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When the rest of the country was doing fine MI was in a one state recession. Now that the rest of the country is in a recession, is MI in a one state depression?
Michigan does not have anything to take the place of the auto industry. Snow is just not enough to keep it out of the toilet.
Talk of ill planed theme parks is not going to bring the state out of lost auto jobs. How many are moving to other parts of the country?
This is getting harder to do as things slow across the nation.
And we still have 7 months of bushie to screw things up worse. This guy could screw up a wet dream.
One you are so right, the ATTITUDE is what is wrong with the State of Michigan, Why don't the Auto Industry Workers understand that Democrats who are for Unions, why do a large portion of them drive Honda's and Toyota's and more Republican's drive GM and Ford and Chrysler Products. Why is it they don't understand that the President is nothing more then a figure head, the BLAME LIES with The Congress and the Senate these are the PEOPLE WHO STICK IT to the AMERICAN PEOPLE, I wish People would WAKE UP and read about their GOVERMENT and what they take from the AMERICAN WORKERS IN THIS COUNTRY. If they only knew what a bunch of CROOKS there are working in the GOVERMENT. check and see if any members of Congress or the Senate pays into Social Security. NOT ONE OF THEM. They have their OWN PLAN, I'm done People of this Country need to wake up.
I think you might want to look at the economy of Michigan as a leading economic indicator and the economy of many other states as lagging economic indicators. What that means is that Michigan’s economy is a good indicator of the future direction of the national economy, as a general rule. On the other hand, the economy of many States lag and are not impacted until after things go bad nationally.
What I find interesting is that as the fortunes of America are rapidly changing (for the worse) the average citizens manifest cognitive dissonance due to an American superiority complex. I think many Americans believe that we are the smartest and hardest working people on the planet and that is how we got to the top and why we will (or theoretically should) stay on the top. Furthermore, we think that the problems are primarily the resultant of politics (liberalism or conservatism) as opposed to capitalism and the ebb and flow of the “free market”. The average American is simply brainwashed by past success and propaganda.
The reality is that America is in the decline and Michigan’s economy is a leading indicator of that decline. The problems manifesting in the economy now are the results of attempts to prop up our standard of living and economy via monetary and fiscal policies. That act is contrary to the direction of the free market. It’s the same problem that resulted in the problems of the US automakers. The big 3 could not adjust their wage structure and pension structure, due to unions (I am pro union however….more so than con), to changes in the market to remain competitive. In the same way, the USA cannot adjust to a new global reality because of the monetary and fiscal policy leaders attempting to prevent the decline.
If an entity is going to play the game of capitalism….then they must heed the dictates of the free market. Our economy needs a downward correction to get our consumption more in line with our production and thus eliminate some of the massive debt that will strangle future generations. We cannot continue to maintain our standard of living through borrowing. However, neither political party wants the needed economic correction on their watch and the FED chairman nor board does not either. That’s how these asset bubbles then get created from the FED lowering the cost to borrow money and flooding the economy with liquidity that debases the currency and makes oil prices, which are traded in dollars, go sky high.
The last depression was triggered by changes in the free market that were not calamitous in and of itself. What caused the depth of the crises is the psychology of people. Economics is a behavioral science as much as anything else. Its predicated upon confidence and a lot of “Schemes”. Like any confidence game, when people start to loose confident it it…..it’s doomed to collapse. That is what happened during the last depression and that is a very good chance of happening now. Why? The reason is that things will burst rather than slowly deflate if the FED and the government continue profligate short term oriented behavior. A burst will cause a 1920’s era like panic that will radically alter consumer and investor behavior and send the economy into a deep abyss. Allowing the air, in this case our standard of living, slowly decline as a result of the dictates of the free market….its avoids the panic effect as people slowly acclimate to it.
I could say more…..but people will not believe it anyway as they are caught up in the American superiority complex or left right politics…..so why waste my time anymore than I already have.
That’s how these asset bubbles then get created from the FED lowering the cost to borrow money and flooding the economy with liquidity that debases the currency and makes oil prices, which are traded in dollars, go sky high.
