Why isn’t Detroit a Paradise?
Posted by Shannon Love on November 1st, 2008 (All posts by Shannon Love)
One really has to ask the obvious question: If Obama’s economic policies work so well, why isn’t Detroit a paradise?
In 1950, America produced 51% of the GNP for the entire world. Of that production, roughly 70% took place in the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
The productive capability of this small area of earth staggers the imagination. Virtually everything that rebuilt the industrial bases of Europe and Japan came from those eight states. Cars, planes, electronics, machine tools, consumer goods, generators, concrete - any conceivable item manufactured by industrial humanity poured out this tiny region and enriched the world. The region shone with widespread prosperity. People migrated from the South and West to work in these Herculean engines of industry.
The wealth, power and economic dominance of the region at the time cannot be overstated. Nothing like it has existed in human history.
Yet, a mere 30 years later, by 1980, we called that area the “rustbelt” and it became synonymous with joblessness, collapsing cities, high crime, failing schools and general hopelessness.
What the hell happened?
Obama happened.
Of course, not Obama personally but rather the same ideas that Obama espouses. What those ideas did to the Great Lakes states, they can do to the entire country.
What did they do wrong?
First, unions: Without any serious economic competition, unions could force virtually any salary, benefits and pensions they wished from manufactures. Worse, however, they could set work rules and conditions, effectively dictating the organization of a business and what technology, processes and methods it used. Since increasing productivity, by definition, means doing more work with fewer people, unions froze companies into the methods used in the mid-1950s and refused to let them adapt. Companies rode high for over 15 years, but by the late ’60s they faced increasing competition and needed to change and adapt. The unions blocked this.
In the end, however, strong widespread unions turned out for workers to be merely a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Unions got workers in factories better wages, but the people who built the workers’ houses, cars, consumer goods and stocked their groceries also had strong unions and the price of everything went up. Strong public-sector unions kept taxes high and public productivity low, so workers’ taxes went up. By the time they paid all the increased cost of union labor in everything they consumed, the unions gave them little if any real increases in income.
Second, invasive government: People who grew up during the New Deal and WWII believed that government could solve almost any problem, and they supported high taxes so that government could fix society. Unfortunately, the supposed benefits of an expansive state, good schools, solid public infrastructure, low crime, etc. failed to materialize while zoning and land-use restrictions drove up housing cost and taxes and crime destroyed small businesses. Strong public-sector unions blocked tax cuts and reforms that could have saved them.
By the early ’70s the states that once served as the industrial engine for the entire planet began to fall apart. Then came double-digit inflation and the energy crisis (both caused by leftist policies). By 1980, the industrial heartland of America lay in virtual ruins. People called it the “rustbelt” in analogy to the “dustbowl” of the Great Depressions. Even today, nearly 30 years later, the region lags behind the rest of the country in job creation and is steadily losing population to internal migration.
It can happen just that fast. A worker who entered the factories in 1950 at the age of 25 saw 20 good years before things looked bad. At 45 he saw repeated layoffs, and by 55 he was out of a job and his children had little hope of finding one.
Obama clearly plans to try to extend the rustbelt model to the rest of the country. “Card check” will let unions use intimidation to control workers. High taxes on capital gains will slow investment. Environmental regulation will starve workplaces of electricity and mandate inefficient modes of production. Great new bureaucracies will arise to restrain the freedom and creativity of the people.
Obama has no concept of business as a creative and experimental endeavor. On some deep unconscious level, he assumes that material wealth is something akin to a natural phenomenon for which no group of humans can take credit. Therefore, he sees distribution as the only serious economic issue and ignores how politics interferes with the actual process of wealth creation.
We may soon be living in a repeat of ’70s and looking back at the years 1984-2007 as a golden era.
November 1st, 2008 at 10:31 am
What you write is totally powerful. It is marred by the terma “liberal” and “conservative”.
The distinction between liberals and comservatives is totally backwards. Conservatives want to preserve a market place and a political system where constant change is desireable.
Liberals want to take a picture of today and preserve it unchanged forever, perhaps tweaking around the edges to benefit this friend or that. Thus environmentalists want to freeze evolution in its tracks; Al Gore et al want to freeze the weather; labor unions dedicate themselves to preserving current hierarchies and job skills.
So the Liberals are really conservatives and the Conservatives are the true liberals. This means that it is impossible for a Liberal to develop new technology (such as solar or wind power) because it disturbs the environment, makes some people obsolete, and simply has too many unknown consequences.
