[CaboolBound]

The houses in our area, Southgate, have gone down in value. The real estate market is a hard one. If you are in the medical field, you will always have a job no matter what state you live in. We had no problem making ends meet when my husband, a truck driver, and I, a nurse, were able to work. He is now disabled due to a car accident, a spinal cord injury, and I take care of him. I do have one thing to say that is positive, thank God, Michigan is a NO Fault state. I get paid by the insurance company to take care of him. The problem is that you have to fight the insurance company to pay for the benefits. It is hard for people on Social Security to make it, especially when you have a family of six.
God Bless,

Kim and Jim:

PS. that is why we are moving to MO

[Cato the Elder]

Originally Posted by feelsorryformichiganfolks

Michigan has the highest gas prices in the country. It makes sense though. Our unemployment is the highest and economy is the worst, so it makes good sense to tax MI and stick it to us good. I respect those folks that defend MI and want it to turn around, but when the three top moving companies say that "thousands are moving out of state", we have a problem here. Pretty sad. I just wish that thousands weren't suffering like us.

Yes, MI is in some tough times, but it doesn't help when people sign up here with usernames that betray their intentions to blow things out of proportion. For one, MI does not have the highest gas prices unless you massage the data somehow. What's your source? I took a trip last week to Chicago for 3 days. For a fact, Lake and Cook counties had much higher gas prices than Metro Detroit - this has always been the case. I have doubts that any other area of MI has much higher gas prices than Detroit to raise the average that much. In my experience, GR, where you've stated you live, always seem to have gas several cents cheaper per gallon than Detroit whenever I take a trip out there.

So please, stop spouting things out your @&& and get a grip - no one here is eating dog food out of can and blowing sh!^ up like Mad Max. Guess what, utopias like San Francisco have hordes of homeless people pissing on the lawn at Union Square. Life goes on and MI will also.

[Michigan Aaron]

Ha ha! Good job, Cato! I like you, dude!

[billengland]

The fact still is that homes in michigan are dropping like a rock. buy today and loose money tomorrow, any one who dissagrees go ahead and buy a home and watch the value go down.
The spin on how things are doing is not true. I drove on south 75 saturday the 26th, traffic on the north bound was very very slow. two years ago it would have been bumper to bumper all the way from detroit, I drove to memphis, and I will say there was very little traffic all the way. The only vehicles on the road in numbers were the truckers, I only counted 50 rv rigs for the whole trip.
I talked to several people about how things are doing around memphis, and was told things are not bad but slowing.
Michigan has nothing to look forward to.
The big three are not doing well, and Paul Harvy just reported that the big three are starting talks to move all auto assembly over seas.
Imagin no cars made in the usa. Ross said that there would be a great sucking sound it just took 10 years longer then he thought.

[Michigan Aaron]

Originally Posted by billengland

The fact still is that homes in michigan are dropping like a rock. buy today and loose money tomorrow, any one who dissagrees go ahead and buy a home and watch the value go down.
The spin on how things are doing is not true. I drove on south 75 saturday the 26th, traffic on the north bound was very very slow. two years ago it would have been bumper to bumper all the way from detroit, I drove to memphis, and I will say there was very little traffic all the way. The only vehicles on the road in numbers were the truckers, I only counted 50 rv rigs for the whole trip.
I talked to several people about how things are doing around memphis, and was told things are not bad but slowing.
Michigan has nothing to look forward to.
The big three are not doing well, and Paul Harvy just reported that the big three are starting talks to move all auto assembly over seas.
Imagin no cars made in the usa. Ross said that there would be a great sucking sound it just took 10 years longer then he thought.

Moderator cut: insults

I'm in healthcare, Bill. There's a bright future for me, and guess what - it's in Michigan!

Others will realize this in the coming days, months, years, and people will get specialized training in other fields and turn their lives around the way I did when I was already into my 30's. Maybe the domestic auto industry is dead, maybe it isn't. Either way, Michigan lives on as long as people like me have something to say about it.

Do you even live in Michigan, or are you just in here piling on? If you do live here I'm assuming (and hoping) that it won't be for much longer based upon your cheery demeanor.

[Cato the Elder]

My wife is a web producer and I am an academic. We have a friend at Kelly Services San Francisco who will transfer to the world hq in Troy after a visit here. This is the future of MI after the Big 3. There are plenty of educated/trained people who could get a job in MI - it won't be in auto though. MI is not a flash-in-the-pan dot.com stock. Once the prices get low enough, things will balance out as people buy in, despite all the haters. Will it ever be like the 50s again? Probably not, but that's life in the rust belt.

