[TurboState]

Just announced today, Comerica is closing up shop in Michigan.

That means 8,000 more people unemployed. The chips keep falling, where is the bottom? I don't think we are near it yet unfortunately. The moving trucks are lining the highways heading OUT of Michigan.

My wife reports a 29% decline in patients in her hospital. My sister reports a 40% decline in people at her Pediatrics office. My other sister has a cleaning company, and reports that a vast majority of new calls are from people selling their house and leaving the state and want it cleaned.

[sundancer]

They are only moving there headquarters to Dallas Texas. Thats only 200 some people, the bank will continue to operate its branches here for now. But that could change over time, or another bank could buy the local branches out. But yes its still another hit for Michigan.

[Bhaalspawn]

Still, many of those 200 jobs are probably high-paying jobs. Just more bad news for Michigan. I can't say I blame Comerica. It makes sense that a bank would want to have its headquarters in a state with a more robust economy.

[M TYPE X]

Ford is moving to Mexico, not Texas. Comerica is the Bank of Ford.

... don't these people ever talk to each other?

Mexico, not Texas.

[southernlady5464]

Error: Invalid story key (C4,20070307,COL06,703070415,AR).

The frustration evident in the Granholm and Kilpatrick statements indicates that even our elected leaders, who should know better by now, harbor a bit of the entitlement mentality that has plagued our state and region for so long.

Liz

[Wabbit]

I agree with everything in that article.
As much as I hate to see Comerica go
(and it will all go over time)
Detroit has no one to blame but themselves.
The unions have made it impossible to
build a competetive car in 'Motown' and
any city that would vote the
Hip-Hop mayor in for a second term,
after TIME magazine called him the
worst Mayor in the U.S.,
deserves their reputation.
They had a semi-competent guy running
in Freman Hendrix, but NO, he didn't
'represent' like the Hip-Hop mayor.
Oh yeah, Coleman Young represented to.
And they wonder why people dont want
to come there?
The truth is, the voting masses in Detroit
proper could care-less how Detroit is
percieved. They don't care what businesses
come and go.
Comerica doesn't owe Detroit anything.
It's Detroit's job to provide them with an
environment they can thrive in, not the other
way around.
Anyone who has read my posts before knows
I'm a staunch Michigan defender. I could live
anywhere I want, but I choose to live here
because I love it. -West side!
That said, Detroit proper casts a pall over
the rest of the state and all it has to offer.
Until that changes, or is forced to change
this state's perception will continue to go
South along with all those banking executives.

[gossamer]

The State of Michigan will soon be one big Detroit. Detroit lover Granholm has put good state money after bad money in Detroit and look what it got us. She now wants to raise taxes. When the banks start leaving you know it's bad.

[TurboState]

Originally Posted by Wabbit

I agree with everything in that article.
As much as I hate to see Comerica go
(and it will all go over time)
Detroit has no one to blame but themselves.
The unions have made it impossible to
build a competetive car in 'Motown'

What are you typing on a 20 column commodore-64?? Sheesh. Anyway, the unions have nothing to do with the crap automotive industry in this country. The auto companies put their own foot up their own arses and now they pay.It is easy for them to blame the little man, but that fact is, they've made junk cars for almost their entire existence and get all pissed off when people buy a Honda? Then they push out big fat gas hogging SUV's that retain almost no value after 3 years and expect us to keep buying their trash? They have nobody to blame but THEMSELVES, and when people stop buying US junk cars, they have only to look in the mirror to find out why.

The State of Michigan will soon be one big Detroit. Detroit lover Granholm has put good state money after bad money in Detroit and look what it got us. She now wants to raise taxes. When the banks start leaving you know it's bad.

It better not.. We're already seeing tons of detroiters running to the suburbs to buy cheaper housing and it is driving our housing values down even more. I have limits to what I can take, but once our area starts to get block-busted, I am OUT OF HERE. Regardless of the loss I take on the house, I don't care, I will move to Alaska or something.

[M TYPE X]

Originally Posted by TurboState

What are you typing on a 20 column commodore-64?? Sheesh. Anyway, the unions have nothing to do with the crap automotive industry in this country. The auto companies put their own foot up their own arses and now they pay.It is easy for them to blame the little man, but that fact is, they've made junk cars for almost their entire existence and get all pissed off when people buy a Honda? Then they push out big fat gas hogging SUV's that retain almost no value after 3 years and expect us to keep buying their trash? They have nobody to blame but THEMSELVES, and when people stop buying US junk cars, they have only to look in the mirror to find out why.



It better not.. We're already seeing tons of detroiters running to the suburbs to buy cheaper housing and it is driving our housing values down even more. I have limits to what I can take, but once our area starts to get block-busted, I am OUT OF HERE. Regardless of the loss I take on the house, I don't care, I will move to Alaska or something.

My neighbor bought a Honda!!!! I'm selling and moving out!

... oh wait, the Honda is mine. and I moved out.

[southernlady5464]

What are you typing on a 20 column commodore-64??

Some people compose their posts on notepad and I have seen the copy and paste from those do that same thing, and that is using XP Pro on a computer less than 6 months old.

Just because it's all in a small column is no reason to make disparaging remarks.

Anyway, the unions have nothing to do with the crap automotive industry in this country.

It's because of unions and the union mentality that the auto industry had slipped so badly in this state. Hard to make a profit when paying so many to sit on their rears and NOT work cause they are members of a union and got put in a job pools not making autos but getting paid full wages and benefits.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosins...A01-351179.htm

Big 3 and suppliers pay billions to keep downsized UAW members on payroll in decades-long deal.

By Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News

WAYNE -- Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.

"We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat."

Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union.

The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing.

As part of its restructuring under bankruptcy, Delphi is actively pressing the union to give up the program.

With Wall Street wondering how automakers can afford to pay thousands of workers to do nothing as their market share withers, the union is likely to hear a similar message from the Big Three when their contracts with the UAW expire in 2007 -- if not sooner.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/08/news...jobguarantees/

GM will not disclose how many UAW members are now in the jobs bank, but some estimates have put the number at close to 5,000, and that number could increase as some facilities are closed before the 2007 labor contract expiration. Estimates have also put the cost of paying those 5,000 employees close to $500 million annually, for their pay guarantees and benefits. That equates to more than $100 per car for every vehicle GM sold in the United States last year.

Liz