If the rest of the world were still in the 50s, the rust belt would still rule the world.
November 1st, 2008 at 12:07 pm
The American People are almost ready to bite their noses off to spite their faces. Change, the reckless abandon for morals, and a general hate of conservatism in general is what let us to the current economic crisis at hand. Spending beyond your means, wheather you are a government, or an individual, is just not good policy.Getting an abortion because a child might “inconvience” someone, and victimology are running rampant, and now it’s time to pay the piper for our deeds.Being responsible for one’s own self , either success or failure, is one of the great joys of capitolism.
obama, get your filthy hands out of my pockets, get a real job where you actually produce something worthwile other than bullshit for the masses. Our new company policy will be that those idiots who voted for the obamamessiah, will be the first to be laid off as a result of higher taxes
November 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Sol Vsaon,
I agree with you complaint about the terminology of “liberal” and “conservative”. That terminology is really about how particular political segments view the status quo. That is why I make it a point to use the terms “left” and “right” to describe ideologies.
You’re correct the contemporary left represents the conservative or even reactionary element in American politics. I would argue that they have not had a new idea in 30 years. Obama does want to go back to the policies of the mid-20th century. He wants to preserve and extend the policies and programs laid down before I was born.
November 1st, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Woody,
Our new company policy will be that those idiots who voted for the obamamessiah, will be the first to be laid off as a result of higher taxes
I strongly recommend you do not do that. While would be karmically just, in the real world it would could establish a dangerous situation wherein people would not feel free to speak their mind or vote their consciences.
It’s bad enough that politicians muck around in business indirectly. Tying work to politics directly would empower the politicians in the end by giving them direct control over who can get a job.
I’ve always wondered by business never educated their employees about the way in which different policies would effect the business and employees jobs.
November 1st, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Great article. I quoted and linked you from http://community.myfoxdfw.com/blogs/TexasTruBlu. I hear that unions, with their new bullying tactic of having a list of names of all people who vote against organizing, are expecting to wield more power in the next few years. I suspect that under such an atmosphere that right to work states and employees will be more or less forced into unions against their better judgment. I wonder how long it will be before we see the nation shut down by transportation workers or teachers or police due to this situation just as frequently happens in the EU.
November 1st, 2008 at 8:38 pm
There is a lot of money to be made in ruin, in stripping assets, in ripping cultural copper out of the wall.
Lawyers, politicians, welfare industry workers all can earn more, retire better, assisting in the economic euthanasia of once great productive bodies that are now elderly and sick.
Invasive parasitic organisms thrive on the dying body politic, and when Detroit is but a free range zone for parolees and proles, the little opportunistic human bacteria will move on to welfare/leftist polity they find open, warm and generous.
November 1st, 2008 at 9:12 pm
So you think they are heading for Washingon or LA?
November 1st, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Washington…sorry. Bad keyboard.
November 1st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
In Michigan alone, the auto industry destroyed any kind of innovation or incentive to create other business models. The auto work was such a cash cow that most businesses were formed to feed of the teet of that cash cow, rather than attempt new forms of wealth creation.
It’s strange, considering the natural beauty of Michigan, not to mention it’s strategic location between Chicago and Toronto, but it truly is a dead zone for business right now. (The legacy bad business law and taxes don’t help either).
November 1st, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Thought experiment: what if auto imports had been absolutely prohibited, thereby avoiding any serious competition for the Big 3? What would be the current situation in Detroit?
My guess is that wages would still be very high, management would be pretty bad, quality would be far inferior to what it is today…and cars would be priced at a minimum of something like $50K in today’s dollars, putting a huge damper on the rest of the economy.
November 1st, 2008 at 10:15 pm
ElamBend,
One can say that the auto industry was a victim of its own success, yet other regions adapted to the loss of advantage in critical industries and the rustbelt in main did not. Texas and other oil states, for example, adapted to the collapse of oil prices and the depletion of oil fields. Oil ruled the Texas economy for over 60 years but the state adapted in less than a decade.
I think unions and the political complexes associated with them, prevented adaptation by the industries they controlled. Unions have a vested interest in stopping increases in productivity that use fewer workers to produce more goods. Certainly, the major auto companies are far more innovative in plants outside the rustbelt and outside the country, than they are in rustbelt plants.
The rustbelt states have a political culture that values stasis before all other things. That has a tremendous long term cost.