In my experience, I have never lived anywhere in the US where you can maintain such a high standard of living at such a low cost and high convenience. Traffic is a BREEZE here, yet people complain that it's not like 20 years ago. Have you been to LA, Bay Area, New York, or even Philly? I can almost always get to work in the city in less than 30 minutes. It took me an hour to do the same distance in the Bay Area on a good day. If I can get through the Lincoln Tunnel in 30 minutes, I count my lucky stars. I can take my time through the DIA without getting trampled by tourists like at the Met and Getty. I can drive to one of two Home Depots in 5 minutes; it took me over 30 minutes in Philadelphia (Delaware Ave) and San Francisco (Daly City), and there would be a mob waiting for me there. A "far" drive is going to Dearborn to get Middle Eastern food - all of 20 minutes. 20 minutes is the minimum you will drive in most of the Chicago 'burbs to get anything decent to eat.

My first day at Wayne State, people were admonishing me for parking on the street instead of the garage; they even got me paranoid and scared. Knock on wood, I park on the street regularly now and I have never had anything happen to my car. My car got broken into the first night I was in Philadelphia - in Center City of all places. They broke my trunk release lock and stole 3 year old smelly sneakers. I had a friend who teaches at Temple University get car-jacked two blocks from the main strip on Broad St. Another time, she drove away and was surprised by a homeless guy in the back of her station wagon asking where she was taking him. I can't imagine these things happening regularly even on Wayne State's campus. FWIW, I think WSU's campus is 10x nicer than Temple's.

Yes, the bad areas of Detroit proper are bad, but in general, I find many people here are over the top when it comes to perceptions of the city and MI; you can see this attitude on this very forum when it comes to the overall state of MI. I, for one, am glad that new blood will come into MI.

[wanderer74]

Originally Posted by Cato the Elder

Yes, MI is in some tough times, but it doesn't help when people sign up here with usernames that betray their intentions to blow things out of proportion. For one, MI does not have the highest gas prices unless you massage the data somehow. What's your source?

I'm not the person who originally posted that MI has the highest gas prices in the nation right now, but I saw that story too. Here's your link: http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_arti...?storyid=75733

[lklein]

There are many having a tough time in Michigan, but there are a lot of folks doing okay also.

It does take a while to sell houses around our neighborhood.

We are lucky to have an internet job, so we sell to people all over the country. California is where most of our customers come from.

Lambert

[Cato the Elder]

Originally Posted by wanderer74

I'm not the person who originally posted that MI has the highest gas prices in the nation right now, but I saw that story too. Here's your link: http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_arti...?storyid=75733

Couple things - look at the 12 month average. MI is right at the national average and more often below than above. As stated, the prices have more to do with getting the gas here, not the economy of the state. Second, when was the highest price of the year? Yep, the day of the article - the one day the state was the highest by less than a cent. Of course, some of the happy posters here ran with this one day example to declare the apocalype in MI. It was only several months ago that Detroit did the exact opposite and have the lowest price in the nation for several days when prices dipped below $3/gallon, despite having the same economy then. Where were the haters then? Finally, look at the prices of the 25 largest metro areas instead of by state. Detroit is in the same range. Do you think San Franciscans care that the rest of Calitucky gives them a lower state average than MI when they pay 12 cents more per gallon than someone from Detroit? Chicagoans who pay 20 cents more per gallon?

[billengland]

I think you who are saying how rosy it is in Michigan are living in a bubble. you need to get out and look around, you will see Michigan is not doing well. On that note I would be foolish to say that Michigan will never turn around, but it will not be for a while, I am old enough to have lived and worked through the big depression of the late seventies, and Michigan went down hill many moved away and many lost homes and businesses.
It took over ten years to make a come back, and you know what?
the come back was based on gas dropping to a low, the auto industry came steaming back to life, and even though every one said that we would never base our economy on the auto industry we did, and here we are.
I repeat, those here who say "I am doing well and work for a collage or the health care industry" should think out side their small world, they are not Michigan.
I am in a situation where I do not need to work to make a living. I have saved enough to pay my bills and do what I need to on my investments.
But I can see out side my situation that there are many many people that are hurting in this state and more added every day.
The unemployment is up "higher than the statistics show due to the drop offs and move outs" home sales are in the dumpster and prices are falling.
So when you say that things are rosy because you are doing well, don't be so selfish, it is like your home did not get hit during Katrina and you saying things are not that bad in NOLA, bull pucky. With this attitude you slow down the process of turning Michigan around, which will not be for several years at best. So don't lie to others as you sit around the collage coffee shop sipping lattes and eating scones, it does not help anyone, it only feed your self aggrandizing ego's