[scottmi65]

Okay England,
My post was my personal account of my work etc.
If you want to PM me we can compare check stubs. If that will make you feel better.
No I am not a Doctor. I am retiring from the military and just got hired by a large national company. And they called me. I was not looking for a job in the Detroit area but for 70K I would work in New Orleans. When I went in for my interview, the HR people said they where having a hard time getting people to come to MI(Detroit). I wonder why... when people like you can't say anything good about the state why would anyone want to come here.
Oh could you please send me a link to the 500K dollar houses you can get for 130K I would like to buy one.

[billengland]

Well all you have to do is look, You seem to have it all figured out you find a home.
I do not care one lick what your job is or how much you get paid, you are one person and do not make up the economy in Michigan.
The state of the state is very bad and the out look is not good. I have lived in Michigan for 50 years and just because you thing you know it all does not mean you do, which I can clearly see you don't.
Your ability to get a job in Michigan is not an economic indicator of the health of the state, not even an indicator of the health of the town you will be working in.
You people who can only see to the end of your nose do not seem to have the ability to look around past your own situation, very sad indeed.
I live on my investments and do not need to work for a living, but I can clearly see the foreclosures going through the roof, the thousands of people leaving the state to find work as there is not much work here, the auto industry collapsing in on itself, and threating to send its assembly plant over seas.
So you have a job for seventy thousand, bully bully, but that is not Michigan, you people telling others that it is a wonderful place and all you need to do is eat cake when there is no bread need electroshock treatment.

[billengland]

I agree bill, many have said that michigan is doing well when it clearly is not.
Bush is destroying this county with a bull crap war based on lies.
He is giving the country over to big business who send jobs overseas, and hike up the price of oil to rape the us citizen.
He does illegal wire taps,and does to the amercian people what hitler did to germany, Hitler made germany a safe place to live, women could walk down the strassa and not worry about their safty, safty at any cost is not worth the trade off.
We were attacked on nine eleven by a group of criminals, who had ties to a bunch of thugs in afganastan, now bush has boots on the ground in iraq, why? because they threatend my daddy. what an idiot. we can afford a billion a week for this ill concived war but not programs to help us citizens, this country is fast becoming a have and have not society. I also remember the jimmy carter years and thought that I would never see a president that was as bad, I was wrong, bush is the worst us president in us history.
He exemplifies the worst traits of worst presidents, with a room temp. IQ.
This will be a long year and a half to seem him out of office.

[billengland]

I see how bad things are in Michigan.
I retired from generous motors and have a nice pension, but many people around me are selling or worse loosing homes for lack of work.
I am afraid that Michigan's best days are past for now. I hope the state can make a come back.
But I am a realist, things are not doing well here, or for that matter the whole country, but Michigan by far the worst.
I just finished the book by Lee Iacocca where have all the leaders gone?
This man has a good grasp of what is going on in this country, we are loosing grip on what made this place a great place to live.
as Lee said, the political leaders are steering us off a cliff and no one is doing anything to stop it.
You have corporations paying outrageous high salaries to ceo's based on nothing more then the other guy is getting paid big $, and companies who do not make the profits to justify such payments.
The ship is sinking and nothing is being done. I also agree that bush is an idiot in charge of the institution.
Clinton with all his faults had the economy running at a good clip, bush has run this country in the ground.
This dam war is a fake war based on what? WMDs? well that did not pan out.
Now it is "if we pull out millions of people will die"
What a load of crap, darfour there are millions of people who will die or dead and we do nothing, but they do no have oil.
People this county is poised for a big fall because of our arrogance. We are not the world police.
I digress, the topic was Michigan and how it is doing. I live in Traverse city. Things here are a bit better than the rest of the state, but not much.
building has slowed, home sales are not doing well. those in the health care industry are doing ok, but the unions for them are being destroyed.
the union at north Michigan hospitals has been totally taken out. scabs have taken over the nurses place and the strike failed. I guess when the figure out how to send those jobs to India it will be over for that industry.

[scottmi65]

Originally Posted by billengland

Well all you have to do is look, You seem to have it all figured out you find a home.
I do not care one lick what your job is or how much you get paid, you are one person and do not make up the economy in Michigan.
The state of the state is very bad and the out look is not good. I have lived in Michigan for 50 years and just because you thing you know it all does not mean you do, which I can clearly see you don't.
Your ability to get a job in Michigan is not an economic indicator of the health of the state, not even an indicator of the health of the town you will be working in.
You people who can only see to the end of your nose do not seem to have the ability to look around past your own situation, very sad indeed.
I live on my investments and do not need to work for a living, but I can clearly see the foreclosures going through the roof, the thousands of people leaving the state to find work as there is not much work here, the auto industry collapsing in on itself, and threating to send its assembly plant over seas.
So you have a job for seventy thousand, bully bully, but that is not Michigan, you people telling others that it is a wonderful place and all you need to do is eat cake when there is no bread need electroshock treatment.

