consumer) may think that Pontiac has run its course, but my little 11 year old Sunfire is doing great.

No Complaints - Although, as I've written previously, this will be my last GM car for a while.  ¶ 12:15 AM 0 comments

  Define Regressive The Mayor's speech at the Chamber breakfast had a few interesting points, but this one bugged me:

".... the property tax, which is the most regressive tax."

Umm, no. The sales tax is by far the most regressive because poor folks pay a far higher portion of their income into it. Conversely property tax is based upon the assessed value of property. The owner, if she/he cannot afford the taxes, usually has the option of selling. That doesn't hold true when you are paying sales tax on a jug of laundry soap.

Property taxes can, indeed, be unkind to those who lose income or whose properties increase in value faster than inflation, but that is hardly considered regressive taxation.

That said, the mayor's larger point was about the meals and lodging tax. I might be the only chef in town who says "go ahead and raise it", but 2% of a typical bill at a restaurant isn't going to bankrupt anybody.

And consumers always have the option of learning how to cook their own groceries - tax free.

(Link fixed)  ¶ 7:59 PM 1 comments

  Egos Sometimes people forget they are not in 8th grade anymore.

Guyer, who was given a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and named a vice chairman of the Joint Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, blasted Pignatelli on Facebook, a massive social networking Web site that has become one of the most popular online destinations.

Pignatelli's "such an idiot," Guyer's Facebook posting read. "I have been biting my tongue for four years about his BS ... came to a head today with what he said in that article. The happy horse crap 'we are all one in the delegation' facade is O V E R."

The posting dragged into public view a feud that has been in the background for months.

Oops.  ¶ 5:24 AM 1 comments

  Was Limbaugh's Nose Around in 1933 From Keynes' open letter to President Roosevelt:

The average City man believes that you are engaged on a hare-brained expedition in face of competent advice, that the best hope lies in your ridding yourself of your present advisers to return to the old ways, and that otherwise the United States is heading for some ghastly breakdown. That is what they say they smell. There is a recrudescence of wise head-waging by those who believe that the nose is a nobler organ than the brain.

The letter itself, originally printed in the New York Times 75 years ago, describes a situation very similar to where we are right now. The major difference that makes Keynes' three pronged approach to battling "the slump" is that, today, the Federal Reserve has already lowered interest rates effectively to zero, which makes the other two "factors" so important:

Individuals must be induced to spend more out o their existing incomes; or the business world must be induced, either by increased confidence in the prospects or by a lower rate of interest, to create additional current incomes in the hands of their employees, which is what happens when either the working or the fixed capital of the country is being increased; or public authority must be called in aid to create additional current incomes through the expenditure of borrowed or printed money. In bad times the first factor cannot be expected to work on a sufficient scale. The second factor will come in as the second wave of attack on the slump after the tide has been turned by the expenditures of public authority. It is, therefore, only from the third factor that we can expect the initial major impulse.

If you have no clue what the heck this post is about, but are curious who this guy Keynes was and want a basic overview of his theories, click here.  ¶ 7:41 PM 0 comments

  Limbaugh Declares He is Moving to New Zealand if Stimulus Works

Love it or leave it, Rush. Buh bye.  ¶ 11:32 PM 25 comments

  You Can't Bury the Bodies if They're Still Alive Just when I get a little ticked off at Massachusetts politics, I look an hour to the west and find our neighbors in New York, specifically the Senate Republicans, make us look like pikers:

They recently realized there are some 75 employees working at the Senate’s own printing plant, a plain brick building on the outskirts of Albany. On Long Island, they found a small television studio, which had been set up — all with public money, with two press aides on hand to help operate it — for the exclusive use of Republican senators to record cable TV shows.

Democrats also came across what they are calling the “Brunomobile,” a $50,000 specially outfitted GMC van, with six leather captain’s chairs (some swiveling), a navigation system, rearview camera and meeting table. Joseph L. Bruno, the former Senate majority leader who was recently indicted on corruption charges, traveled in the van after his use of state helicopters sparked a feud with the Spitzer administration.

