[southernlady5464]

I could have used Canada or Australia just as easily. Their gas is considerably higher as well. AND they are NOT smaller countries.

Apparently you did NOT see the word "IMAGINE". I prefaced the paragraph on commodities with it but apparently it was skipped.

I will say it again. Imagine if other commodities were charged by the gallon like gas??? Another way to say that is to use the word, PRETEND.

And in 1975, a gallon of gas was $.25 which was ONE THIRD of what it was in 1999. But did the Big Three make fuel efficient cars or hybrids then? Nope. We kept building bigger and heavier ones. So who was to blame? The consumer cause we kept BUYING them.

Taxes are high in several other states and people are leaving them as well...NY and NJ come to mind.

We had to leave MI after 7 months without a job to take a job in NC...I don't blame MI for that, I do feel that blaming anyone is counter productive.

If you can't get a job in MI, then obviously you need to look elsewhere. But being negative is still not going to help anyone. Liz

[scottmi]

Canada and Australia ARE SMALLER! What are you talking about!?! Not only are their POPULATIONS smaller, their economies ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE to the US's!!! You can't compare them!

Even if you said "IMAGINE" that doesn't change the fact that those kind of prices would NEVER happen in real life. Remember when Kelloggs started charging close to $5.00 for boxes of cereal in the 80s and 90s? Remember what people did? THEY STOPPED BUYING CEREAL ALTOGETHER until Kelloggs and other companies were forced to lower their prices.

With OIL, there is no alternative and there is no way people can STOP BUYING IT if they need it to get to and from work. Gas prices are so high because the govt. & big oil companies know they can get away with it.


As far as consumers being dumb and buying gas hogs, yeah, I have no pity for the guy who owns an SUV and has to put $80 in his vehicle twice a week. Buy a small car moron and avoid that issue. But again, you are leaving out the BIG issue which is semi trucks and distribution across the country. Ever wonder why prices at Walmart go up for certain things when gas prices go up? It's not because those eggs cost more to buy from the farmer, its because it takes more gas to get them to you in all those trucks Walmart uses and they need to make up the difference.

And you say don't blame MI for people not being able to find work. Why not?

Sure, it's silly to blame a state that is NOT a real person, obviously...but it's not like people being out of work here is an isolated incident. THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of people are stuggling to live here and mostly for all the same reasons - NO WORK or WORK BUT AWFUL pay. That should tell you right there that something is horribly wrong with this state for so many people to be affected negatively.

I maybe can't blame Granholm or Bush or whoever in the government system but I'm certainly not gonna blame myself for not being able to find work if I have more than enough qualifications, am willing to move, am even willing to maybe to start at a lower wage than I want and even do a slightly different job than I'm used to to make a living. That's not MY fault, that's MIchigan's FAULT.

[southernlady5464]

Sure, it's silly to blame a state that is NOT a real person, obviously...but it's not like people being out of work here is an isolated incident. THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of people are stuggling to live here and mostly for all the same reasons - NO WORK or WORK BUT AWFUL pay. That should tell you right there that something is horribly wrong with this state for so many people to be affected negatively.

I maybe can't blame Granholm or Bush or whoever in the government system but I'm certainly not gonna blame myself for not being able to find work if I have more than enough qualifications, am willing to move, am even willing to maybe to start at a lower wage than I want and even do a slightly different job than I'm used to to make a living. That's not MY fault, that's MIchigan's FAULT.

But lots of people are finding work...many are just having to leave the state.

My daughter, her ex fiance, a good friend of hers and a good friend of his all moved to AL in the last year due to lack of jobs. But rather than blaming MI or themselves, they picked themselves up and MOVED, sometimes even without a job. Got one when they got there.

Others are just in the wrong HALF of the state. Detroit is NOT MI. As much as it thinks it is, it isn't. The economy seems to be picking up on the west coast of MI. Grand Rapids – Rapid Growth - Where The Jobs Are

I don't know what your major was but if may have been too restrictive or too general. Liz

[jrmontag]

Get a job in the health field. Simple solution.

I'll be able to get a PT job anywhere I want in the U.S. when I graduate. Even in Michigan, OMG!!

