[Giesela]

The States With The Fastest Growing Economies - 24/7 Wall St.

[danielj72]

funny to see Michigan on that list, I know of so many unemployed people still. There are even more underemployed, flipping burgers or welcoming people to the local wal-mart is not a real job. In some areas of the state most people under 50 have never had good jobs, if your not old enough to have been GM (baby boomer age), then you dont have anything that is the Michigan way. Michigan has become a poverty trap, the only advantage here is our low cost housing. If you flip burgers all day for 8$ an hour you can pay for your 30k house payment. Michigan is the epitome of a depressed economy, we are the new Okies.

[magellan]

Originally Posted by danielj72

funny to see Michigan on that list, I know of so many unemployed people still. There are even more underemployed, flipping burgers or welcoming people to the local wal-mart is not a real job. In some areas of the state most people under 50 have never had good jobs, if your not old enough to have been GM (baby boomer age), then you dont have anything that is the Michigan way. Michigan has become a poverty trap, the only advantage here is our low cost housing. If you flip burgers all day for 8$ an hour you can pay for your 30k house payment. Michigan is the epitome of a depressed economy, we are the new Okies.

That's a national issue that isn't unique to Michigan.

Michigan's headed in the right direction, finally.

[jackmichigan]

Can you imagine how badly we'd be doing if President Obama hadn't provided federal support for the struggling auto industry? Most Republicans were against saving American manufacturing jobs, but luckily President Obama prevailed and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. As a Ford stockholder, I am thankful that a Republican was not President at the time. If GM and Chrysler had gone under, Ford likely would have, too, as numerous auto suppliers would have folded. The "Cash-for-Clunkers" program was also instrumental in reviving Ford at a critical time. Let's hope we don't get into a situation where we need to provide taxpayer support again, but it was certainly essential three years ago and it has been a remarkable success.

[Retroit]

I won't comment on the article other than to say it was only comparing this year to last. An honest assessment would be to compare us with where we were at in better times. But I would like to comment on this:

Originally Posted by jackmichigan

Can you imagine how badly we'd be doing if President Obama hadn't provided federal support for the struggling auto industry? Most Republicans were against saving American manufacturing jobs, but luckily President Obama prevailed and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. As a Ford stockholder, I am thankful that a Republican was not President at the time. If GM and Chrysler had gone under, Ford likely would have, too, as numerous auto suppliers would have folded. The "Cash-for-Clunkers" program was also instrumental in reviving Ford at a critical time. Let's hope we don't get into a situation where we need to provide taxpayer support again, but it was certainly essential three years ago and it has been a remarkable success.

First of all, Obama didn't save the auto industry. The auto makers could have declared bankruptcy the normal way and would not have "gone under". The airlines declare bankruptcy on a regular basis. Many car dealers who were not in financial difficulty were forced against their wishes to close by Obama. This was a travesty of freedom. Some of the dealers that were allowed to stay in business coincidently were big contributors to the Democratic Party. The auto makers have still not repaid half of their loans to the government. One of the auto makers is now foreign owned. Cash-for-clunkers was a huge waste of taxpayer dollars and unashamedly trashed perfectly good cars that could have been purchased by cash-strapped consumers. Retirees are paying more for their health insurance. Bondholders and stockholders lost all of their savings.

The automakers nearly failed because 1.) they were poorly run by incompetent MBAs from Harvard who have no engineering or manufacturing background and 2.) the unions became too greedy over the years and failed to acknowledge the disadvantage they put their companies in compared to the foreign automakers (Job Bank for example). The unions finally accepted reasonable concessions which they would have been forced to do under normal bankruptcy, probable more so. And the automakers are still run by a bunch of finance guys who don't know what they are doing (with the possible exception of Mullaly). They are even going back to their old ways of spending all their profits without setting aside any reserve for the next downturn in the economy, which will definitely occur. At that point they will probably go crying to the government for another bail-out. But fortunately, Romney will be president by then.

[Giesela]

I thought the most interesting tidbit in the article was about Portland I think. Mentioned how manufacturing was coming back as outsourcing was becoming more expensive and problematic. I'd like to know more about that. What kind, how much.