Then there are the parking spots, always at a premium near the Capitol. Democrats had been given roughly one spot per senator — there were 30 Democrats last year — and guessed there were perhaps double or even triple that controlled by the majority. Instead, they have learned, there are more than 800.

And Democratic leaders must determine what to do about 45 workers toiling away in a building close to the Capitol who appear to have been engaged in quasi-political research for the Republicans.

Wasn't it the newly elected National GOP Chair who declared

"Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created a job."

I guess Michael Steele never met Joe Bruno.  ¶ 11:03 PM 0 comments

  Bad News First, then.... The new Speaker of the Mass House has screwed replaced Dan Bosley as House Chair of the Economic Development and Emerging Technologies Committee. This appears to simply be about casinos. Speaker DeLeo has two failing race tracks in his district that are petitioning for slot machines as their saving grace, and DeLeo has made it clear that he likes the idea of his constituents obsessively pumping quarters into a rigged game.

In the other chamber....

Ben Downing has been named chair of the Revenue Committee. Impressive, but a seriously challenging responsibility during a recession. Good Luck Ben! You're going to need it.  ¶ 5:05 PM 1 comments

  Oh Crap! This is bad:

THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS BERKSHIRE SS. SUPERIOR COURT No. 09-026 To Jae H. Chung, residing at 142 Blythewood Drive, Pittsfield, Massachusetts 01201, and to all persons entitled to the benefits of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. WHEREAS, Adams Co-Operative Bank is a corporation having a usual place of business at 93 Park Street, Adams, Massachusetts 01220, claiming to be the holder of a mortgage covering real property situated at 1111 South State Street, North Adams, Massachusetts 01247, given by Jae. H. Chung to Adams Co-Operative Bank dated April 21, 2008, and recorded in the Berkshire Northern District Registry of Deeds, Book 1327, Page 827&c, has filed with said court a bill in equity for authority to foreclose said mortgage by entry and possession and exercise of a power of sale: If you are entitled to the benefits of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act,as amended, and you object to such foreclosure of said mortgage, you or your attorney should file a written appearance and answer in said Court at Pittsfield, in said County of Berkshire, on or before the 18th day of March, 2009, which day is the return day of this subpoena, or you may be forever barred from claiming that such foreclosure is invalid under said Act. Witness, BARBARA J. ROUSE, Esquire, Chief Justice of our Superior Court, the 27th day of January in the year of our Lord two thousand nine. Deborah S. Capeless CLERK. A True copy. Attest: John D. Lanoue. Esq. Donovan & O'Connor, LLP 1330 Mass MoCA Way North Adams, MA 01247 (413)663-3200 2/11/09

  ¶ 7:30 PM 3 comments

  The Upgrade will be Available this Fall NOT WORK SAFE. WAIT 'TIL YOU ARE HOME TO CLICK.


Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Sh*t That Doesn't F'ing Work

(Thanks to Cap'n John for the link)  ¶ 6:23 AM 2 comments

  A Question for Dan, Ben & Mayor Barrett Gentlemen, if you could respond to Senator Ensign's (R-Nevada) comments that the impending layoffs of public sector employees is "fear mongering," what would you say?



I don't know if folks like Sen. Ensign are obtuse or dishonest, and frankly I am not sure I care. The stakes are far too high.  ¶ 8:48 PM 0 comments

  Motive? I would love to know what the heck this guy was thinking when he scared parents around the world with his fraud. I wonder if anybody will ever extrapolate the number of people who died from preventable diseases because of this:

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.

  ¶ 8:19 PM 0 comments

  Does this bother you as much as it bothers me? (h/t to grandpa)  ¶ 11:38 AM 3 comments

  One Man's Pork is Another Man's Bacon This table has been floating around for a couple of days. It demonstrates pretty effectively the multiplier effect (aka "bang for the buck") of dollars spent in a stimulus. As I argued below, helping those in the most precarious positions (food stamps, state aid via medicaid, etc....) is BY FAR the most effective way to inject money into the economy.
I would suggest that those who are twittering about over tax cuts, etc... need to have their lunch handed to them just as Professor Krugman slaps around the ideologues on the Daily Joe:As the President asked last night, "Are these folks serious?"

