Tag: Job Loss

Since the ban on smoking in such establishments has been implemented, there has been a dramatic DECREASE in attendance at these locations.  Profits are down, and more businesses suffer under the heavy hand of our state government, and the do-gooders who inhabit it.  From Mlive:

The Home Bar on Portage Street in Kalamazoo this month has seen sales plummet nearly 50 percent, said owner Harriet Bronson. In her 37 years at the bar, it's never been this bad.

"It's terrible -- slow, slow, slow," said Bronson, who's had to cut the hours of some of her employees.

Smaller bars like the Home Bar should have been allowed to decide if they wanted to go smoke free, she said.

"The state's in bad enough shape as it is," she said.  "I hope people come back, but we'll see."
Denise Bilyeu, manager at Bubba's Sports Bar & Grill in downtown Allegan, said business has been down 15 percent to 20 percent since the law took effect.  The biggest dip in sales has been at night with the "party-crowd folks," she said.

Think the man would like to take those words back?  I don't often, but I'm tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.  Not sure how anyone at that level of state government "leadership" could pick up the newspaper these days and find anything to be proud of.  But what do I know?  Maybe he and I just have really different measures of success.

I mean, what is it exactly that John Cherry claims he's proud of and pleased to have tied around his neck as he begins his campaign to become Michigan's next governor?  

How about the headline news in the Ivory Tower this weekend that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan is going to be killing 1,000 Michigan jobs while simultaneously making it significantly more difficult for our state's senior citizens to afford health care.

Facing what it says could be losses of more than $1 billion through 2011, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan said Friday it will cut as many as 1,000 jobs and seek state approval to raise rates on its individual health insurance products.

The average rate hikes to be sought by Blue Cross are 55% for nongroup plans; 32% for Medicare Supplemental, or Medigap, products, and 42% for those with group conversion plans that carry over prior workplace coverage.

About 418,000 Michiganders -- half of them senior citizens -- are covered by those policies.

I'll admit up front that this is little more than my personal opinion... but I wouldn't be particularly proud of that kind of headline.  Wouldn't be happy at all that that was happening on my watch.  Witnessing a Michigan company (and not a manufacturing dinosaur) take a BILLION dollar loss, raise healthcare rates on senior citizens and kill 1,000 jobs is rough news.  Of course, according to John Cherry, well, that's a part of his "strong record."

And Michiganders across the state can only wish and hope and dream that his "strong record" ended there this weekend.  Alas.

The Livingston Press and Argus reports that a local third generation company is closing its doors too.  A small business started in the 1930s survived seven decades of Democrats and Republicans and wars and recessions and great societies but it won't survive the Granholm-Cherry administration.  

Read on...