Which direct should Michigan go to improve it's business climate?

[maverick1]

I read this Op-Ed on the Freep this morning.
http://www.freep.com/article/2013010...s|text|Opinion
We all know Michigan needs jobs and to attract talent. But what this Op-Ed says is that we are moving in the opposite direction. I don't know the answer. I do know that none of the many people I know that have left Michigan went to those states listed with the best business climate. Maybe people wil start flocking to the states with the best business climate in the future? Again, I don't know. I do know that you need more than low taxes for business to attract talent. Maybe if you match the wages paid in NY, MA, Metro DC, etc. you could attract them but would that cancel out the tax benefits? *shrugs* Hopefully some of the members of this forum more informed than me can give some insight on this. I think this is important to Detroit and Metro-Detroit's turn-around.

[Richard]

It is a click,picture a small southern town in the 50s that is run by a few but now it is a big northern city.

MEDC ,takes two month's to finally get a personal cell phone of someone that can give some straight answers. [[OTR) other then filling out the standard form that gets no reply.

Private public relationship with the local university for higher education ,no reply.

City council,voice mails full no reply either email or phone calls.

Mayors office, repeated voice mails and emails not returned or reply's that make no sense. Ebonics is not a proper form of language accepted in some circles.

DEGC , 1 hour on the phone with the results similar to ,yawn we have our own agenda why are you bothering us.No concentrated effort just a bunch of little agendas working in each own little circle.

No or little brownfield credits for purposing existing properties. [[see click)
No empowerment zones to encourage investment.

The use of taxpayers revenues to fund VC capital to fund start ups chosen by the VC. Fine okay but does the taxpayer see a return or does the profit stay with the VC firm.Outside funding will not compete with a stacked deck.

Some in Wane county were as help full as they could be but were almost scared? to really say anything.
So basically pretty much with the exception of a couple of city employees who should be promoted to supervisor and fire everybody else,and Mr. Stamper, most of the people that are employed to court and encourage outside investment are dropping the ball.

Attitude,Mr Snyder has repeatably stated that it is in the best interests to court already established businesses within the state,nothing wrong in retention but clearly not working when GM decides to move or locate an IT department in a 22,000 sqft office,in Georgia.

Kinda like dating,you are dating five women and decide on one and tell the rest to screw off ,then the one you are dating dumps you the next week and when you go back to the other 4 that you told to screw off,well they are going to tell you the same thing.

Pick winners and losers,RTW,dump credits saying free enterprise [[VC Funds) will pick up the slack etc. etc. not working so well I guess.

Answers ? Who knows, maybe it is best for the city on its own to get its house in order and encourage and promote business within it's self, everything is there including many things other cities wish they had, it is frustrating because it is like it is all being kept on a dusty shelf in the back room.

I wonder if someone actually went to GM and asked at what point did they decide to bring those jobs elsewhere and why,if anything as a learning experience,but something tells me that it will never happen.

But that is the past and this is a new time for Detroit and as long it can concentrate 1000% on getting the house in order priority one. The rest will fall in place with a little effort.

[iheartthed]

I read this Op-Ed on the Freep this morning.
http://www.freep.com/article/2013010...s|text|Opinion
We all know Michigan needs jobs and to attract talent. But what this Op-Ed says is that we are moving in the opposite direction. I don't know the answer. I do know that none of the many people I know that have left Michigan went to those states listed with the best business climate. Maybe people wil start flocking to the states with the best business climate in the future? Again, I don't know. I do know that you need more than low taxes for business to attract talent. Maybe if you match the wages paid in NY, MA, Metro DC, etc. you could attract them but would that cancel out the tax benefits? *shrugs* Hopefully some of the members of this forum more informed than me can give some insight on this. I think this is important to Detroit and Metro-Detroit's turn-around.

I think the real debate is whether Metro Detroit's economy will be improved with high skilled jobs or low skilled jobs. If the objective is to diversify into high skilled industries then the tax rate isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is a large source of educated workers. Some high tax states perform well here because they tend to have better quality colleges and universities than low tax states. If the objective is to attract more heavy manufacturing and/or low skill service sector jobs then the tax rate means a lot more. It's easier to poach a manufacturing plant from another state than it is to poach a R&D center.

[Richard]

I think the real debate is whether Metro Detroit's economy will be improved with high skilled jobs or low skilled jobs. If the objective is to diversify into high skilled industries then the tax rate isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is a large source of educated workers. Some high tax states perform well here because they tend to have better quality colleges and universities than low tax states. If the objective is to attract more heavy manufacturing and/or low skill service sector jobs then the tax rate means a lot more. It's easier to poach a manufacturing plant from another state than it is to poach a R&D center.

