Shaken to the core: The bad times kept on coming

[BeatleBoot]

From the Detroit News,

http://www.detnews.com/article/20091231/METRO/912310312/1409/METRO/Shaken-to-the-core--The-bad-times-kept-on-coming

<snip>

A decade that began with a robust auto industry and a thriving Michigan economy ended with both in shambles. In a recession since 2000, the state lost 800,000 jobs in the decade, the equivalent of an auto assembly plant closing every two weeks for 10 years.

Unemployment reached 15 percent -- the highest in the nation -- and almost 30 percent in Detroit. Foreclosures, fueled in part by lost jobs and in part by mortgage scams, broke records throughout the state, driving down property values.

Michigan became a poor state this decade. The median income of Michigan residents ranked 20th in 2000; by 2008, the latest year statistics are available, Michigan had dropped to 37th, and "is on its way to at least 40th," said economist Don Grimes.

"That's an unprecedented drop in relative affluence," Grimes said. "There's been a ton of pain."

<more>

[phasma ex machina]

1. Just talked to an auto parts store owner today whose dad started the store in the 1960s.

He thought that tariffs can help rebuild manufacturing in the Great Lakes region.

Another acquaintance once told me that southern farmer George Washington championed tariffs to grow northern manufacturing at the expense southern farmers.