November 2nd, 2008 at 5:36 am
ElamBend - I hesitate to mention this because I don’t want to ruin things for myself, but here goes. The southwest part of Michigan is abaolutely beautiful. We vacation there every summer for a week, around New Buffalo, St. Joseph, South Haven, up to Saugatuck. We rent a house on a high bluff overlooking Lake Michigan and the sunsets are spectacular. I get to run on the beach every morning for several miles. You can swim, go to wineries, they have (small) festivals, etc. etc.
There is a cottage tourist business in this area, but nothing like I would expect - I am not sure why. I would think that the whole west coast of Michigan would be built up but maybe they have some restrictions in place, I don’t know.
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:14 am
Ellen K.
Yes. Washington is a growing undefined tumor of lawyers, paper shufflers, copier salesmen, wonks, collators, desseminators, policy pimps, hacks, bagmen, drivers, courtiers, minions, layabouts, bed feathers, and boil suckers common to the metastasizing administrative state.(Was I harsh? Did I leave anyone out?)
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:23 am
> We may soon be living in a repeat of ’70s
I’ve been saying for months that Obama was going to bring back the Carter 70s and make Carter look good by comparison.
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I agree that Union’s is a major factor for the failing of the Big 3, that and the high taxes that our domestic automakers pay both here in the states and when trying to sell overseas. Obama’s illuminati party is not setting us up for success in the private sector, but rather dependency on government. I’m still waiting for the day when all of us get silenced through the fairness doctrine. Thanks for reminding me of the graveyard that I have to spend the next few days at going to a wedding in Michigan. I can’t stand that depressing state.
November 2nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I’m already picturing Obama sitting next to a fire place, wearing a sweater and trying to explain why we’re in such a malaise.
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 am
Alright, please get off of Michigan’s back! Detroit is a hot mess due to urban sprawl and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs. The unions did play a part in driving these companies out of the Midwest. Something was said about a worker having a good job at 25 and being laid-off at 45 and out of a job by 55, let’s shine some light on these “good union workers”: The guy probably was offered a chance to relocate but loved the state he was living in and couldn’t possibly imagine moving. Some years go by and he is offered an early retirement he takes it because the company that he works for is leaving the state. The good worker never seen this coming and is so distraught of the “sudden” change of events that he is on the verge of losing everything. If he would have saved some of his union paid hourly salary he would have been better prepared for this situation, if he would have relocated down south because that’s were some of the manufacturing jobs went before companies figured out they could go to Mexico and pay their workers even less money to do same work thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (which is another can of worms that screwed us) he would have some sympathy from me.This is typical of us Americans when everything is going well it’s all fine and dandy, when something doesn’t go our way we scream and holler that someone has screwed us. Prime example just look at the housing industry and the “market collapse” we will bounce back under Obama or Mccain in my opinion but the next time someone is offering us something that we don’t need or sounds to go to be true will we will take it? It sounds to me a lot of people are whining looking to point the finger at somebody when we should be pointing the finger at ourselves for LIVING BEYOND OUR MEANS. I say take control and responsibility of your life and money instead of always looking for a scapegoat. On the other hand i would like to agree with the guy from Madison. I currently live in Kalamazoo, Michigan and there are a lot of great things happening. There is the Kalamazoo Promise, which will pay for any kid that goes to school from K-12 free tuition at any Michigan school and those that go from 9-12 they will pay about 60 percent. There are several opportunities in the pharmaceutical field dealing with drug research & development. Midlink is planning to add over 3000 new jobs to the area over the next 10yrs., Stryker a fortune 500 company is making additions to their workforce. Toyota is building a new plant in Battle Creek, Kalamazoo’s neighbor 20 min. down the road and Grand Rapids which is 45min north of Kalamazoo has added multiple new hospitals for everything ranging from training doctors to medical research.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:37 am
I have to agree with the post but it raises one question in my mind:
Unions that work at businesses are subject to change because competing businesses can move in (cf non-union auto manufacturing in the sunbelt v. union auto manufacturing in the rustbelt). I recall reading that the only union growth in the last decade or so has been in government unions (i.e. SEIU). Given that no competing government can arise, how is it possible to blunt the inimical nature of such unions to the betterment of a free society?
Of course I imagine that some will say the government union is to the betterment of a free society but such a fundamentally frivolous position deserves nothing more than derision.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:47 am
“I’m already picturing Obama sitting next to a fire place, wearing a sweater and trying to explain why we’re in such a malaise.”
