This is disastrous news for British manufacturing. It is inconceivable that workers in France would be laid off on this scale.

It is inconceivable that French workers at Peugeot would be laid off on this magnitude.

(Manufacturing) is cyclical, we are either begging for work or workers, and we're in the worker phase again. Certainly manufacturing is affected by the automotive industry but we are not dependent on the automotive industry in the small- and medium-manufacturing world here. We are struggling to find enough people that are qualified to do the work that will remain here.

They make membranes and filters that separate fluids that are used in the semiconductor manufacturing and biotechnology sector. Both of these sectors -you can say what you want about the valuations - but the fact is the businesses there are growing fantastically, and Millipore is supplying the tools for these businesses. And it's a company growing 15 to 20 percent a year and yet trades at roughly a P/E of 25.

Today's announcement... is bad news for newspaper workers, readers, advertisers and for our communities.

Our number one economic development issue is housing. Our critical industries — health care, manufacturing, the convention business — need workers, but there is this huge bottleneck because of the lack of housing.