Wow,
you are one angry dude. I never said I know everything. Just throwing out my personal experiances. All I know is that I am looking out for my family and I got lucky and landed a good job, just so happens it is in the Detroit area. Did I have to take the job... No but being it is in MI makes it better for me. Are YOU investing in Michigan, or maybe you are invested too heavily in the big three or should I say big two and nervous about your future? I just spent 6 years in Kenosha WI where the collapse of the auto industry was seen on a city/county scale. The area has rebounded and you can hardly tell AMC was here with the exception of all the old AMC's driving around. Chrysler has an engine plant here still. But it is no longer a one industry town.
You are right, one person with a job is not a economic indicator, it is better than one more person unemployed. Wouldn't you agree?
Guess I don't have it all figured out though, I am still looking for those mythical houses going for 75% below face value.

[billengland]

Well scott, AMC went out of business [bought out by chrystler] in 88-89 so 20 years will do that to a devistated community.
I will say in 20 years michigan will most likely have rebounded.
What I am saying is that michigan has not yet reached bottom.
How long before it reaches bottom is not clear.
But I argued with so many people a year ago that michigan was headed for ression, and was told I was loopy. now it is hard to find any one who has a clue to argue against me.
Michigan is a place that I would advise not moving to unless you have;
1) a job before you go.
2) a pension,or financial situation that you do not need to work
If you move there looking for work you are SOL JWF
I am not down on michigan, but I will not lie here and tell people that it is a wonderful utopia, it just aint so.

[scottmi65]

I never said it was great in Michigan. I personally do not know anyone who is losing/lost their jobs or houses I have only one relation that worked for GM and he is retired now.
I was talking to someone a few weeks back that retired out of AMC/Chrysler and he was talking about market saturation in North America concerning the auto industry. The industry was predicting it would not happen until around 2020, but there are over 400 million vehicles in North America now, so the industy is slowing. I personally own three vehicles all North American made (my Ford pickup was made in Canada). Many people I know have at least two or more cars per family. And the vehicles are so well made now people are not buying new as much. When I was a kid in the 70's if someone had a car with more than 100,000 they were bragging about. My 10 year old truck has 208,000 on it and I would not hesitate to drive it across country, that is how well it is built. So kudos to the American car companies for making good products.
It is too bad that all the foreign auto manufactured were not lured to MI instead of OH, TX, SC etc. But maybe in the long run it is good so Michigan gets a wakeup call instead of still really so heavily on one industry.

[jeffncandace]

Hey England, maybe all 10 million of us should pack up and let the state go back to nature, yes? Or maybe we all know it sucks right now and because we love it here we are willing to wait it out. If not, then our loss will be some greedy jerk's gain and Michigan WILL REBOUND, either way.
No one, and I mean NO ONE, has said Michigan is a Utopia, so if Scott (or someone else, like ME) moved here from out of state because they got a job here, and we are doing well and happen to like it, is that a reason to get angry?

[Wabbit]

If there's one person who shouldn't be angry or bitter it's a
retired U.S Autoworker. You should be doing cartwheels on
your keyboard buddy.
By the way, haven't you heard. Detroit does not equal Michigan.
If fact, as this article from yesterdays Grand Rapids Press says,
the West side of Michigan is doing just fine, thank you:

"The west Michigan story, however, is unique within Michigan.
Our job base is growing. That bears repeating -- our job base is growing.
In the lakeshore area, we have averaged a net increase of 1,000 jobs each year over the past four years. Comparable growth is occurring throughout west Michigan. According to the work of the West Michigan Strategic Alliance and its recent Regional Indicators project, west Michigan now employs 70 percent of all people 16 years old and above. This is a full seven percent higher than Michigan and six percent above the national average."

We're already turning the ship around. You're just stuck hanging onto the anchor.

[Schaumburger]

Originally Posted by Wabbit

If there's one person who shouldn't be angry or bitter it's a
retired U.S Autoworker. You should be doing cartwheels on
your keyboard buddy.
By the way, haven't you heard. Detroit does not equal Michigan.
If fact, as this article from yesterdays Grand Rapids Press says,
the West side of Michigan is doing just fine, thank you:

"The west Michigan story, however, is unique within Michigan.
Our job base is growing. That bears repeating -- our job base is growing.
In the lakeshore area, we have averaged a net increase of 1,000 jobs each year over the past four years. Comparable growth is occurring throughout west Michigan. According to the work of the West Michigan Strategic Alliance and its recent Regional Indicators project, west Michigan now employs 70 percent of all people 16 years old and above. This is a full seven percent higher than Michigan and six percent above the national average."

We're already turning the ship around. You're just stuck hanging onto the anchor.

I can't stress enough how beautiful that analogy is -- thank you.