Mishu - many business leaders and ‘capitalists’ agree with you that Obama is Carter II. The difference between capitalists (on-shore and off-shore) and everyone else is that we look at it not as a tragedy but rather an economic certainty on which safe bets can be made and profits can be reaped.
To illustrate: If you know Obama is going to “bankrupt” the coal industry by for example massively taxing the burning of coal for energy, you buy oil and watch Americans run the price up (complaining all the way about how much exxon is ‘windfall’ profiteering). If you know Obama is going to force business to buy green energy credits, you start a business which certifies these indulgences. My current favorite - we know Obama is going to raise income taxes. Municipal Bonds, which are not taxable at the federal level, produce an improved after-tax yield the higher taxes get. Buy them now and profit when Obama raises your taxes.
Democracy is not suited to libertarian principles of economics. It is a majority-takes-all scheme where two sides compete for client-voters with a grab bag of directed give-aways, harvested from a few wealth creators. The wealth creators are permitted to profit and reside in the Democracy with reasonable certainty that their wealth is not going to be simply snatched by the mobs outside the gates of their houses. The wealth creators pay taxes on their incomes and profits as a form of ‘protection money’ to the democrats (small d). If the protection money paid exceeds the actual cost of the protection of the wealth, the wealth creators move to a less costly ‘turf.’ Remember, income taxes tax income and real estate taxes tax wealth. When democracies have massive wealth taxes, nearly all the wealth creators run for the door. Income taxes are only a burden on middle class people who are trying to get wealthy. Wealthy people can choose not to earn income. (Simply buy gold for example and sit on it). My advice, if you don’t want to be a middle class person, stop thinking like one and start thinking like a capitalist.
Democrats and Republicans are both socialistic redistributors with client-voters. If you think a 35% marginal tax rate in which the government owns you like a slave until April and a 40% tax rate in which the government owns you until May are philosophically so different then you aren’t paying careful attention. The real difference is in who gets the spoils of victory - faith based initiatives (aka evangelical churches) or SCHIP (aka children of urban welfare queens).
Capitalists do not care if a certain politician is detrimental to your personal cost of living or quality of life. If you choose Obama, which for many means a lower quality of life in higher taxes and higher cost of desirable goods, that is simply your choice. For many others, who are his client-voters and who will get a ‘tax credit’ (aka WELFARE PAYMENT) this may mean a better quality of life, at least in the short term. All capitalists want is to know in advance who will win and what will he/she do. Then capitalists can plan the use of their capital for investment (or restraint of investment) in the most efficient and profitable way.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:47 am
Mishu,
I’m already picturing Obama sitting next to a fire place, wearing a sweater and trying to explain why we’re in such a malaise.
I’ve got an even better picture. Imagine an embattled Obama acting like Lloyd Bridges in Airplane:
“Damn, this job is HARD. Looks like I picked the wrong decade to stop smoking! Hey Hillary, how ’bout some coffee? (Hillary:) NO THANKS!!!!”
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:05 am
Paul,
Alright, please get off of Michigan’s back! Detroit is a hot mess…
I’m not singling out Michigan and Detroit for condemnation but just using them as the primary examples of the collapse of the area. Fifty years ago, Detroit was the premier industrial city in the entire world. If you’d have told someone in 1957 that in 2007 Detroit would be a basket case, they would have thought you mad. The collapse of the region occurred in a period of less than 15 years (1960-1975). It can happen that fast in the rest of the country if we implement the same policies.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:11 am
Real Life Bundler,
If you think a 35% marginal tax rate in which the government owns you like a slave until April and a 40% tax rate in which the government owns you until May are philosophically so different then you aren’t paying careful attention.
That 5% compounded over several decades would add up to to quite a chunk of change which would in turn add up to more personal choices.
Politics is purely a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:21 am
“Obama clearly plans to try to extend the rustbelt model to the rest of the country.”
This statement has me wondering when the United States became a place where an individual could do this. Doesn’t Obama have to convince a majority of the country that doing this would be the right track?
What everyone forgets is that Obama’s first initiative, should he be elected (which I seriously doubt) would have repercussions that will resonate fairly quickly.
Card check = the end of secret balloting.
Health Care Reform = Establishing a state religion (Islam, since Muslims will not be required to adhere to health care laws that require compulsory insurance purchase, effectively taxing Jews and Christians more.)
