Tag: unemployment (page 4)

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.

Who'd have ever thunk, for instance, that in the middle of May, well after the emergence of spring and the not-uncommon 70 degree day, with the planet dying and temperatures soaring while the sun turns the surface into a George Foreman grill, melts ice caps and roasts polar bears in their fur, Michigan's LOWER peninsula would suddenly find itself facing a FREEZE warning that threatens to devastate crops.  The Associated Press sounds the alarm!

Summer may be just six weeks away, but the northern half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula faces the threat of a hard freeze that could kill crops and early-season plants.

The National Weather Service has issued a freeze warning from midnight to 8 a.m. Monday for northwest Lower Michigan and from 2-8 a.m. for northeast Lower Michigan and the Thumb. Frost and subfreezing temperatures are expected in the region lying north of Interstate 96.

Brrrr.  Michigan hasn't gotten that cold a reception since the auto execs asked Congress for federal stimulus funding.  (*RIMSHOT* C'mon... that was awesome, wasn't it?)

Oh, and the bailout cash that they finally did convince the Democrats to funnel into the Motor City?  Too little too late.  

Read on...

On the strength of his accomplishments in Utah, Governor Jon Huntsman is one of the GOP's real up-and-comers.  He's been touring early and key battleground states discussing the current recession, his passion for providing the very best for our kids via expanded parental choice in education and the future of the Republican Party.

He spent Friday and Saturday in Michigan on the Lincoln Day Dinner circuit and was at the beautiful new JW Marriott in downtown Grand Rapids this AM for a breakfast event.

I caught up with him there and he was generous enough to spend a few minutes speaking with Team RightMichigan.

cross-posted at theblogprof

I hate to say it, but I TOLD YOU SO! In a post not long ago (MI staring at nearly a $3 Billion budget hole next year) I predicted a worsening financial outlook and at least a $1 billion deficit this year. Unfortunately, that number was (appropriately enough) on the conservative side. News is breaking now that the projected deficit this year is $200 million more than my estimate. From the Detroit News: State budget deficit balloons to $1.2 billion.

Legislative leaders and administration officials were informed Tuesday night by Budget Director Bob Emerson that the shortfall in revenue for this budget year, estimated at $785 million only a couple of weeks ago, has climbed more than 50 percent, sources said.

The estimates were adjusted based on dismal April revenues. The national recession and the collapsing auto industry continue to take a heavy toll on state tax receipts.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm will issue executive order cuts next Tuesday. It's not known how much of the widening deficit will be addressed with budget cuts and how much will be filled with federal stimulus money. Negotiations had been focusing on cuts in the $230 million-to-$270 million range.

Because there are only five months remaining in this fiscal year, the governor and Legislature don't have many options for balancing the books. The worsening revenue picture also will affect the 2009-10 budget, which projections had indicated was nearly $2 billion in the red.

How much more of a problem, then, if the men and women drowning their sorrows in the middle of the day are the folks voters elected and sent to Lansing specifically to FIX this state's problems?  

This Thursday morning, while moms and dads across Michigan tighten the family budgets, hunt for jobs and worry about how they're going to put food on the table, 2010 Gubernatorial candidate and current Lieutenant Governor John Cherry, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and state Senator Hansen Clarke will be taking "unbelievable," "inappropriate" and "tone deaf" to disturbing new levels.

The Lansing Democrats will be getting liquored up with special interest pals and high-dollar donors at an open bar event they are describing as a "Mid-Day Fun-Raiser."  Support a "two hour moratorium on dry political fundraisers," they encourage via an email invitation obtained by RightMichigan.com.  

The event is scheduled to begin thirty minutes after the Michigan Senate is gaveled into session this Thursday.  

We've already learned this week that tens of thousands of Michigan jobs will disappear and Friday stands to be one of the most important days in the history of Detroit's automotive industry.  No sense letting THAT stop a good time when there are lobbyists to schmooze and martinis to sip, though.

So many questions come to mind.  

Will Lieutenant Governor Cherry and Senator Clarke register their attendance in the Senate during roll call and then make their way over to the open bar?

Will Cherry and Clarke return to the Senate chamber after having spent the morning and early afternoon imbibing with lobbyists, special interest friends and big dollar donors?

Will John Cherry and Hansen Clarke be driving themselves or are they planning on using a designated driver?  And will the taxpayers foot the bill?

Which other House and Senate members, staffers and Democratic Party big-wigs will be inebriated by half-past one in the afternoon?

And maybe most importantly the day before General Motors submits to the government a last-gasp reorganization plan with hundreds of thousands of Michigan jobs on the line... In what freaking universe does the state's number two guy, a candidate for the highest office in the land, think it's a good idea to waste away the work day partying, booze in hand with lobbyists?

At the helm, on the clock and getting hammered.  If THAT doesn't scream "leadership" I don't know what does.

Big week, boys and girls.  Big week for Detroit, for Michigan and for hundreds of thousands of moms and dads and kids and... you get the idea.  With Big 3 restructuring deadlines lurking here and there dominos are already starting to fall in what will probably prove to be a few of the most important days in the history of Motor City.

The bottom line question, after we cut through the filler and the nonsense and the periphery issues... the heart of the matter is whether or not metro Detroit will survive in any meaningful way.  Heading into the weekend there was a serious chance that Chrysler, LLC could be completely liquidated via Chapter 11 bankruptcy which would have put an estimated 300,000 Michiganders out of work.  Friday deadlines lurked in the distance and the company's would-be-"savior," Fiat, continued to insist on significant UAW concessions.

And they got some.  THANK GOODNESS meets OUCH (probably).

Read on...

Yesterday stood poised to offer observers one heck of a big, black thunder cloud but one city's effort (and, largely, one families) wrapped it in a pretty substantial silver lining.

When folks turned on the nightly news yesterday they were treated to the regular chorus of rotten news about Michigan.  On steroids.

The Obama administration is preparing to watch local manufacturing giant Chrysler, LLC go bankrupt next week.  Meanwhile, General Motors announced thirteen summer plant closings including four in the Great Lakes State that are expected to shake the foundation of handfuls of suppliers and other businesses, too.  Oh, and did you hear the news anchor mention that regional unemployment rates were up, again, in March?

On a normal day that'd be enough to make a guy change the channel, even if the only other option was a re-run of  Brett Michaels' Rock of Love Bus.  Except that yesterday it wasn't.  Yesterday the rest of the world was buzzing about Michigan and it had nothing to do with unemployment, job losses or shuttered manufacturing plants.

Rick DeVos's big reveal yesterday, that Grand Rapids would host the world's largest and most unique art competition this September has folks buzzing from Detroit to Charleston to Boston and San Francisco and everywhere in between (Albemarle, North Carolina, anyone?).

Even saw buzz on Twitter yesterday from Scotland.

This is the kind of news Michigan needs hitting the wires.  Our second largest and most vibrant big city is hosting a world class arts competition that invites the public from around the world to stop by, visit and participate.

Already making plans with some friends to spend a day or two this September backpacking and biking around the downtown canvas and daydreaming about the potential energy is exciting.  

Big ups and a big THANKS to Rick and the entire DeVos family for making this happen.  We've had a six-plus year string of rotten news in this state.  Nice to have something so wildly different to hang our hats on for a summer.