New Economic Fears Arise in Michigan (NY Times article)

[Faygo Kid]

November 23, 2008

New Economic Fears Arise in Michigan

By SUSAN SAULNY and MONICA DAVEY

FENNVILLE, Mich. — The bad news keeps coming to Michigan, a state long stuck in recession and at ground zero in the national economic downturn. But unlike in months and years past, there are no exceptions to the despair, not even here among the bucolic resort communities along Lake Michigan.

The flailing auto industry is important here, but so is furniture building, tourism, the retail trade and construction — pieces of the economy long buffered from the downturn in Detroit. Now waves of layoffs are sweeping towns around here in wine country and elsewhere across the state, swelling the ranks of the unemployed just as tens of thousands of those already of out of work fear running out of unemployment benefits.

“You just sit and you worry,” said Pat Weber, a construction administrator in Fennville who was laid off more than a year ago. “In the last year, I’ve put in for more than 100 jobs. I stopped counting after 110. It’s just so defeating.”

All around Fennville and its neighbors here in southwest Michigan, front lawns are peppered with for-sale signs and merchants complain about slow days. But while this remains a beautiful place with none of the obvious blight of Detroit on the other side of the state, residents say the hardship beneath the surface is very real.

It is the same story in other parts of Michigan, as the state’s already entrenched recession — in at least its fifth year, according to economic experts — digs deeper as a result of the recent global financial crisis. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/us/23michigan.html?hp

I am a displaced Michigander who will return home once I retire. It's such a great state (except for the Lions, of course).

[BeatleBoot]

1. If you want a cottage Up North, now's the time to buy

Or maybe in 24 months, the prices will be even lower then.

I heard President-Elect Obama on Saturday on the radio, as I was heading to the grocery store, and he used the "D" word.

Deflation.

I almost soiled my scivvies at the red light.

Because we all know what follows Deflation...

The other "D" word.

And I am pretty certain that we are heading there.

[Faygo Kid]

3. You are right, unfortunately.

Well put. Sadly.

[Peregrine Took]

2. I feel bad for the Michiganders - its a beautiful state and my favorite of all

the states neighbor to Illinois.

Prayers up for you guys and 'hope that Barack will spread that stimulus package/jobs your way first as you are hurting the most.

[BeatleBoot]

6. She is beautiful.

I love her.

[TripleKatPad]

4. I'm a Michigoose

Fear is rampant here. I received a truckload of emails last week from business associates being laid off or taking early retirements. Each one of these lost jobs dominoes into another lost job and another and another and another. People who think the effects of losing the auto companies will be confined to Detroit are myopic.

[Two Americas]

5. agriculture

Agriculture is second only to the auto industry in Michigan, and suffers from a labor shortage in including new farm owners. I would like to see public programs to bring displaced workers into agriculture.