Creation of his Civilian Army = The Return of Adolph Hitler’s Brownshirts.
Shortly, people will put two and two together and someone will step up and do the right thing.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:24 am
Shannon Love Says: “I’ve always wondered by business never educated their employees about the way in which different policies would effect the business and employees jobs.”
See the GM ‘Thought Starter’ series, from back in the day. A notable example: The Illustrated Road To Serfdom
http://mises.org/books/TRTS/
Paul Says: “If he would have saved some of his union paid hourly salary he would have been better prepared for this situation, if he would have relocated down south because that’s were some of the manufacturing jobs went before companies figured out they could go to Mexico and pay their workers even less money to do same work thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (which is another can of worms that screwed us) he would have some sympathy from me.”
If all these jobs have supposedly gone to Mexico……. then why are so many Mexicans coming here looking for jobs? We don’t want any jobs created in Mexico, but we don’t want any Mexicans emigrating here. One can’t be both nativist and protectionist.
Mexican , Canadian, and US GDP and job creation has accelerated in the years following the NAFTA signing.
The shelter of cradle to grave corporate employment was a one generation in 10000 human years aberration.
For all the lament about manufacturing jobs, why don’t any Americans seem to want their kids to have any manufacturing jobs?
It was McCain who was recklessly honest (he did lose that primary) in telling Michigan folks that “some of these lost jobs are never coming back.”
It seemed he was trying to lay a foundation of new thinking in a region whose traditional approach to product development and markets is in too many cases as obsolete as their civic leaders who wish that for the rest of us.
—
Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - C.S. Lewis
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:34 am
[...] Shannon Love asks why isn’t Detroit and the Great Lakes region along with the former Industrial Northeast today the economic powerhouse it was in 1950? [...]
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:37 am
It isn’t just Detroit…
take a look at any democrat city that has been democrat for 20 years or more. They are all basket cases. In fact, the 20 least desirable places to live in the US are Democrat run cities.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
[...] In Detroit. From the Chicago Boyz, a companion piece to mine on Chicago politics, coming to a city near you. Posted by Dan Collins @ 1:46 pm | Trackback Share This [...]
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:02 am
“There is a cottage tourist business in this area, but nothing like I would expect - I am not sure why. I would think that the whole west coast of Michigan would be built up but maybe they have some restrictions in place, I don’t know.”
Nah, no such thing going on here. I lived in West Michigan as a kid, worked in Chicago for a number of years after leaving U of M, and I now live in West Michigan’s lakeshore area again with my family.
Truth is, we don’t want you Chicago folks here. You are loud, crude, and foul the nest. I like Chicago a ton as a town, I just don’t want you people for neighbors. (Polite Michigan grin and nod) I may not like the hypocritical religion-spouting, miserly Dutch folks that seem to run everything in West Michigan, but they are *way* better than the narrow-eyed, thieving Chicago business community I dealt with all those years.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 am
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
— Robert Heinlein
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:23 am
I grew up in Michigan in the 1950s and finished college in 1969 to never return to live in Michigan. What harmed Michigan were:
1. The Detroit riots of 1967 that caused massive white (and non white) flight out of Detroit by people and taxable businesses. Blacks with money moved out of Detroit also, except to Dearborn that as late as 1969 was white only.
2. Racial discrimination ended in the South and air conditioning became inexpensive so the South with its right to work laws became VERY attractive to workers and owners of businesses.
3. Large numbers of Republicans moved out of Michigan and the Democrats and RINOs took control of the state government and came to believe that they could TAX MICHIGAN TO PROSPERITY. They still believe this.
4. Winter is long and summer is short in Michigan. Why stay there if there are few good jobs, high taxes, and a bleak future?
Michgian was NOT competitive with southern states for workers nor business. With the likely failures of the not very big three car makers, it will likely get much worse.
I see nothing in the future that can correct this. And why would Democrats correct it, for keeping Michigan poor will cause it to vote Democrat again and again.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:26 am
[...] have to say, having lived in Michigan for 2 years, I can still visualize the extent to which strong unions, a heavy reliance on big government and a general hostility to free markets can destroy an economy. Obama’s economic policies remind me of the same characteristics that [...]
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:26 am
It’s strange, considering the natural beauty of Michigan, not to mention it’s strategic location between Chicago and Toronto, but it truly is a dead zone for business right now. (The legacy bad business law and taxes don’t help either).
