What Matters Most
Real interesting James Fallows article in the Atlantic. Its about how America gets out of the current mess we are in. Fallows brings a unique perspective, just returning after years living in China. Worth reading! Fallows makes the point that no matter how bad things appear today, the country still has the best assets to do well going forward. The…
Rock Climbing
In a recent post I wrote about a Tom Friedman column that illustrates how globalization and technology are fundamentally and constantly changing the economy. Now comes a David Brooks column, also in the New York Times, that is quite insightful about how the economy keeps evolving. (Brooks, along with Friedman, are two of the people I read regularly to understand…
Immigration and Economic Growth
Interesting study from the Fiscal Policy Institute on the role of immigrants in growing regional economies. They looked at the nation's twenty five largest metropolitan areas – including metro Detroit – and found that immigration spurs, rather than retards, economic growth. More specifically the growth in the immigration share of the labor force and growth in big metro economies, by…
Our Politics
Many believe, because of the mess we are in and term limits, that the 2010 elections are particularly pivotal for the state's future. I'm sure I will be writing about the elections regularly in these posts. So I thought it made sense to disclose our political orientation. Several months ago an article in the Muskegon Chronicle called us a left…
Managing Decline vs. Investing for Growth
SEMCOG – the council of governments in metro Detroit – has just released its 2035 transportation plan. Paul Tait, its excellent Executive Director, notes that one of the common concerns he runs into is folks – including policy makers – who wonder why we are working on long range plans, when we have an immediate crisis to deal with. Good…