This is what a day looks like for Jennifer M. Granholm, the governor of Michigan, the state that sits, miserably, at the leading edge of the nation’s economic crisis.
Morning: Rev up government workers and ministers at a huge conference in Detroit to cope with expanding signs of poverty. Afternoon: Tell a room crushed with reporters here, in the state capital, why a federal bailout is essential for the Big Three automakers, who are also, of course, residents of her state. Evening: Pack for Israel and Jordan, where Ms. Granholm hopes to persuade companies that work with wireless electricity, solar energy and electric cars to bring their jobs to Michigan.
Whatever else Ms. Granholm, a Democrat in her second term, might once have dreamed of tackling as a governor (she barely seems to recall other realms of aspiration now), the economy is nearly all she has found herself thinking about, talking about, fighting about over the last six years. And Michigan, which has been hemorrhaging jobs since before 2001 and was once mainly derided in the rest of the nation as a “single-state recession,” now looks like an ominous sketch of just how bad things may get.
“This has been six straight years of jobs, jobs, jobs,” Ms. Granholm said, punctuating the word with three somber claps at her office table. Despite scathing critiques from some here who say she has failed to turn around Michigan’s woes, Ms. Granholm said in an interview that she still believed that her efforts to remake the state’s economy ”” in part by luring jobs that make something other than cars ”” would eventually overcome the steady stream of vanishing jobs.
Read it all from the front page of Saturday’s New York Times.
High taxes, high crime, militant unions…I’m aware of how many smart and skilled people are in Michigan, but Governor Granholm needs to explain why a company would want to locate in such an environment.
Well, if it is true that you learn from your mistakes, she should be very well ready for a cabinet job. She has certainly messed up Michigan. I live here. I know. Just think of it, a whole country like Detroit. Boggles the mind.
[i] She has certainly messed up Michigan. [/i] —#2
Michigan has been in pain for 30 years. Granholm has been governor for 6 years. Does she have a time machine?
Gov Granholm pursued a degree in acting, before she decided to hoof it on the political boards, her performance in politics shows that while she’s been able to fool the voters for a time, it’s not going to continue. I believe she’s hoping to get a cabinet appointment in an Obama administration, because she knows she’s not going to be able to string us along any longer. Only a fool would believe these latest claims from her, she’s been fiddling while the state’s economy has burned. Of course she didn’t create the crisis, but she has deliberately exacerbated it. One doesn’t deal with joblessness by courting corporate interests in Dubai and India, hoping they will come here and exploit our visa programs.
She spends more time traveling, and doing backroom deal, than she does anything else.
One doesn’t deal with joblessness by courting corporate interests in Dubai and India, hoping they will come here and exploit our visa programs.
I can think of quite a few plants owned by companies from abroad that are providing steady income for American workers.
Sherri2, so can I, they usually are the Japanese owned car companies, the French company that bought out an American airplane parts company, and a few others, but that is nothing compared to the massive displacement of citizen workers through our many, many visa programs.