Not Factories, Farms and Tourism
The dominant vision of a successful future Michigan continues to be a recreation of our past success. Won’t happen! Can’t happen! Until we give up on the vision of an economy driven by factories, farms and tourism we are going to continue to have slower job and income growth than the country. As we wrote […]
Global Challenges
As I wrote in my previous posts about the upcoming elections, at the core of our work is the belief that globalization and technology are mega forces, far stronger than politics/policy, that are fundamentally changing our economy now and forever. There is no way to stop either of them. So that the change Michigan needs […]
What the Election Can’t Change II
In my last post I laid out the case for globalization and technology being the prime drivers of economic change rather than politics or policy. That no matter who wins this or future elections they cannot change the new reality that machines are increasingly able to do the work humans used to and that folks […]
State Budget Realities
Last week Mitch Bean, the terrific Director of the House Fiscal Agency, did a presentation to our Leadership Council on the state budget. I highly recommend taking a look at in detail. For most readers it will be new news. Certainly a far different story than you are getting from candidates or the press. In […]
What the Election Can’t Change
Everyone is expecting a big Republican sweep here and across the country. More than likely a lot will change. And have real impact on people’s lives. But what won’t is the basic trends in the economy. Neither Ds nor Rs can change the reality that machines are increasingly able to do work that humans used […]
New High School Grants
We are now accepting applications for those interested in starting a new high school opening in the fall of 2012 serving students from the City of Detroit. The details can be found at Michigan Future Schools (MFS). For those of you who are not familiar with MFS it is our high school accelerator designed to […]
More We Ain’t the Worse
It is probably tilting at windmills, but I do want to continue to take on the conventional wisdom here that Michigan is the worst in everything having to do with state taxes, spending and the economy. As I have written previously, it simply is not true. We are struggling with the same set of issues […]
The Reducing Chronic Unemployment Initiative
In May, 2001 the Hudson-Webber Foundation (HWF) launched the Reducing Chronic Unemployment Initiative (RCUI). It was undertaken because far too many Detroiters were unable to hold a job – no matter how strong the economy – and evidence that existing efforts to connect the chronically unemployed to stable employment were, by and large, unsuccessful. RCUI […]
What are we thinking?
Another great New York Times column from Paul Krugman on the importance of infrastructure. And our current hostility to providing funding for what has always been an important component of the country’s economic strategy and success. How we got to allowing our transportation, water and sewer systems to disintegrate and/or believing we have enough already […]
Bob Thompson Won
We and the country always frame stories about Detroit as nothing ever goes right. Even when they go right. This has got to stop! The latest example is a spate of stories about k-12 education in the city. All of which include the urban myth that Detroiters were stupid enough to turn down Bob Thompson’s […]