[magellan]

Michigan came in at a surprising 19th place in the Kauffman Foundations "Transitioning to a New Economy" Report for 2007, up 15 spots from its 1999 ranking.

http://www.rapidgrowthmedia.com/timnews/index44.aspx

Top 25 ranking:

1 Mass
2 New Jersey
3 Maryland
4 Washington
5 California
6 Connecticutt
7 Delaware
8 Virginia
9 Colorado
10 NY
11 Minnesota
12 Utah
13 New Hampshire
14 Texas
15 Rhode Island
16 Illinois
17 Oregon
18 Georgia
19 Michigan
20 Vermont
21 Pennsylvania
22 Arizona
23 Florida
24 Idaho
25 Alaska

Other interesting Michigan stats in the report:

Michigan currently ranks 6th out of the 50 states for attracting highly educated workers
#1 in the country for government agency transition to technology
#4 in the country for industry R&D
#10 in foreign investment
#11 in managerial, professional and technical jobs

All of these rankings are actually UP from past years. Michigan is up 3 spots from its 2002 overall ranking.

http://www.itif.org/files/2007_State...ndex_Small.pdf

Robert Atkinson, author of the report, had this to say about the "race to the bottom" Southern state massive tax cut strategy:

"If you want to look at a state that followed the cut strategy, it's basically Arkansas in the last 15 years," Atkinson said. "And they increased their rank by two by following that strategy, from 49th to 47th. That strategy is really not a very effective strategy."

Interesting..I didn't hear much about this in the Press.