Tag: Cherry (page 3)

She will be remembered for her multiple trips to Japan to meet with Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and other foreign car companies while the big three were gasping for breath back in the United States.

People will remember her political posturing and finger pointing at President Bush scolding him for not meeting with Ford, GM or Chysler.  All the while her administration never did the same and ignored the Big Three.

The image of her standing next to President Obama and smiling while his administration systematically took over and dismantled General Motors and Chrysler was shoved toward foreign ownership once again will be seared into the minds if Michigan residents for years to come.

The elimination of Pontiac and the sale of Hummer to a Chinese company will rest at her feet, along with hundreds of supplier bankruptcies.

The collusion between her and her Washington colleagues as they aggressively grilled automotive executives on national television while letting bank executives off the hook without so much as a press conference will be long remembered.  

The ousting of Michigan Congressman John Dingell from the House Energy committee and the subsequent announcement of higher CAFE standards as a result will be seared into the minds of former automotive industry workers, both blue collar and white.

Mike Bouchard, Oakland County Sheriff, will launch his campaign for Governor by traveling the state to discuss Michigan's future with families, students and people from all walks of life in southeast Michigan, Lansing and Grand Rapids.  He'll meet with them to address their concerns and anxieties as well as preview his ideas and solutions for fixing Michigan as Governor.

Michigan Republicans now in have in Mike Bouchard a successful (many times over) conservative candidate from voter-rich Oakland County, in Mike Cox a candidate who proved in 2002 he was able to knock off a Democrat in a position that hadn't elected a Republican in a half-century and in Terri Lynn Land the highest vote getter in the state.

Democrats have John Cherry.

Event details for his tour are below the fold...

Go ahead.  We'll wait...

**twiddling thumbs**

**checking watch**

**looking out the window**

Oh, hi.  Welcome back.  

Howes wrote, in part:

The longer Public Michigan waits to reform the structure of government, to rationalize departments, to commonize retirement systems of public and school employees, to push consolidation of police and fire service among neighboring communities, the tougher the future will be. Ask GM.

Business knows this because successful business lives it, responding to changing conditions with dynamic management. Smart CEOs would look at the tale of GM, its predicament and see missed opportunities that, seized earlier, might have mitigated the today's pain.

Alas, smart CEOs have been in short supply in Michigan's executive office for the last six-plus years.  And if John Cherry's decision yesterday to duck the quasi-debate candidate forum up on the Island is any indication, the next two years won't bring us many bold or broad strokes either.  

But that's not to say there wasn't something worthwhile being discussed by the other candidates.  The Ivory Tower:

All five candidates said the tax structure of the state had to be reconfigured to make business taxes more fair, but only Cox said he would sign a pledge not to raise taxes.

"I wouldn't sign such a pledge," George said. "Because we don't know what the future holds."

I'd only reply that we DO know what the future holds should the current administration or the next raise taxes again.  We've experienced that nightmare before... and we're living through it now.

Pete Hoekstra will be there.

Terri Lynn Land will be there.

Tom George will be there.

Mike Cox will be there the day after officially announcing his candidacy along with a pledge to cut taxes on Michigan residents by a full $2 BILLION!

Heck, even radical pro-abortion candidate Alma Wheeler Smith will be there representing the Democrats.

Cherry... not so much.

Then again, if I were a part of a Democratic administration that was responsible for the largest tax hike in Michigan history, chronic budget "deficits" and thorough economic stagnation I'd probably duck a debate in front of the state's most prominent business leaders, too.

Why give voters... ANY voters... any extra opportunity to examine the goods... so to speak?

At first I thought we were looking at a case of abject political cowardice but I've since mellowed.  I hadn't considered the alternative.  

Read on...

The Democrats have arbitrarily agreed to mandate an increase in fuel economy standards that will add $1,300 to the up-front cost of every vehicle produced in Michigan.  (As Jacob points out in BofB, the cost is likely to end up being much higher.)  That's one mighty push in the back while two of the Big 3 are bankrupt and essentially stand on the edge of insolvency.

Granholm, Cherry and President Obama are taking the nation's most fragile industry, an industry that is having an impossible time selling her product and in one fell swoop DRAMATICALY increased the barriers standing between cash-strapped consumers and the purchase of a new automobile.  

Add to that this morning the news that the Feds are preparing to essentially buy GMAC via a fresh $7.5 billion "stimulus" that grants the government control of the financing giant and that General Motors is sliding faster and faster towards it's own personal Armageddon complete with total government control and the news couldn't get much bleaker for struggling Michigan families and the folks stuck in an unemployment line that stopped moving years ago.

