Is it any wonder you can't sell a house in Michigan: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/15-cities-top-15-percent-unemployment.aspx?GT1=33002 Check Sept. unemployment in Detroit....over 17% officially. The comments below the article are very interesting and some are right on. The real unemployment rate in Detroit when factoring in those who are underemployed or whose benefits have run out must be a staggering 30% or higher and the other 70% are too scared shitless to buy anything substantial......especially a house.
So Obama holds a "Jobs" summit and does not invite the US Chamber of Commerce or the National Federation of Independent Business, the two largest representative groups of the only component of the economy that can save him, the small business sector.
To show you how inane the "jobs summit" was, one of the invited was old Captain Jenny Grandholm who, with the help of her UAW stooges has run her ship of state into an ice berg. I'm so tired of these unemployed labor idiots crying about jobs that have left the US for more competitive areas overseas. They support the party in power that has half passed a cap and trade bill that will greatly increase energy prices here in the US. It will absolutely kill us in the world market. But if you were in power and had invested in windmill generation technology, you'd be shutting down offshore drilling and torpedoing our nuclear power industry by shutting down the planned waste storage facility. So let's see how we're doing on our enemies list: Oil companies, reeling under cap and trade bill Wealthy republicans on wall street, pay czar is sticking it to them Insurance companies, health care ones about to be vaporized Stay tuned.
I see how all three groups in the eight years under Bush/Cheney decided to forgo personal and private riches.....therefore making the best decisions that have led to the propserous situation our nation is now basking in. Forgive me if I hurl.
Hey MCG, Obama has been in charge for 11 months now, whatever is wrong is his fault. That's about 10 months longer than it took the dims to assign blame for everything to Bush. It's Obama's fault.
I believe that back then the US was a country that had embraced and become a world power because of capitalism. Well at least some liberals have stopped blaming Hoover. Meanwhile the trillion dollar piss away dubbed the "stimulus package" designed to "jolt" the economy towards recovery has proven to be a complete failure. Unless of course it was actually designed to provide states the money to keep the government union employees working while the joes in the private sector continue to lose their jobs. In that case it's been a roaring success. If only Bush and Cheney hadn't forced him to do it.
Dave, What you have not not grasped is that none of us hold Bush blameless for his actions on the economic front. He spent like a drunken sailor, abandoning his conservative base. And it was Bush who conceived the stimulus plan to begin with. If not for Bush and his abandonment of conservative principles, Obama would still be an obscure member of the Senate. Obama and his handpicked cronies were smart enough to recognize this opportunity to re-engineer this country by using the ruse of "stimulus" money and injecting it at the right time to give the federal government ownership control of the banking, auto and soon the healthcare industries. They will then use the natural human emotions of class envy and resententment of success to justify targeted tax increases against mid to upper income brackets and small businesses (the only two groups still in his way) to fund his takeover of the free enterprise system. It's a textbook, headlong lunge into socialism.
Started to make a new topic for this but decided that it goes hand in hand with unemployment.....not only in Michigan but elsewhere as well. I have always thought it was so stupid and self defeating that some Americans just seem to relish being the devil's advocate about American industry and manufacturing....preferring instead to send their dollars overseas and expecting so much more in return than they actually were ever going to get back. This is from a Canadian two days ago in repsonse to an online article: "This is why the US will never be the powerhouse it once was. As a Canadian, I used to marvel at America patriotism, but now it's just sad. Do you people not realize that North Americans are the only people in the world that don't buy their own products? Americans think they are the best at everything (alot of times rightly so), but your patriotism ends at cars. America put the world on wheels and you are so quick to admit that others are better than you at what you were once known and admired for. GM, Ford and Chrysler all make good vehicles and as Americans, you should be proud of that and root for them but instead you actually hope they fail. How pathetic. Do you think anyone in Japan hopes Toyota or Honda fail? It's time to act like Americans again"
Well to be fair, Toyota, Nissan, and other foreign mfg have sizeable investments in mfg here in the US. The Japanese car you drive is likely built some place in the USA, by americans.
Good post George.....you may have hit the nail on the head. Terry....where do the profits go at the end of the day? Is the investment equal to what is lost?
Where do the payrolls go? Into the pockets of American workers. Who are the parts suppliers? American companies.
This I question. Also....if we are to sit around and hope for a company/industry to fail.....or maybe revel in it....as some seem to do in this country....shouldn't we hope it's a foreign company rather than one of our own?