All I know is that I live in an area that was once an industrial powerhouse. Now it’s retail or welfare.
You rememer the Clinton job numbers? Lots of folks lost good paying jobs and ended up going to temp services to do two and three jobs making a lot less than they made on one.
That’s the way I saw it as well. Many disagreed with us. Many thought a job at WalMart was the solution to the problem that ailed us.
Meanwhile, Tennessee and Alabama used to have sharecropper economies, and now they're manufacturing cars. You don't need to look as far afield as China for the source of Michigan's economic woes; you can start in Lansing.
“All I know is that I live in an area that was once an industrial powerhouse. Now it’s retail or welfare.”
Yes, because the tax situation makes it madness to manufacture in Michigan. Or provide services to anyone who lives outside of the state.
A lot of the manufacturers moved south of the border, but not that far south. (Indiana and Ohio, for example. Tennessee or Kentucky if they want a one-state buffer between the crazy blue states, Texas if they want to be deep in the heart of Red America.) So did people who write software, etc. Since I left the state in 1979, Michigan has done its best to transform itself into the “B” Ark.