I would say the biggest problem that Michigan faces right now is probably not the business climate, it’s the uniformly negative perception being spread by news stories and blog posts like this one. Seriously — the reality and perceptions of Michigan are pretty far out of whack. Michigan does have a great deal of natural beauty and also good infrastructure, excellent universities (including one of the world’s greatest public universities in the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor), a reasonable cost of living, and even the tax levels are really not *that* high. The perception is of a state strangled by high taxes, but Michigan is actually middle-of-the-pack — nowhere near NY or Calif:
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbystate2005/index.html
Nor has Michigan’s recent history been one of inexorable decline under Obama-style left-liberal leadership. Michigan boomed during most of the 90s under a 3-term Republican governor (John Engler). And the U.S. automakers were still generating billions in profits during that decade (mostly on truck & SUV sales, yes, but profits are profits). It’s hard to believe now, but at the time of the supposed ‘merger of equals’ ten years ago, Chrysler was slightly larger and more profitable than Daimler Benz, and Ford and GM were on buying sprees snapping up European automakers (Saab, Volvo, Jaguar). Also keep in mind that there is more to the auto business than the Big 3 and manufacturing here. Toyota and Hyundai/Kia both are expanding engineering and R&D facilities in SE Michigan — and why not? The engineers are here and the UAW isn’t an issue for technical and white collar workers.
Although the city of Detroit itself has steadily lost wealth and population since the 1950s, the surrounding metro area has grown and sprawled…to the point where the city of Detroit makes up less than 1/5th of the population. Also, the west side of the state was never either an auto-production or union stronghold, but tends to be conservative and vote Republican.
Lastly, there was no possible set of policies that would have enabled Michigan and surrounding states to maintain the share of world manufacturing that it had at the end of WWII — since European and Japanese industry had been bombed to rubble.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:28 am
“Dan from Madison Says: There is a cottage tourist business in this area, but nothing like I would expect - I am not sure why. I would think that the whole west coast of Michigan would be built up but maybe they have some restrictions in place, I don’t know.”
Oh, it’s not all laid back and undeveloped. And the most concentrated tourism/resort development tends to be farther north — ever seen the traffic in Traverse City in the summer time? Or the serious money in Glen Arbor, Harbor Springs or Suttons Bay?
Spartee Says: Truth is, we don’t want you Chicago folks here. You are loud, crude, and foul the nest. I like Chicago a ton as a town, I just don’t want you people for neighbors.
That’s silly–vacationing Chicagoans have been coming to West Michigan since the 19th century when they came by steamboat. If Chicago politics hasn’t rubbed off over that time, it’s not likely to happen. Nobody wants an extension of corrupt Chicago politics in Michigan (probably least of all visiting Chicagoans), but they’re certainly welcome as cottage-owners, golfers, sailors, skiers, etc, etc.
With respect to Chicago, I think West Michigan has it good — Chicago is easily accessible (in both directions), but Michigan doesn’t have to deal with the politics. Detroit is in bad shape, which is a shame, but at least there’s no danger that the city is going to dominate state politics the way that Chicago does in Illinois.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:34 am
[ Comment Deleted for making racist comments. A politician's race is not relevant to their policies. -- Shannon ]
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:37 am
I live in Ohio, and I find it frustrating to listen to politicians here, still to this day, talk about restoring manufacturing jobs and whatnot. Few, if any, ever really talk about lowering taxes on businesses and implementing other policies that might encourage innovation. Obama even talks that way when he stops by to visit. The economy of Ohio will never, ever improve if we don’t get over this idea that we have to return to some 1950’s style economy where we all work for 30 years at the same factories our fathers did. Aside from the fact that it’s simply not going to happen, the idea of working 30 years in the same factory sounds kind of awful to me anyway.
But the message works (obviously) for people in their 50’s who just got laid off from a factory job, and possess very few marketable job skills. They don’t care much about the overall economy of Ohio, they just want their jobs back. Which is understandable, but to a large extent, this is just shifting deck chairs on the Titanic.
But, the previous commenters were correct. The left in this country is far more conservative and reactionary in many respects than the right.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 am
Detroit is dead because of the failure of the automobile industry. This industry is a dead man walking for one BIG reason. Unions. CAFE standards and other automobile regulations have done their share, but at least foreign competition must meet those same standards. The only item they don’t have to meet are the ridiculous buren the unions have been over the years. My sister’s neighbor is a “retired” GM line employee. Some 15 years into his working life, he was laid off…. could only draw 90% of his salary and benefits for the next year. However, thanks to a great union, he could simply work at ANY plant in the US for two weeks and then extend that for another year…. which he did until retirement. I’m sure that doesn’t add much to the cost of a car….