Correct, to me the thing is the biggest push is to attract and fund tech and medical which is nice because you are then diversifying but in the mean time they are shunning manufacturing and other low skilled enterprises that you have the work force in mass right now.

It is probably going to take what ten to fifteen years to diversify at this point in the mean time they could be putting those to work,granted not in high skill jobs but they can go to night school from there and improve if so desired,most will,but then you at least have revenues coming in and people working.

Kinda like stepping over the dollar bills to grab the hundred dollar bill,not everybody is cut out for tech and med but those dollars add up.

[Don K]

Correct, to me the thing is the biggest push is to attract and fund tech and medical which is nice because you are then diversifying but in the mean time they are shunning manufacturing and other low skilled enterprises that you have the work force in mass right now.

It is probably going to take what ten to fifteen years to diversify at this point in the mean time they could be putting those to work,granted not in high skill jobs but they can go to night school from there and improve if so desired,most will,but then you at least have revenues coming in and people working.

Kinda like stepping over the dollar bills to grab the hundred dollar bill,not everybody is cut out for tech and med but those dollars add up.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to pursue a "pick up the bucks while positioning yourself to harvest the big money later" strategy. Picking up the dollar bills requires low wages, no benefits, low business taxes, massive property tax breaks for business, and consequently low spending on schools, universities, and infrastructure [[except where the infrastructure is needed to service a factory). We'll call this the Mississippi/Alabama strategy.

This strategy probably would allow the state to attract manufacturing jobs, but at the cost of trashing the education system that might make the state able to attract jobs requiring an educated workforce in the future. It looks to me as though this is the strategy being pursued by the Republicans in Lansing. My fear is that, after 10 or 20 years of this strategy U of M and MSU will have lost their national academic rankings, the other state universities will be as much of a joke as their equivalents in the South, and Michigan will be headed to the bottom in income, life expectancy, and all of those other rankings where the South provides such a great example for the rest of the country.

[Richard]

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to pursue a "pick up the bucks while positioning yourself to harvest the big money later" strategy. Picking up the dollar bills requires low wages, no benefits, low business taxes, massive property tax breaks for business, and consequently low spending on schools, universities, and infrastructure [[except where the infrastructure is needed to service a factory). We'll call this the Mississippi/Alabama strategy.

This strategy probably would allow the state to attract manufacturing jobs, but at the cost of trashing the education system that might make the state able to attract jobs requiring an educated workforce in the future. It looks to me as though this is the strategy being pursued by the Republicans in Lansing. My fear is that, after 10 or 20 years of this strategy U of M and MSU will have lost their national academic rankings, the other state universities will be as much of a joke as their equivalents in the South, and Michigan will be headed to the bottom in income, life expectancy, and all of those other rankings where the South provides such a great example for the rest of the country.

I think a lot of the comparisons are somewhat skewed,I am not familiar with how unions work,I grew up in MLPS my father worked for a large non union printing company ,we lived okay or I guess middle class in the 60s my uncle was in the union with ford he lived about the same.

I have a friend in Alabama he works non union in a torque converter factory as many hours and overtime as he likes,his wife is a stay at home mother he lives quite well and owns a nice home on acreage,cost of living,he makes $18 per hour plus OT, now if he lived in Manhattan he would starve but where he is at he is comfortable.cost of living plays a part in wages.

If the average rents in Detroit commanded 2000 a month then I would say yes you could not work employees full scale at say $18 per hour,but the cost of living locally is low other then taxes so it is hard to command $30 per hour working in a factory.$5 dollars per hour in 1920 working for Ford is $62.20 in today's wages no manufacturing business can support that anymore with a unskilled workforce.

Here and now you have no jobs and an low educated work force,and not a lot on the plate to offer ,so what do you do starve those who do not fit the bill of the future if and when it comes?

What is the line of preferred wages? Bring us no jobs unless we can bring home $60 per hour? Is that why the city stayed in the automotive sector only,why make widgets for $20 per hour when I can stand on a assembly line and make $60 ,nice when the $60 is there but when it is not you are left holding nothing and prepared for nothing else.

I guess the whole point is to keep an open door to any investment and not disdain against those who offer something other then the ultimate goal which is diversity ,wages at all levels in many different fields which in turn gives those who are less educated a variety to choose from if they choose to further their education. If people will not work for the wage they are offering then they will move somewhere else so that part gets taken care of.