The Fed can contribute to a bubble, but it's not how they're created... Just ask the Dutch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IS
The last depression was triggered by changes in the free market that were not calamitous in and of itself. What caused the depth of the crises is the psychology of people.
Psychology, in the absence of over-production, is what causes all recessions.
When the rest of the country was doing fine MI was in a one state recession. Now that the rest of the country is in a recession, is MI in a one state depression?
Michigan does not have anything to take the place of the auto industry. Snow is just not enough to keep it out of the toilet.
Talk of ill planed theme parks is not going to bring the state out of lost auto jobs. How many are moving to other parts of the country?
This is getting harder to do as things slow across the nation.
And we still have 7 months of bushie to screw things up worse. This guy could screw up a wet dream.
Ahh, more neocon propaganda.
It's "no one is giving credit to bush for this great economy, and when it goes south its " The president has nothing to do with the economy" The classic Neocon heads I win tails you loose routine.
Bush is using an old Laissez-Faire`s philosophy just as Hoover did. Read the exert about the great depression. The similarities between the attitudes of denial and fixes between Bush and Hoover are very similar.
The helping corporations is good, helping people is not the job of government.
The down turns are just another cycle of a free market.
You would think that Bush was reading if he could from Hoovers book.
In 1929, 60% of all families had annual incomes of $2,000 or less; 42% had annual incomes of less than $1,500. More efficient machines had made it possible for the productivity of industrial workers to increase by 32% during the 1920s, but their wages had increased only 10%. Profits from the industrial corporations grew 62% and went largely to the wealthiest 5%.
Year Richest 5% Richest 1% 1923 22.9 12.3 1929 26.1 14.5 Until 1925, increases in installment buying by the expanding number of white-collar workers made it possible to consume the goods pouring off the assembly lines. The use of automobiles went from 9,000,000 to 20,000,000 between 1920 and 1925, (122%)but only to 27,000,000 by 1930 (35%). By 1929, automobiles absorbed 20% of the steel, 75% of the glass, and 80% of the rubber produced in the US. The oil industry and the many gasoline filling stations, repair garages, auto dealers, roadside restaurants, and places to spend the night depended upon the auto. The auto was so important that the national government adopted a highway marking system to facilitate driving and national, state, and local governments began road building programs. Much of the country's cement production went to highway building. The slump in automobile sales was paralleled by the decline in the construction of new housing, causing unemployment in the building trades. Fewer suburban houses meant fewer markets for appliances, wall coverings, and other activities related to home building.
The economy was in trouble but people, dazzled by a surging stock market, ignored it. Agriculture was in a depression as farmers sold in a competitive market while having to buy in a protective market because US business subverted free enterprise by having the government tax foreign manufactured goods high enough to guarantee sales to US producers. Improvements in farm technology, which allowed farmers to produce more, only made the situation worse for demand was inelastic. The consumer economy was slowing as incomes skewed to the rich. In 1929, the richest 10% of families received 39% of disposal personal income while the bottom 10% only got 2%.
People seemed to be forgetting that capitalism needs to expand, that demand for housing, clothes, automobiles, stoves, and many other consumer goods generates demand in other sectors of the economy. But mass production necessitates mass consumption. Mass consumption necessitates an income distribution that allows consumers to buy. Without the appropriate income distribution, warehouses will burst at their seams and production lines will clog. Ethnic discrimination usually meant lower pay for the affected groups. The coal industry was in economic trouble as US consumers and businesses switched more and more to petroleum or hydroelectric sources of power. The introduction of synthetic fibers, such as nylon, dealt body blows to the cotton and wool textile industries. The wealthy bought luxuries but could not buy enough to sustain the consumer economy.
Many of the wealthy, as well as others, joined the speculative stock market sending stock prices to greater and greater without regard to company performance; In October, 1929, the bubble burst. The crash meant the tremendous loss of capital as prices declined $74 billion from 1929 to 1932 and the repatriation of much of US investment abroad. The Germany economy collapsed followed by the British and french economies. Germany could not pay the reparations it owed to the victors of WWI or make debt payments to US lenders, setting off a chain reaction. The world entered an economic depression.