The demand for workers in health professions is abundent everywhere in this country with the aging population. Look at nursing. People need to take advantage of solutions like these rather than ***** and complain constantly.

[rutha1105]

[quote=scottmi;1199

You really need to rethink your reasoning process and posts like this scare me because if you don't have a problem with Michigan, it's probably because you have a fairly decent paying/stable job.

And if this is the type of folk who CAN find work in Michigan that either means there are tons of dumber people out there and that's why unemployment is so high (or more realistically) this state is full of idiotic business owners who hire idiots to work for them and then wonder why everyone with half a brain decides to leave the state.
[/QUOTE]

Well said! The small business owner down the street who employs my husband because it is the best wage he can find around here ($13/hr--would you like to support 2 people and a mortgage on that? less than $150k house. We have 11 and 12 year old cars and no credit card debt, otherwise we'd be sunk)(and yes, we DID have a large savings) hires what we call "the cretins" for about $9/hr, when he is making well over $25/hr on their labor. Yes, I am aware this is how "business" works, but he hires guys without a driver's lic, pays them like they are part time so as to avoid "benefits", works them at all hours of the day and night and yesterday sent a 16yo on a probationary license out in a truck that requires a CDL!!!!! I am all for free enterprise, but this man pays himself well over a million a year. I was born and raised here in MI, but I cannot believe the mentality of the people around me. It was not always like this. My job was phased out, if you work in service, when others don't have jobs they cannot hire you. I will be leaving the state and it's business owners to figure it out for themselves. The comment about health care is great, I am training for a career in health care, then I'll take it somewhere else!

[scottmi]

Yeah, everyone should become a nurse. First off, once the Baby Boomers die off, the health care industry is going to have TOO many people. Who knows how things will be in 20-30 years also - will the healthcare system even be the same? Will health occupations truly be as lucrative as they are now when most people nowadays can't even afford healthcare??? That industry is a timebomb waiting to explode. It's too bloated and people will get fed up with being ripped off by them eventually. Unlike the oil industry where you need to get gas every day to get to/from work, there are actually alternatives to medicines and clinics and there'll be even more in coming decades.


Plus, I don't really enjoy the idea of putting in years of education and thousands of $$ in loans and all that so I can change bedpans, clean up strangers' blood, crap, urine and whatever else comes out of them, have stressful shifts and be on my feet every second of every work day. All that for $40k-$60k (at best) a year? No thanks.

And for the people who already have degrees, what, we are supposed to basically throw them away in favor of some completely different thing? That's ridiculous.

[capone]

Michigan is failing plain and simple, you can buy a home for 15% less than you could have last year and then watch it drop another 15% in the year to come. You can start to see your investment grow once you start to draw SS.
Yep, just say DOOH to michigan.

[tinexile]

I agree with the poster who said Deroit does not equal all of Michigan. The western end of the state is not in that bad of shape, at least compared with the Detroit and Flint areas.

I lived in metro-Detroit my whole life until last November. The horrendous economy and even worse job climate forced me to leave. After selling my small business, I went 6 months without even a job interview. Once I gave the job recruiters the OK to send my resume to out-of-state companies, I had a good-paying job lined up in 3 weeks. Now I'm in SoCal and hating it tremendously, but it beats poverty.

The point is Michigan IS losing jobs, and the economy is in serious shape (oh do I HATE to agree with Newt!). Decades of poor political leadership at every level of gov't have destroyed the state. I tell people I left on the Granholm Express, not that deVos would have been any better. I truly hope a leader with vision and intelligence comes along once Granholm moves along to her cushy law firm token-job in 3 years. I'd love to come back, if there's a state to come back to. And some hope of finding a job befor homelessness sets in.

[junker]

I just had three more friends move to south carolina for work.

[tinexile]

I know a lot of people who have left the state (besides me) because they couldn't find a job. These people had good paying jobs, mostly with one of the Big 3 or an auto supplier. People have had no choice but to leave. I didn't want to leave - despite months of having recruiters tell me I needed to look outside the state if I wanted a decent job, I held out trying to find work within the state. As I said above - not even an interview. I really hope things change soon, but I don't see it.