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I am Matthew J. Fraser and call myself “The Language Guy”. Language learning is what I enjoy. I have been teaching and studying languages since 1995. Some years I flipped flashcards 6-7 hours a day. As a response, I wrote some little language learning books that respond to the needs of the market: books of simple sentences with interesting introductions.
The Language Guy’s Spanish Learner is a collection of easy sentences. It is designed to help Spanish learners get repetition of basic grammar and vocabulary while learning to read easy Spanish. It also recommends other Spanish learning materials, including a frequency dictionary and grammar books and reviews the Spanish easy readers of three companies.
Books That Respond to Perceived Need
Two books were written as a result of perceived need. They are designed to bring stability in uncertain times. They bring attention to good work that deserves it. Ideas for America: Let the Sun In is a collection of ten essays on restoring the New England middle class.
Critical Infrastructure for Children is a resource for parents, students and educators. The 215 questions in the book present core information for each of those three groups. You can preview CIC on Amazon with the “See Inside” feature. Both books contain strong sections on adult education. Both books contain the quote from University of Massachusetts at Lowell president Jacqueline Moloney, who outlined our current situation with skilled labor and manufacturing, when she said;
“The manufacturing industry in Massachusetts is facing a critical shortfall in skilled workers, with jobs currently unfilled and more expected to open up over the next 10 years….over the next decade, nearly 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will likely need to be filled, and the skills gap is expected to result in 2 million of those jobs going unfilled.“
Chapter Evolution
When I began writing in October of 1997, it was not clear what the book would become. I started with sentences that made sense. Sentences became paragraphs, paragraphs became pages, and pages became chapters. Those chapters, or essays in the Ideas for America series have evolved for 2.7 decades. Below are the top chapter updates since 2012.
Ideas for America: Let the Sun In
1. Chapter Six: Securing and Maximizing Social Security Whereas Chapter 6 of the 2012 edition of Ideas for America focused on the federal budget as a whole, an article in the Portland Press Herald by Laura Davison Bloomberg on the precarious future of Social Security in 2020 (1) inspired the new chapter focus on Social Security: “Chapter 6: Securing and Maximizing Social Security”. In 2023 the fourteen page chapter also saw the integration of a piece about the scheduled rise in annual federal interest payments. After studying federal numbers for much of the summer of 2023, including An Update to the Budget Outlook: 2023-2033, by the Congressional Budget Office, it became clear a page or two on these payments was necessary. (2) Massachusetts is an average sized state, so a $1 trillion increase in federal interest payments means about $20 billion per year for Massachusetts.
A Few Things are Unclear
a. The effect that an increase in interest rates would have on annual federal interest payments.
b. If, when and how the $20 billion increase in interest payments per average sized state will change the flow of money in Massachusetts.
c. How increased federal interest payments will or will not affect funding of Social Security.
Schedule of Federal Annual Interest Payments
2020 $345 Billion
2025 $775 Billion
2030 $1.165 Trillion
2033 $1.44 Trillion
After That: See Congressional Budget Office reports (3)
2. Support the Disabled, Support the Economy The 2012 edition of Ideas for America: Let the Sun In profiled successful business models. However, COVID-19 and the subsequent collapse of a few sectors of the Massachusetts economy inspired the transition to a four page chapter that focuses on support of the Massachusetts economy and the disabled in particular. The decision to focus support on the disabled in MA was in part due to having known State Senator Berry as a Senate page. (4) The phrase also expresses the belief that we can figure out ways to help the disabled while improving the MA economy as a whole. The overriding principle is that with times changing, information that would be considered esoteric needs to go mainstream, as we are affected by it.
Changing Formats Specifically, this website advocates utilizing the 4 page annual reports of the U.S. Small Business Administration as part of the core information that needs to go mainstream. Maybe people could get insights that could lead to new jobs or maximizing existing ones for the disabled. (5) The link to the MA 2013 U.S. Small Business Adminstration reports is in the footnotes. Different years are printable. Striking is the difference between the format of the 2013, 2018 and 2023 reports. All the pages changed, but page 3 changed the most in recent years.
3. Massachusetts Farming The 2012 Ideas for America included a few pages about existing, successful models of farming. However, a multi-media piece – article and video – by Megan Ottolini in the Boston Herald that spoke of 500 dying Massachusetts farms changed that chapter forever. The four page section now profiles challenges MA farms face, and some existing, successful models of support. (6)
Back Cover
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1. L. Davison, “Virus could deplete Social Security Funds by 2030, report says”. October 22, 2020, Portland Press Herald.
2. An Update to the Budget Outlook: 2023-2033, Congressional Budget Office. cbo.gov/publication/59159
3. Ibid.
4. “Longtime State Sen. Fred Berry of Peabody has died”. November 13, 2018, The Salem News
5. 2013 US Small Business Administration MA annual report: https://advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Massachusetts-2013.pdf
6. Youtube video: “Massachusetts Farmers Fight to Stay Afloat”, Boston Herald.
