A real call to action for Leadership Next
Read: A rough headline today
I would be interested in "what was in the news" when these questions were asked of these young people. Plant closings? Strikes? Government shut downs? Those stories even get an optimist like me down about our state and region when I hear them. Who doesn't want to run from that pile of headlines? What if Brogan had asked the same questions of the same 600 18-24 year-olds on the very morning after the night that Ordonez hit his series-winning home run in Comerica Park last fall? Would the numbers would've been different? I bet.
Although Crain's does a great job of publicizing MI and DET's successes, I think that a simple historical comparison piece might also be nice sometimes to add some actual historical perspective. A lifetime resident of our city just told me that during the 1981-1982 timeframe, MI's unemployment was closer to 13% - almost double our current numbers (in any given month). The same was true in the very late 1950s when G. Mennen Williams was the governor of Michigan (this was during the last "Michigan government shutdown") -- and that was when mortgage rates of 12% were the average.
Were the late 1950s "Happy Days" (like on the sitcom)? Or were those the real "bad (economic) times" in our state/city? On the numbers alone, the answer becomes rhetorical.
I have an old friend who is a transplant to Chicago and can't wait to return "to buy an undervalued house in a neighborhood that we never could have afforded when we were growing up (in Michigan)". He (Mr. Chicago) is asking me about jobs here. Apparently that is what a daily, 2 hour, 25 mile commute to work will do to you. And that is one way.
Kevin A. S. Fanning, Esq.
Clark Hill PLC
Leadership Next member
I would be interested in "what was in the news" when these questions were asked of these young people. Plant closings? Strikes? Government shut downs? Those stories even get an optimist like me down about our state and region when I hear them. Who doesn't want to run from that pile of headlines? What if Brogan had asked the same questions of the same 600 18-24 year-olds on the very morning after the night that Ordonez hit his series-winning home run in Comerica Park last fall? Would the numbers would've been different? I bet.
Although Crain's does a great job of publicizing MI and DET's successes, I think that a simple historical comparison piece might also be nice sometimes to add some actual historical perspective. A lifetime resident of our city just told me that during the 1981-1982 timeframe, MI's unemployment was closer to 13% - almost double our current numbers (in any given month). The same was true in the very late 1950s when G. Mennen Williams was the governor of Michigan (this was during the last "Michigan government shutdown") -- and that was when mortgage rates of 12% were the average.
Were the late 1950s "Happy Days" (like on the sitcom)? Or were those the real "bad (economic) times" in our state/city? On the numbers alone, the answer becomes rhetorical.
I have an old friend who is a transplant to Chicago and can't wait to return "to buy an undervalued house in a neighborhood that we never could have afforded when we were growing up (in Michigan)". He (Mr. Chicago) is asking me about jobs here. Apparently that is what a daily, 2 hour, 25 mile commute to work will do to you. And that is one way.
Kevin A. S. Fanning, Esq.
Clark Hill PLC
Leadership Next member
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