And no one has even mentioned those proverbial spin-off jobs.  At least not until this morning.  The Ivory Tower covers the angle and reminds folks, fuel efficiency requires light-weight parts and technology that does not yet exist as it eventually must.  R & D and dramatic changes in production come with a cost and require significant cash investment that hasn't yet materialized.  Additional thousands of jobs are this morning at risk in new and scary ways.

The new standards come at a time when suppliers are cutting their staffs to stay afloat and doing their best to maintain their budgets for research and development.

"The first thing we need to do in this country is to get auto sales back up to a level where we have sufficient cash and profitability in the supply sector so we can afford to make these moves to more fuel-efficient engines," said Jim Gillette, director of financial services at CSM Worldwide...

Parts makers have the technology to meet these new standards, Gillette said, but "whether or not they're going to get the financing sources to expand to meet the production requirements is another question."

C'mon, Mr. Gillette, that's what Uncle Sam is for.  And if the Democrats don't like YOUR particular supplier they'll just let you and your jobs die while they funnel billions in "free money" to your competitors.  That's the new American way.

Jennifer Granholm and John Cherry yesterday sold out Michigan.  I wish there was a more polite way to put it.  They stood by and nodded their heads in approval while the federal government lined up the state's biggest industry against a massive firing squad of new regulations and bureaucratic price gouging.  Might as well have pulled the trigger themselves.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA) programs don't work and the Granholm-Cherry administration knew it.  That hasn't stopped them from showing up at press conference after press conference dating back to their reelection bid in 2005, though, and claiming credit for the creation of new jobs they KNEW, empirically, would never be created.

The Ivory Tower reported over the weekend that only 67,000 jobs have been created or retained by the state's big economic development programs in the last fourteen years.  To say that's a drop in the bucket compared to what Granholm and Cherry have promised unemployed voters at their many photo-ops would belittle drops in buckets.  

Last month on the Bloggers' Edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick the Regressisphere's greatest champion, Liberal Lucy, parroted the administration's line (that's what she does best) and claimed that their job creation efforts (those are, specifically, the MEDC and MEGA, kids) had actually created or retained 700,000 jobs.

700,000 in promises over six years.  That's an average of 116,667 jobs promised every year.   67,000 in results over fourteen comes out to an average of 4,786 per year.  In other words, the administration typically promises more than 24 TIMES what they know, historically, they're going to be able to deliver.

Fourteen years establishes what the experts refer to as a "track record." Despite platitudes and promises of future successes, the administration had reports and facts and figures that indicated most companies that were granted breaks and preferential treatment by the MEDC and via MEGA wound up declining to take advantage of the tax breaks because Michigan's job creation environment was still too turbulent for expansion, or even survival.

Politicians lie to voters.  Integrity is far too rare in "public servants."  But knowingly and willfully lying to unemployed workers about job creation prospects?  That's cruel, that's callous and it just plain isn't funny.

But on the other hand, the Wings got robbed last night.  Robbed.  

I know, as I sit in front of the television at 1AM when any of my teams are out west, that I'm going to regret it in the morning but when they actually win it's a great feeling.  A great, currently absent feeling.  A premature whistle?  Are you serious?  Oh well.  It isn't like these are the Stanley Cup Playoffs or anything.

Besides, good times are back in the D again in spite of NHL referees, after voters hit the polls and elected a brand spanking new mayor.  The Detroit News reports that Dave Bing will be the guy steering the Motor City into the future.  

"What we will bring ... is efficiency, transparency, honesty and integrity back to the mayor's office," (said Bing).

Cockrel, who led in the polls, lost to a first-time politician despite the backing of nearly every powerful union in the city and matching Bing in fundraising in a race that cost more than $2 million. He thanked his staff at a banquet hall in southwest Detroit, pledged his support to Bing and conceded at 11:30 p.m.

"You have not seen the last of me," Cockrel said.

He challenged Bing, who moved last fall from Franklin for the race, to get to know the city.

"Hang out with the brothers in front of the liquor store, drinking 40s out of paper bags. .. Get to know that. Get to understand and know the people you'll be representing."

Or, you know... don't.  I'd actually feel a heck of a lot better about the future of Michigan's biggest city if the Mayor weren't on the street drinking 40s out of paper bags.

Read on...