I like Cape Cod Potato Chips — not sufficient to purchase them once they’re not on sale, however they’re higher than common, they usually’re native, or had been, till not too long ago.
A lot of the manufacturing had lengthy since been transferred to free American states, however a vestigial footprint was left behind, in Hyannis. The little manufacturing facility, which nonetheless employed 49 folks, was a decent-sized vacationer attraction.
However as of July, every thing’s gone. As the company proprietor, Campbell’s Soup, famous in a press launch:
“The location not makes financial sense for the enterprise.”
Couldn’t the identical factor be mentioned about your complete state of Massachusetts? It not makes financial sense.
Or another form of sense, for that matter.
The flight final week of Cape Cod chips from Cape Cod was a mere diversion, small potatoes you would possibly say, from the bigger sample of catastrophes right here in Massachusetts.
Take into account this ongoing chilly snap. Simply a few weeks in the past, Gov. Maura Healey made an enormous announcement. Hydro Quebec had simply “flipped a swap,” and now these good uber-woke Canadians can be offering 25% of the state’s electrical wants, at a financial savings of $50 million.
Her coven of no-nonsense gals and transitioning beta males started cheering wildly.
Quick ahead to final weekend. Hydro Quebec had some, uh, issues, as woke enterprises are wont to do. Plus, international warming took the identical weekend off in Canada because it did right here. Demand skyrocketed in La Belle Province as temperatures plummeted and output failed.
Guess what occurred? The Canadians “flipped a swap” — to off. And Massachusetts was screwed, or would have been, if we hadn’t had fossil fuels to fall again on. Once more. Forty % of our electrical energy final weekend was generated by… oil.
Not cleaner stuff like pure gasoline — Maura shut down two pipelines, bear in mind? Or nukes — thanks, Clamshell Alliance!
No, it was oil that saved the day. Oil from free America bailed out the virtue-signaling, completely incompetent Democrats right here.
Cease me should you’ve heard this one earlier than…
Then there was wind energy, one other of Maura’s pet matters. Final week, the wind-power inexperienced rip-off artists had been again in federal court docket, arguing to be permitted to maintain squandering billions extra on these insane offshore windmills that produce subsequent to no vitality, however loads of air pollution.
Have you learnt how a lot vitality “wind” generated for New England’s hard-pressed electrical grid final weekend? In accordance with the Wall Avenue Journal, lower than the burning of wooden and rubbish.
If wind and solar energy are the longer term, it’s going to be very chilly and darkish in New England.
You realize the outdated joke.
Q. What did Democrats use for gentle earlier than candles?
A. Electrical energy.
In the meantime, within the political area, the state continued making an attempt to forestall the feds from arresting and deporting any of the illegal-alien criminals they’ve welcomed into Massachusetts on full lifetime welfare.
The Democrats declare the federal authorities has no proper to come back in and re-impose regulation and order within the Commonwealth.
But concurrently, the state legal professional basic went to court docket to drive 9 native cities to acquiesce to a crackpot state mandate requiring them to construct “public housing,” which is now a euphemism for flooding tranquil working-class communities with hordes of the non-working courses, most of them from the Third World.
A lot for insuring home tranquility.
This lawsuit towards the cities was filed by the legal professional basic, Andrea Campbell, who has such a dedication to the celebration of range that she has fled Boston for the bucolic, 86% white city of Dartmouth on the South Coast.
It’s far outdoors the confines of the focused MBTA district. Dartmouth won’t ever be affected by the elemental transformation of America that Campbell fantasizes will quickly be devastating Winthrop, Holden and the remainder of the cities.
None of this makes any sense. The state argues that if the feds wish to impose management over Taxachusetts, it’s in some way unconstitutional. But when Massachusetts arbitrarily decides to impose its management over the municipalities, it’s completely okay.
This was the nonsense that was happening right here final week, similar to each week. Possibly that’s why folks would quite discuss, no less than for a second or two, about defunct potato chip corporations.
Nostalgia turns into a recurring theme in failing states — excited about nice issues which have vanished as a result of they “not make financial sense.”
In Massachusetts, you possibly can play the do-you-remember sport with any form of enterprise sector — sweet corporations, banks, beer, even the pc corporations that had been as soon as purported to be the state’s savior. Digital, Wang, Knowledge Normal, Prime, and so forth. All gone.
And now Cape Cod potato chips. Nowadays I principally grocery-shop at Aldi’s, the place the home model is Clancy’s. They’re made in Canada, which can be the place State Line chips come from for the reason that outdated Wilbraham plant was shuttered.
After the Cape Cod chips announcement, I requested my radio listeners in the event that they remembered different outdated native manufacturers. The strains lit up.
It’s form of a tragic matter, however not as miserable as speaking about how Healey, Campbell et al. are taking a wrecking ball to utterly every thing regular in Massachusetts.
Callers talked about Tri-Sum and Wachusett — based on their web site, these two outdated rivals are actually made “within the Northeast,” which doesn’t sound very like Worcester County. Keep in mind Vincent’s, from Salem, with the witch on the bag or tin?
They introduced up manufacturers I’d by no means heard of — Hunt’s and Blackstone — or recalled solely vaguely, like Boyd’s. In New Hampshire, they’d Granite State.
I recalled my Aunt Mabel in Portland alternating between King Cole and Humpty Dumpty chips, relying on which model was on sale at A&P.
And now Cape Cod chips develop into the most recent ghost model in New England. Possibly they’ll put up a marker on the shuttered manufacturing facility gates on Breeds Hill Highway. It’s a practice in Massachusetts, similar to the opposite announcement from Cape Cod’s homeowners final week.
“The corporate will present impacted workers steering on the best way to assess state help applications.”
Welfare — the very last thing that makes financial sense for Massachusetts.
