[4angel]

Hello, now, im writting an yearly essay, and my topic sound like this Subprime crisis and how it has been started, of course, i know, that the main cause of this was the discharge of a huge amount of workers in Detroit, so if you know anything about it, please write it down here. Thanx a lot.

[stanman13]

@ Baystater: I'm not sure that the environmental laws have to be eased, or just simplified. Right now the laws are so convoluted that even a company that wants to follow the law will eventually violate at some point. We do need fairly strict controls, because of the water, but the controls should at least make sense.

[Bhaalspawn]

Originally Posted by mileslong

This is bogus, health care you can not outsource...

No...but you can import foreigners (such as Filipino nurses) to work the health care jobs for lower wages using H-1B, L-1, TN, or whatever new visas a treasonous Congress creates.

but the tec. industry is being outsourced fast. I worked in the title industry in north Michigan, the woman that went to the court house to search out titles for a sale, her job was outsorced to INDIA. Believe it or not. I would have never thought that this type of job would have gone over seas. I am telling you other than a nurst wipping a dirty butt, you can not send that over seas, these so called tec jobs are not going to get here and if they do not for long.

But...but...that can't be true! Everyone says that college education is the solution to our economic problems! Those jobs cannot possibly be going overseas! You are a liar!

(sarcasm)

[Bhaalspawn]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

the solution is that we need to find things that cannot be done in countries with a lower standard of living. we will also have to lower our standard of living.

Instead of lowering our standard of living, what if we enacted economic policies to make it difficult for things that used to be done here to be done in other countries?

Let's not accept unrestrained international trade and global labor arbitrage as some sort of an immutable metaphysical fact. It's not metaphysical; it's man-made.

[MittenDweller82]

Originally Posted by wanderer74

I was kind of a statistics geek in college and I like browsing things like the Census data and the unemployment statistics. I found this table: Current Unemployment Rates for States and Historical Highs/Lows from the Bureau of Labor Statistics about the historical high and low unemployment percentages for each state and when they occurred. According to the chart, Michigan is right behind W. Virginia for the record for the highest unemployment of any state, ever. Also, there are some states (both of the Dakotas, Nebraska, etc.) whose *highest* unemployment ever was lower than Michigan's *current* unemployment rate. Yikes.

I was reading the other day that Michigan is likely to have even more problems in the future, especially now that Toyota is poised to become the nation's #1 auto maker and now that gas prices are higher and are not expected to go back down. Basically because Michigan is so dependent on the "Big Three" and because the cars made by the Big 3 aren't known for being the most fuel-efficient for the most part, it's expected that our state will be further hurt by that. I believe I also read (maybe here?) that the number of people planning to buy a new car in '08 is the lowest it has been since some time in the 70s.

I'd really like to think that Michigan can be saved and am trying to brainstorm what can be done. Obviously looking at the historical unemployment trends, MI has been in trouble for a long time and it's not just a temporary slump. I personally think MI's problems are not due to government by either political party but are more likely structural due to the dependence on the auto industry and a few other factors. Does anyone have any ideas for how we can turn the state around?

Many statistical models have been built on "anticipating" and "forecasting" unemployment, but this rise in unemployment is different than many others in our history for several reasons: We have not seen the combined group of factors present ALONG with high unemployment: foreclosures, wage declination, market contraction. This is exactally why we see so much inaction regarding our economy, when you do not have a reference to go on, telling you how to solve a problem, the problem often goes unsolved. State leaders can do nothing more than prepare for a cataclysmic ripple from the transformation away from a manufacturing state to something else. The real story of how Michigan's unemployment has effected families will not be apparent until the next census report in 2010, as estimates point to a huge drop in population, which also effects how unemployment is calculated. This ranting could go on all day, but I will close with saying that the problems that confront us at the present time will take the state as a group to solve.