The answer is pretty clearly "No."  ¶ 4:47 PM 0 comments

  WTF???? My tiny kitchen gets inspected at least twice a year.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee says he's surprised a Texas peanut plant run by a company responsible for a national salmonella outbreak operated uninspected and unlicensed for nearly four years.

Sen. Tom Harkin asked during a hearing Thursday if he should be alarmed by this and asked federal health officials how many other food plants are operating off the radar without regular inspections.

Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's food safety chief, told Harkin each state handles licensing and inspections differently.

  ¶ 12:15 PM 2 comments

  Very, Very Creepy The Google Borg continues to grow:

It will be interesting to see how Google's new geo-locator service, called Latitude, plays with small business. Launched yesterday, Latitude transmits the user's location back to Google [using standard 2nd generation cell phones] for display using the service's online maps.

I'm sure that your friendly neighborhood stalkers will love this service, too!  ¶ 9:44 AM 0 comments

  What is Stimulation? While I'll gladly agree with Glenn's argument that the "Stimulus Bill" is the opportunity to fund massive infrastructure , I've got to disagree with his premise that things like food stamps, medicaid, green energy research, etc...should not be considered stimulus.

The fact is that every dollar of food stamps and medicaid is spent almost immediately and pumped into local economies. As someone who works in the food industry, I can assure the skeptics that food stamps help working class folks keep their jobs. Just ask Price Chopper and Big Y how many employees would be laid off if food stamps disappeared tomorrow?

States are already trimming Medicaid due to budget restraints just as the recession is creating a swelling need for subsidized services. Again, ask North Adams Regional Hospital how many workers would lose their job if Medicaid ended tomorrow.

And Green energy research? That money isn't disappearing into thin air. It is creating NEW jobs.

This is not 1932. The programs put forth are not going to look just like The New Deal. But even back then, FDR called for "relief" programs which kept a certain number of people fed.

The idea is still the same - Keep people employed, provide a safety net for those who lose employment AND also create new jobs. The money ALL goes right back into the economy with a certain multiplier effect.

In 1933, unemployment was around 25%. After four years of The New Deal it had fallen to 11%. It was only when the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats convinced FDR to cut back spending in 1937 that the economy dipped again and unemployment spiked to 18% a year later. It took Hitler and Tojo to prompt the kind of spending that brought the economy back to sustainable low unemployment.

While I'd love to see more concrete and steel in the bill, I don't think worrying about the tiny percentages of the bill being spent on poor people is appropriate or necessary. Instead I'd be much more concerned about huge 11 and 12 figure chunks of taxpayer monies that are going to large institutions that want Uncle Sam to make their investors whole. Screw that. Majority shareholders do not need relief. Buy the banks, wipe out the shareholders and let the debt-laden U.S. Treasury reap the profits when the banks are re-sold in a few years.

And remember, the dollars in the bill need to be spent.  ¶ 7:40 PM 2 comments

  All Bets are Off (Or "On" as the case may be) Rumors are swirling that the new Speaker of the House may replace our local Rep, Dan Bosley as the chair of the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies. That would not just be a great loss to our region, but the loss of Dan's knowledge of this subject matter would be detriment to the entire commonwealth:

Bosley said he was loyal to DiMasi. He said he remained neutral in the speaker's contest until the retirement of DiMasi, who stepped down this week amidst the investigation for ethical problems.

On Monday, Bosley committed to DeLeo, but DeLeo had already secured enough votes to become speaker.

Bosley, who has been a leader in blocking casinos for the past 15 years on Beacon Hill, said he would play any role for DeLeo that the new speaker decides. He said he has no expectations.

I've personally heard Dan's interpretation of DiMasi's plight and I have no problem with him sticking with his trusted colleague and friend until the end. Politics being what it is, seeing someone pass on the chance to twist the knife is a rare demonstration of character.  ¶ 6:54 PM 0 comments

  Price to be paid.... Remind me again which side plays politics with our blood and treasure:

Ever since he began working on the troop surge, [Petraeus' mentor] Keane has been the central figure manipulating policy in order to keep as many U.S. troops in Iraq as possible. It was Keane who got Vice President Dick Cheney to push for Petraeus as top commander in Iraq in late 2006 when the existing commander, Gen. George W. Casey, did not support the troop surge.