It does not turn you into a southern state and the southern states are okay, everything is relevant .

[Adamkir]

Yes because the policies that ole Jennifer Granholm pursued while in office created a large diversified economy in Michigan, sure. [[rolling eyes) College accessible certainly didn't improve either. With tuition going up to exorbitant level thanks to tenured professorships and near instant federally backed loans.. Not that she could have stop those but still ot increased and she didn't step in. Look for yourself at tuition and economic diversification over Jennifers governance.. Did her methods really draw many new companies? And did that educational policy help create a vast educated and employable base to draw from? No and no... This is much more than a Republicrat and Democan problem its a problem both parties have brought upon us. I am so sick of this divisive talk. The Democrats rub the backs of their special interest while fucking the other side and their interests. Same as the Republicans do. So stop that talk. Until these people are held accountable for their choice and voted for or against based on those choices instead of voting based sole on twisted outdated political parties. Detroit nor Michigan will ever get better until that time..

[Don K]

Well, first, Old Henry's pay innovation was a $5 day, not $5/hour, but never mind that.

You'll never find me making excuses for the Granholm administration, because as far as I can tell it was eight years of lost time in terms of diversifying Michigan's economy. But then, since it should have been clear beginning at least by 1982 that the auto industry was not going to be a growth engine for Michigan anymore, as far as I'm concerned we had 28 lost years under Blanchard, Engler, and Granholm.

Now, with complete control of state government, the Republicans have chosen a strategy for Michigan's economy, and that strategy is pretty explicitly low wage, low benefits, low business taxes, and low services. The states that seem to have been most successful in landing new manufacturing jobs over the last 30 years or so using this strategy have been SC, TN, AL, KY, and MS. As of the 2005-2010 averages, they rank 41st, 44th, 45th, 47th, and 50th in median family income. If this strategy is a recipe for prosperity for average people, when does it happen?

Now, on this same measure, Michigan ranked 28th, but Pennsylvania ranked 22nd, Wisconsin was 18th, and Minnesota was 9th. What do these states know about prospering in a post-industrial society that we don't?

Now sure there's cost of living. I suppose it's possible that one can find a 3-bedroom bath and a half cheaper in a suburb of Birmingham or near Tuscaloosa [[near the MB plant) than in Canton or Sterling Heights, but housing is only part of the cost of living. Are groceries substantially cheaper in Alabama? Clothing? The occasional dinner out? Car expenses?

All I'm saying is I'm glad to learn from the experiences of other states. We ought to be careful, though, about which states we take lessons from, lest we end up in 20 years poorer than we are now, with crappy schools, crappier universities, and roads even worse than they've always been here.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

The so-called jobs that Snyder dreams of creating with the passage of RTW are going to be low-paying jobs, that you can't support a family on, unless you work two of them. His grand plan is to attract as many of these low-paying businesses and companies as he can just so him and his Republican cronies, can say they're the reason these companies located to Michigan and helped turn it's economy around, which is B.S. I'd be very suprised if any manufacturing company would locate here. They will remain south of the Mason-Dixon line where the cost of living is much lower.

[nickbii]

Now sure there's cost of living. I suppose it's possible that one can find a 3-bedroom bath and a half cheaper in a suburb of Birmingham or near Tuscaloosa [[near the MB plant) than in Canton or Sterling Heights, but housing is only part of the cost of living. Are groceries substantially cheaper in Alabama? Clothing? The occasional dinner out? Car expenses?

One element of cost-of-living I never see anybody talk about, that is probably more important in the City of Detroit then anywhere else int he entire country, is redlining. When I left Detroit my car insurance dropped a full $1,000. Same for pretty much everyone I know. 48208 is just a terrible zip-code for insurance rates. I've never paid homeowners insurance, but I sincerely doubt a $40,000 house in Detroit costs less to insure then a $150,000 house in the burbs, so that's hundreds a year.

Detroit is just no a low cost-of-living place, no matter how low the rent is.

[Richard]

Here is a cost of living calculator.

The averaged starting pay for a assembly line worker according to this is $17.311 -$43.281. Updated 5 Jan 2013

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/...ry/Hourly_Rate

So what I did was split the starting wage at $25.000 per year because you guys are supposed to have the experience,then I compared that to doing business in Tuscaloosa or if I was a assembly line worker moving to Detroit.

Ready for this?

A salary of $25.000 in Tuscaloosa Alabama is worth $24948.46 in Detroit .Keep in mind these are comparisons including metro and not the city of Detroit in specific.

So the difference is $52.

http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/...0107183834%3as