President Herbert Hoover did not know how to meet this crisis. His government began buying farm surpluses in order to prop up prices but it did not buy enough to make a difference. The Farm Board loaned money to farmers to establish cooperatives (a socialist measure) but the millions of farmers scattered across millions of miles had difficulty in cooperating. Farm income went from $8 billion in 1929 to $3 billion in 1993, a decline of 62.5%.
Republican wisdom said that high tariffs were good for the economy and, besides, in a time of world crisis countries tend to become very nationalistic, so the Congress passed, with Hoover's acquiescence, the very high Hawley-Smoot Tariff in 1930. Raising the tariff made things worse because it meant that foreigners could sell less in the US and thus earn fewer US dollars with which to buy US goods or make payments on debts owed to US citizens. Exports fell 50%.
As historians Peter N. Carroll and David W. Noble note, Hoover feared that the collapse of the large corporations would bring down the entire US capitalist system. After all, one percent of the banks held 50% of banking assets. Three corporations—Ford, Chrysler, General Motors—manufactured 85% of the automobiles sold in the US. Chain stores dominated retail sales and their difficulties had national repercussions.
Business and industry met the crisis as they had always done—they cut production, lowered wages, reduced working hours, and fired workers. Unemployment rose from 1.5 million in 1929 to 13 million in 1933, a figure which represented 25% of the labor force. Even such a high percentage hid the dimensions of the problem because it did not what percentage had been forced the part-time work. Industrial wages fell from425 a week to $17 a week, a decline of 32%. By 1932, sawmill workers were only earning five to ten cents an hour; Tennessee female mill workers earned $2.39 for 50 hours work; and Connecticut women got between 60 cents to a dollar for a 55 hour week. To help the situation, the Hoover administration sept close to a billion dollars in public works programs but he would not go further. Nor would he argue for direct relief to the unemployed and starving because he feared that doing so would corrupt them. Although he had administered relief progress in Europe after the First World War, he saw that as only an emergency measure caused by war. He believed that doing a similar thing in the the US would become a permanent practice. To many, he was callous. As people lost their homes and created shanty towns, they derisively called the "Hoovervilles." Hoover argued that private charities and state and local governments should be the institutions to provide relief. But they were suffering as well and could not deal with a problem of this magnitude.
Hoover and the Republicans saw aid to corporations as being different. Whereas they believed that helping the individual citizen weather the Depression would corrupt him or her, aiding corporations and other business was different. To many, it appeared that the Republicans were only interested in the rich. The newly-created Reconstruction Finance Corporation aided only the large corporations.
Hoover broke precedent because the national government assumed some responsibility for what happens during an economic depression but he was not willing to go far enough. He believed that the depression was part of the normal business cycle and had been caused by international factors and not US ones. to him, "prosperity was just around the corner." The best thing for the country to do would be to wait the crisis out.
The current president's father was criticized for not having what he termed "the vision thing." The son's problem is just the opposite. He has such a Vision that it blinds his vision. People such as Hoover and the younger Bush cannot see the trees for the forest. Their unwavering adherence to their ideal of the ways things ought to be prevents them from seeing the way things are.
Emerson's famous maxim about consistency is often repeated without its key term. The sage of Concord wrote not that consistency itself is foolish, but that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen . . . ."
And who gave us Social Security -- which most young people have now figured out is a giant ponzi scheme in which current contributers will never see any returns from.
There is some legitimacy to what you're calling neocon propaganda. Bush has gotten nothing but bad press since he was elected. He got no credit for the good economy, that all but Michigan enjoyed, but is getting all the blame for the decline now. Blame this on the liberal media. Clinton got to ride the Internet Bubble during most of his Presidency and gets praised for how he handled the economy even though his policies had nothing to do with it. The Internet Bubble burst during Bush's first year as President and he also had the 9/11 event hit. Bush got to ride the Housing bubble but it burst before his second term was over. President's just don't effect the overall economy as much as everybody thinks. The Fed Reserve Chairman has most of the power regarding the economy but I think even they're victims of circumstance to a degree.
I guess bottomline -- if you believe that the President is truly responsible for the economic state of the country -- then you have to believe that the Governor is responsible for the economic state of the State.
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Get real.
