Tag: economy (page 4)

But really isn't it much more likely that the universe understands what we're going through as a state and figured it'd pitch in with the appropriate mood lighting and soundtrack?  

Even when there are glimmers that the winter is going to break and that sixty degree days are around the corner, things like the news that the UAW finally agreed to what passes for a concession or two with Ford we're reminded in the next paragraph that there isn't a deal anywhere close to done with GM and Chrysler.

Those "concessions," by the way... they're things like giving up one paid federal holiday, going without a Christmas BONUS at the end of 2009 and suspending annual pay raises.  

I don't think I've ever gotten an annual pay raise myself, but that's neither here nor there and I don't begrudge any employee anywhere in the state from getting whatever he or she can for his honest day's work.  You can get someone to sign on the dotted line, bully for you.  

But memo to Big Labor leadership: Don't lecture the rest of the nation about how rough you've got it at $73.50 an hour when hundreds of thousands of Michigan workers aren't pulling down that much a day.  Especially with work hours, pay and benefits being cut everywhere these days, not just in UAW shops.

Places like... well, read on...

Much worse, though, is the darker reality hiding beneath an Ivory Tower story about the closing of a single small business in downtown Detroit.

The owners of Zaccaro's Market set-up shop less than a year ago amid all of the hullabaloo about the renaissance of the Motor City.  There were promises of new jobs, new development, new housing and rebirth.  There weren't just promises either... there were reports and plans and momentum.  

Remember the Governor's State of the State speech and that twenty-minute self-adulation session in the middle where she took credit for promises of thousands of new jobs?  Commitments, pledges, plans, the whole deal?  

Cindy Warner heard those same golden dreams ten months ago and bought them, hook, line and sinker.  One little problem... promises and pledges and plans aren't the same as real jobs.

Read on...

Consider that back in 2006 Michigan voters went to the polls with a choice between four more years of plummeting employment, a dwindling population base, skyrocketing foreclosures and bankruptcies and government spending run amok or a fresh start with a man at the helm who had personally turned around a multi-billion dollar global business, personally created thousands of Michigan jobs and had a fresh approach and perspective that put Michigan families and job makers above Michigan bureaucrats and special interests.

Common sense, of course, dictated that we overwhelmingly reelect the least successful governing team in the state's history, begging for more of the status quo and saying "no thanks" to the turn around artist.

Now here we are, a little more than two years later and things have pretty much gone according to the book.  Our unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 10.6 percent, families continue to flee and things look to be getting significantly worse before they ever get better.

Except at that turnaround artist's old business back in Grand Rapids, anyways.

Read on...

With limited space devoted to hard news reporting, additional space being gobbled up constantly by sports, entertainment and opinion pieces (now finding their way all too frequently onto the front page) editors choose to be particularly picky about what they publish.

There are some big stories they just can't ignore.  Michigan's skyrocketing unemployment rate, for instance, generally warrants a bit of coverage.  The Ivory Tower tells us this morning that the final numbers are in across the rest of the United States and our staggering 10.6% remains the highest.  In fact, Rhode Island is the only other state even in double figures.  On the flip side, three states are under four, with Wyoming coming in at 3.4 percent.

Simple to report.  Doesn't take a lot of space.  No explicit need to mention the party affiliation of the current administration or legislature.  Run it.

Then you get a selection of stories describing local men, women and businesses and their various challenges, especially if there's a hot-button angle that gets the liberal special interests ginned up and excited.  The Associated Press reports, for instance, on a case currently before the Michigan Supreme Court asking whether the decision of twenty-one counties and three cities to ban workplace smoking is consistent with the Michigan constitution.

A handful of job makers filed suit to attempt to exert their rights as property owners and employers.  Big story pitting two big interests up against each other in the newly remodeled Dem controlled SCOMI.  Job makers v environmentalists in a no-holds-barred, knock-down drag-out.  Where can I buy tickets?

But then there are the important stories that don't get told.  Little things like the fact that yesterday in the state Senate, Republicans successfully moved through committee Senate Bill 0001.  Sponsored by Senator Mark Jansen and approved by Republican Senators Jansen, Nancy Cassis, John Pappageorge and Jud Gilbert on a 4-3 party line vote, the bill kills the hated Michigan Business Tax surcharge.

Dollars and cents, the move would save job makers and working moms and dads $166.1 million in FY 2009, $475.5 million in 2010 and $593.4 million in 2011.  That's a grand total of  $1,235,000,000 reinvested in the Michigan economy without one dollar of expanded government spending or newer, bigger government programs.

Talk about a major shot in the arm for Michigan's economy.  Alas, not everyone was a fan.  The three Democrats on the panel each voted no.  Democratic Senators Deb Cherry, Gilda Jacobs and likely 2010 Dem Attorney General candidate Gretchen Whitmer took the opportunity to once again spit in the faces of Michigan's working class.

They can't return $1.235 billion in tax cash to help stimulate the economy... how would they be able to afford their favorite pet programs?  

Not surprisingly, the Senate Democrats' website was entirely devoid of any mention of yesterday's vote for a billion dollars in higher taxes.  But, then again, so were all of the state's newspapers.

Guess it's a good thing we've got blogs and the internet.