Why can't Michigan turn it around? (Sturgis, Grant: mortgage, loans, foreclosure)

[jeffncandace]

Break it on down, Cato! Amen!

[nickbii]

Originally Posted by mr_evergreen

There is a Toyota plant in Tennessee. What Michigan needs is for companies to settle in and provide jobs.

In some ways that's right. On other ways that's a big part of our problem.

A dozen small businesses provide as many jobs as one big business, but us Michiganders are so fixated on getting big businesses here that we don't cultivate our small businesses.

Originally Posted by mr_evergreen

Better leadership is what we need. I don't know much about Michigan politics, but high crime rates tell me that there is a lack of good policing, or corruption in the police.

Our crime rates are not that bad. Lots of cities are worse.

Don't get me wrong, we've got some pretty spectacular crime problems; but so does almost every major city.

Nick

[easydoesit]

[QUOTIn some ways that's right. On other ways that's a big part of our problem.

A dozen small businesses provide as many jobs as one big business, but us Michiganders are so fixated on getting big businesses here that we don't cultivate our small businesses.
E][/quote]

Great point Nick. Small businesses are repsonsible for a lot job creation in our country & that is who I would be catering to.

[deslok]

Ah Michigan, getting bigger by thinking smaller. Every city I have visited lately in the depressed areas have been preaching how small businesses are the new key to recovery. I don't think so. Tell anybody in neighboring states that and they will chuckle as they drive to work at Google, Costco, Northwestern Mutual, wherever. We need to do both but the whole small business idea is just making our cities more lame.

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by deslok

Ah Michigan, getting bigger by thinking smaller. Every city I have visited lately in the depressed areas have been preaching how small businesses are the new key to recovery. I don't think so. Tell anybody in neighboring states that and they will chuckle as they drive to work at Google, Costco, Northwestern Mutual, wherever. We need to do both but the whole small business idea is just making our cities more lame.

Agreed! Michigan needs them all. Big and small businesses. Michigan should promote its small businesses as well as its small businesses. That would be a start. Before big businesses can get into Michigan, other problems need to be solved. Michigan(according to most big businesses) has a somewhat deserved reputation for violence(Michigan's history is checkered in it). I don't know for sure, but I think land could be getting cheaper. Businesses could start on that. The businesses should go to the places where unemployment is at its highest(and other places too). I don't know much about it's leadership though. I do know there is economic problems.

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by nickbii

In some ways that's right. On other ways that's a big part of our problem.

A dozen small businesses provide as many jobs as one big business, but us Michiganders are so fixated on getting big businesses here that we don't cultivate our small businesses.

Our crime rates are not that bad. Lots of cities are worse.

Don't get me wrong, we've got some pretty spectacular crime problems; but so does almost every major city.

Nick

I know there are places that have higher crimes rates. However, I do notice that Detroit had 354 murders in 2005. There are other cities that have had higher murder numbers. Detroit in particular needs to solve its crime problems.

[magellan]

Originally Posted by mr_evergreen

Agreed! Michigan needs them all. Big and small businesses. Michigan should promote its small businesses as well as its small businesses. That would be a start. Before big businesses can get into Michigan, other problems need to be solved. Michigan(according to most big businesses) has a somewhat deserved reputation for violence(Michigan's history is checkered in it). I don't know for sure, but I think land could be getting cheaper. Businesses could start on that. The businesses should go to the places where unemployment is at its highest(and other places too). I don't know much about it's leadership though. I do know there is economic problems.

You got a source for that mr evergreen? Or do you have the ear of every big business board of directors in the country?

Businesses, if they are looking at moving or opening new facilities, look for where they can have the best chance of being successful. That means relative low cost of business (many times lately in the form of tax incentives and non-unionized workforces), good quality of life for luring good management personnel, good work ethic in the area so that ramp-up runs smoothly, a relatively easy startup process, and a good "customer service" team to help them get started (which could be mayors, commissioners, planners, economic dev. people, etc.).

But they also take perception into consideration. Most executive teams run in circles with other executives, at social clubs, athletic clubs, banquets, art galleries, symphonies, etc.. They all talk, and very few of them want to be the one in the group who is looking to open a business in Michigan right now, because of the perception. Secondly, it's difficult to put together financial packages that businesses have come to expect when funding for the state budget is still unsettled.