It was Keane who protected Petraeus's interests in ensuring the maximum number of troops in Iraq against the efforts by other military leaders to accelerate troop withdrawal in 2007 and 2008. As Bob Woodward reported in "The War Within", Keane persuaded President George W. Bush to override the concerns of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the stress of prolonged U.S. occupation of Iraq on the U.S. Army and Marine Corps as well its impact on the worsening situation in Afghanistan.

Bush agreed in September 2007 to guarantee that Petraeus would have as many troops as he needed for as long as wanted, according to Woodward's account.

Keane had also prevailed on Gates in April 2008 to make Petraeus the new commander of CENTCOM. Keane argued that keeping Petraeus in the field was the best insurance against a Democratic administration reversing the Bush policy toward Iraq.

Keane had operated on the assumption that a Democratic president would probably not take the political risk of rejecting Petraeus's recommendation on the pace of troop withdrawal from Iraq. Woodward quotes Keane as telling Gates, "Let's assume we have a Democratic administration and they want to pull this thing out quickly, and now they have to deal with General Petraeus and General Odierno. There will be a price to be paid to override them."

Evidently Petraeus and his mentor honestly believed that St. David P. was too popular to be contradicted by his commander. And now they want to create a public relations blitz to try and change the President's mind:

Keane, the Army Vice-Chief of Staff from 1999 to 2003, has ties to a network of active and retired four-star Army generals, and since Obama's Jan. 21 order on the 16-month withdrawal plan, some of the retired four-star generals in that network have begun discussing a campaign to blame Obama's troop withdrawal from Iraq for the ultimate collapse of the political "stability" that they expect to follow U.S. withdrawal, according to a military source familiar with the network's plans.

The source says the network, which includes senior active duty officers in the Pentagon, will begin making the argument to journalists covering the Pentagon that Obama's withdrawal policy risks an eventual collapse in Iraq. That would raise the political cost to Obama of sticking to his withdrawal policy.

If Obama does not change the policy, according to the source, they hope to have planted the seeds of a future political narrative blaming his withdrawal policy for the "collapse" they expect in an Iraq without U.S. troops.

If an active duty officer is involved in such a scheme, I believe that would be a clear violation of the law.

What is easy to predict? - Look for Limbaugh to celebrate and gloat on every death and insurgent attack in Iraq for the next four years as "proof of Obama's failure." What's a few hundred/thousand more lives if helps get Republicans elected? Grotesque.  ¶ 6:21 PM 0 comments

  Journalistic Ethics and the Citibank Bailout Well, now I'm pissed. Last Tuesday I tipped off Chuck Bennett of the NY Post and did a phone interview with him about Citibank's plane being in Cabo over New Year's. I GAVE HIM THE STORY AND HE KNEW I HAD PUBLISHED IT ON THIS SITE.

This story would not have even crossed the Post's radar without this blog and my email and phone conversation with Bennett. Now another reporter at the Post took Bennett's notes and ran with the story:

Just weeks after Citigroup averted total collapse with a $45 billion shot in the arm of taxpayer cash, the bank jetted its former CEO and his family on one of its corporate jets to a posh Mexican resort for New Year's, The Post has learned.

Sandy Weill, 75, hopped aboard the tanking bank's Bombardier BD 700 Global Express on Dec. 26 with his wife, Joan, daughter Jessica, her husband and their children. They flew from Westchester County Airport to the Los Cabos shore region in sunny Baja, according to aviation records and sources familiar with the trip.

I am referred to as - "sources familiar with the trip" -GRRRRR. I provided a published, eyewitness account.

But all the same, I am happy to stick it to Citibank. That company screwed me twice with their greed and cost me hours of financial legwork to undo their unethical and incompetent dealings over two different third party credit cards. If a couple of executives have to testify before congress because my brother and I jotted down the tail numbers of luxury planes while on vacation, then I'll consider us even.  ¶ 2:56 PM 5 comments