Local and National Job Scenes
I consider myself fortunate to have found a new job, but I am still troubled. I will have to work 48 hours a week to make what I used to make in 40. I am adult enough to realize that that is just "how it is." and will not complain too much.
Many have not found work and in the last year one worker out of every sixty has left this state for greener pastures out west and down south. The unions are predictably more interested in preserving benefits and their personal power than they are in preserving jobs. At times it seems that they would rather have a small plant with twenty union jobs than a large non-union plant with a thousand decent paying jobs.
The obvious solution is one that too many people are unwilling to accept. A business needs to know with reasonable certainty that he can make a healthy profit in this state. Some people complain so much about how evil the profit motive is, and while it is not morally terrific, it is dependable and can be counted on. Businessmen are going to go where the profit is (duh!!!) and if we want them to come here we need to stop penalizing success. The state creates neither jobs nor wealth.
It is curious that unemployment is so high in Michigan (Especially south-eastern Michigan) and is moderate to low in most other places. A big chunk of the problem is the State Auto Industry and the UAW are still stuck in the Jurassic Period with their thinking. They will never accept the changes that are needed until they are at the brink of death, and even then it's not a sure thing.
We need a positive business climate in this state. Other states have higher taxes, others have more regulation, and others have harsher labor laws but Michigan has all three of them combining into a deadly combination like no other state. We could get away with one of them if the other two weren't there.
We need to do two of the following three things (and doing all three would help considerably.)
1) Cut business taxes. We are not the highest but it combines with rest to create a toxic brew that kills business opportunities in this state.
2) Ease up a little bit on business regulations. Same as above.
3) Accept lower rates of compensation as I have.
This is not optional. It's do or die.
Many have not found work and in the last year one worker out of every sixty has left this state for greener pastures out west and down south. The unions are predictably more interested in preserving benefits and their personal power than they are in preserving jobs. At times it seems that they would rather have a small plant with twenty union jobs than a large non-union plant with a thousand decent paying jobs.
The obvious solution is one that too many people are unwilling to accept. A business needs to know with reasonable certainty that he can make a healthy profit in this state. Some people complain so much about how evil the profit motive is, and while it is not morally terrific, it is dependable and can be counted on. Businessmen are going to go where the profit is (duh!!!) and if we want them to come here we need to stop penalizing success. The state creates neither jobs nor wealth.
It is curious that unemployment is so high in Michigan (Especially south-eastern Michigan) and is moderate to low in most other places. A big chunk of the problem is the State Auto Industry and the UAW are still stuck in the Jurassic Period with their thinking. They will never accept the changes that are needed until they are at the brink of death, and even then it's not a sure thing.
We need a positive business climate in this state. Other states have higher taxes, others have more regulation, and others have harsher labor laws but Michigan has all three of them combining into a deadly combination like no other state. We could get away with one of them if the other two weren't there.
We need to do two of the following three things (and doing all three would help considerably.)
1) Cut business taxes. We are not the highest but it combines with rest to create a toxic brew that kills business opportunities in this state.
2) Ease up a little bit on business regulations. Same as above.
3) Accept lower rates of compensation as I have.
This is not optional. It's do or die.
posted by shoprat at 1:10 PM
8 Comments:
At least you're not Chicago -- that city's council just agreed to jack up local taxes to 11%. Just wait. Think people'll be fleeing THAT city soon?
BZ
In any event, congratulations on finding another job, Shoprat!
Shoprat, my paternal family is from Kalamazoo and I hear your same complaints regularly, the unions are killing the state and they are doing their best to destroy California as well. I am a small business owner and licensed contractor and I can't do volunteer work for my local schools for free, they have to pay unions 10 times what I would charge, and get less qualified labor.
Don't worry, Shoprat. Things will get worse in Michigan. Our legislators are finalizing the income tax hike this week.
Just got back from a quick trip to Alberta ... which used to have almost zero union representation (which made it a great place to live).
However, the oil business in booming, big time, with more oil sands megaprojects in the building stages. That brought out a whole passel of folks from other parts of Canada - especially, it seems, union-happy Ontario.
And, of course, they brought out their "work ethic".
Strikes - illegal ones, of course - are the news of the day ... and when you hear those strikers on the news ... you just want to reach an aluminum bat through the TV screen and wack them upside the head. Same old ... we don't like the laws so they need to be changed to suit us ... CRAP.
When are these idiots going to join the rest of teh civilized world and become productive members of society? Yeah, I know, rhetorical question. GAH!
Unions have "come a long way" since the good old days when they were formed with the interests of the workers at heart.
Politicians who view their power to propose and help vote in tax hikes as a blank check proposition never seem to check, first, on what the market will bear.
When businesses suddenly begin leaving their bailiwicks en masse after a tax related increase in the cost of doing business and unemployment abruptly increases drastically -- generating significantly larger numbers of unemployment insurance disbursements and social services expenditures while collecting far less than the paid-outs in income (and as an extension, sales) taxes, these morons never seem to understand that "they did it".
Over-regulation falls into the same category. Sure, while you're taxing the bloody (insert favorite expletive, mine's a 4 letterer beginning in "S") out of businesses, don't forget to milk them some more with the need for extemporaneous licenses and permits, compliance related money drains, tacked-on insurance requirements, etc, etc.
Shoprat, your formula for total local recession is spot-on.
Bravo!
bz Granholm isn't doing much better than that.
a13 thanks
goat It's depressing isn't it.
jay I saw that. (give a depressed sounding half-hearted "Yea!"
pete like the legendary basilisk. The left kills by seeing and sees by killing. or sees by destroying.
Seth You're right and they'll never figure it out.
Michigan advertises incessantly here in Colorado on the radio. The ads are very well done. However, I read Shoprat, and I know the truth!
The ads are narrated by Jeff Daniels. They are trying to convince businesses to move to Michigan.
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