But fundamentally, Michigan has no fatal flaws regarding taxation or regulation. And I guarantee the governor and legislature in virtually every state in the country would be floundering if they were handed the same plate of doodoo that ours have been handed. It's easy to govern a Southern state that is growing rapidly and has a till full of cash. Not so much a state that has had one dominant industry for 50+ years, that is now feeling the wrath of the global economy.

[easydoesit]

Ah Michigan, getting bigger by thinking smaller. Every city I have visited lately in the depressed areas have been preaching how small businesses are the new key to recovery. I don't think so. Tell anybody in neighboring states that and they will chuckle as they drive to work at Google, Costco, Northwestern Mutual, wherever. We need to do both but the whole small business idea is just making our cities more lame.

From Census Bureau

Small firms:

Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

Employ half of all private sector employees.

Pay 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.

Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.

Create more than 50 percent of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).

Supplied more than 23 percent of the total value of federal prime contracts in FY 2004.

Produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms. These patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.

Are employers of 41 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer workers).

Yeah, focusing on small business is a lame idea. You have a huge bias towards large companies b/c that is what you read about and hear about in the media. Every large company you know began as a small company.

The large companies eventually reach a tipping point where struggle to grow. It is inevitable. If it weren't, companies would be the world. What is always part of the restructuring process? Cut payroll. I surprised you support large companies when those are exactly the types that left MI high and dry. To each his own. I would prefer to adopt policies that support small business growth.

[drumbeat]

looks like cato did not put any cream in his coffee, he is very bitter. You need to accecpt michigans fate, then you can start to heal and deal with the situation.
to call people leaving uneducated is just plain wrong.
I know of several people who are highly educated and can not find jobs in the medical field. the same field that jenny said will pull michigan into a new era.
When you snap a people for their opinions it usualy means they are right and you are misdirecting your anger.
Michigan is in a very bad place, I think a place that it has never been before.
Michigan for many years has been a state that was a driving force behind the industrial revolution in this country.
But because of high oil, high wages, high health cost, and cars that get 10mpg. they are not competitive at this time, this coupled with michigan putting all its economic eggs into the auto industry basket, has brought us to this situation.
Greed is a big part of it, on both the unions and the manufactures.
While the japanese set limits on how much ceo's can make over line workers, the us lets ceo's even bad ceo's [and that is the norm today a ceo that is not worth his salt] make 200 times a line worker.
Michigan is a symptom of what is wrong in america, We need social healt care, every major industrialized country in the world has it excpt for the us, we need to stop spending a billion dollars a week in a war that we will never win, we need an energy policy, domestic polocy, we need good people to finaly go to washington and stop selling us out to big business.
We need to seriously start looking for other sources of energy, germany for example will pay a set amount each year for twenty years to any one how puts up on their property solar panals and puts electricty into the grid.
nuclear power in this country is being shut down for more out dated sources of energy.
If we dont start working for the best intrest of the country instead of the best interest of our individual back pocket, we will all of us be in the situation of michigan.
Why are we hated all across the world?
I am not saying to sit down and let other countrys walk over us, but we are not the world police, For one min, sit down and think how would you feel if china, came here and said, we are going to help you, and ran tanks and apc's through our streets? How many formarly couch potatos would rise up and start to bomb the invaders?
When you strap on a gun and ride around another mans back yard, don't be surprised when he shoots at you.
As far as michigan goes, when you have a federal government that pays more attention to what is wrong half a world away instead of what is wrong in his own back yard, you will have a break down, also you can not let free enterprise run rampet, some people believe that the free market is god, just let it work it self out, well this was the thinking during the twentys, and it lead to the great depression, now with regulation heavy regulation things are not as likely to let greed trample others. It is not perfect and we need more inforcment, for people like lay and skelling, even stewart, we need to see that you can not manipulate the system and even make it stronger with more laws to stop enron and company from destroying hard working peoples lives.
pure capitolisim is just as bad as pure communisim.

[Cato the Elder]

Originally Posted by drumbeat

looks like cato did not put any cream in his coffee, he is very bitter.

I think you need to look in the mirror. What am I bitter about? I am a transplant that CHOSE to come to MI b/c it was the best all around opportunity for me and my family. Now, we are thriving and enjoying a quality of life like never before. And guess what, there are more and more people like me coming to MI every day. As ignorant people like you leave, MI becomes all that more attractive to open-minded people like me looking for opportunities that you took for granted for generations. Your words easily betray you as the bitter one as your entitled, Big-3 turn-screw way of life crashes around you. MI is changing and leaving bitter people like you behind. Now let go and stop dragging us down.