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"Exodus of Young Talent" -- nothing new there. In the 18th century the soil was so poor that the young men took to fishing, and international trade. In the 19th century the hill farms of the back country were so unprofitable that young New Englanders went out to the frontier for new opportunities or into the cities for work. As Middle Western farming and railroads developed even good farms became marginal and New England went in for manufacturing.

In the 20th century -- not so long ago -- those textile mills, ship yards and machine shops wouldn't pay either, and the region turned towards electronics, computers, and finance. In a few decades New England went from being an economic basket case to something of a showplace. So this is the latest chapter.

Of course it's more of a man-made problem now, not nature's fault. And taxes have a lot to do with it. Also, you can outsource just about anything now. A few decades ago we believed that the computers designed by New Englanders would still be built outside Boston -- even though the handwriting was on the wall even then. Now we see that a company doesn't have to have build or design anything in a particular location.

And New England never had much of a "hinterland" in the way that other regions did. That meant that things could go wrong in the large cities. Taxes and expenses could increase. Work habits might slacken. Urbanites would be bitten by this or that craze. But there'd always be someone from the backwoods to set things straight: either by outvoting the city folk at the polls or by moving into the city and taking up work. That doesn't happen here as much as in other parts of the country.

But I'm not so sure these problems are New England's alone. A lot of the country's troubles and weaknesses are concentrated here, but they're not unique to the region.