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 am
You guys with your union fetishism crack me up. You think a bunch of working-class and barely middle-class joes managed to piss away the greatest concentration of industrial prosperity ever assembled. No, that kind of feat requires the potent combination of Government + Wall Street. The Great Lakes region was systematically treated by the US government as a cash cow to fund the development of the backward areas of the US that rejected industry in favor of slavery or were devoid of natural resources. This PDF shows the net federal spending per state back to 1980, and it was much worse before that. You’ll see that the states in the region make up the bottom 20%, those that have sent far more to Washington than they have received, for 60 years. That funds a lot of infrastructure, which btw was built by private industry originally, not by the feds like down south and out west. Let’s face it, manufacturing is dirty and hard. Wall Street likes a quick buck as much as the next guy, and figuring out the next improvement takes time and money and effort. It’s a lot easier to borrow some money, leverage a company to the gills, strip its assets and then leave it to fail than it is to engage in constant, sustained effort to eke out a little margin with no room for error in a world economy. No, that’s not the problem, the problem is that intransigent union guy that would really like a 3% raise this year instead of the 50% reduction we’re offering.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:42 am
A few comments about my experiences with Unions:
1) I was born in a small town where the single largest employer was a bauxite mining firm. In the late ’70’s, early 80’s, the price of Aluminum tanked, and it no longer was profitable to run the plant. The company went to the union and gave them a choice, “Either take a pay cut or else we will close the plant.” The Union choose to have them close the plant. The question is, “Why?” The answer is that the a very large percentage of the Union was older tenured workers with pension plans. Younger workers who wanted to work lost their jobs because older workers had less incentive to keep working.
2) I worked for a while at an oil refinery. The manufacturer was in the process of scaling back the unions by outsourcing more an more of their work to contractors. The unions were very angry about this, however, every week during the status meeting a comparison of the numbers revealed that the contractor employees had in comparison to the union employees: lower injury rates, higher productivity , lower rates of sick leave, and less down time do to incidents of every sort. There was a time when union employees managed to leverage management by promising to self-police their work and gaurantee labor of the highest quality. At such a time, the threat of a strike was meaningful because replacement workers would bring with them higher costs. But if replacement workers bring with the lower costs, the union loses any leverage over management except what it can extort through legal action. The company was willing to replace union jobs with contractor jobs even if it meant paying higher wages.
3) I worked for a while as a truck driver, primarily delivering industrial supplies to heavy construction and industrial sites. One day I did a delivery to a carpentry shop serving a refinery. The shop had replaced a unionized employee carpentry shop with contracted labor, but the shop itself had unionized employees. I went into the office and endedup talking to the shop foremen about the economy, because there was a recession that was slowing down new construction projects (we were feeling it too). The foremen invited me to look out the window onto to the shop floor, and pointed out several groups of workers. In one group was a young man, hard at work cutting studs to length. He said, “I hired that guy two years ago. He’s my best worker. He’s got young three kids at home he’s trying to feed, and he works his ass off every day all day long.” Then he pointed to a couple of heavy set older gentlemen drinking coffee and telling jokes, “Those guys have been in the union for like 25 years. They come into work and do nothing unless I ride their asses, and even then they pretty much ignore me and just do desultory work. They are so tenured that I can’t get rid of them. I’m going to have to lay off the young kid with three small kids even though he does more work than the whole bunch of them combined.”
4) I worked for a few days as a printer’s devil doing temp manual labor to help a university printing house get books out at the beginning of a semester. I’d been working like only an hour and a half when everyone stopped working and went over and started drinking coffee. Previously, I’d been working a warehouse wearing 3 or 4 different hats and pulling 10.5 hour days with lunch as I could grab it, so I say no reason to stop so early in the day. As I continued running the punch machine, a group of men came and surrounded me and said, “It’s mandatory break time. You got to get off the floor.” They made it pretty clear to me that if I didn’t stop working, bad things would happen to me. So like clockwork, 2 times everymorning and 2 times every afternoon I’d stop and twiddle my fingers for 10 minutes, plus an hour for lunch. All told, an ‘eight hour day’ involved less than six hours of labor. As with many of the jobs I took to pay for my wife’s education