How's your economy holding up, Michigan?

Just a place for me and my AK-47. Can you shoot down town or do you need to get a bit outside?

 

I wouldnt go into detroit without a few automatic weapons

 

That's probably why they're legal.

 

Have fun with that when the Michigan tax man taxes your personal property.

 

You are a real sicko, aren't you?

Talking your book, I'm sure. Will MI bonds go any lower? How fucking pathetic can you get to bash incessantly like this to make a few more pennies, MAYBE, like anyone here owns an MI bond, anyway?

Better keep in mind that if any of those MI folks is in an ugly mood, you probably don't want to find out the hard way what kind of automatic weapons they are packing.

 

The south can kick Michigan's ass any day of the week. bring it!

 

Why are you not banned yet?

 

If we banned all the 'annoying people' and 'trolls' this forum would have 10 ppl left.

 

I paid a price to pay for sticking it out in Michigan. To see most of my family I have visit my grand kids on the east coast, my cousins in Florida and my wife’s family in California. But I consider myself lucky. I was able to survive here because I had a computer specialty that lifted me to an IT manger and supported me until I retired to trade full time and spend quite summers at a small cottage on a little lake….

Michigan has suffered and will continue to suffer for decades. This problem is bigger than Michigan. Many of the states in the Midwest have similar problems. Soon it will spread accross the entire land.

Michigan does not want to fail as some suggest. That is a misnomer. Michigan just happens to be the poster child for what is happening behind the scenes.

I’m surprised how few really understand what is happening to America. If you read history you understand. America’s industrial base has been dying for years just as Britain’s did after the industrial revolution. We are now watching the spiraling decay of America’s manufacturing base that climaxed after WWII and started its downward spiral in the 1970s. The simple fact is we can no longer support American manufacturing when global industry is flourishing with cheap materials, low wages, inexpensive shipping and free trade that piles up these goods on our shores.

Don’t believe me? Look at your shoes. Yours are probably all Chinese. Few shoes today are now made in America. Then there are your clothes…..Next the electronics… When is the last time RCA made a TV here…. That’s how it happens. The cheap goods die first in the production chain as they work their way up the ladder to higher priced goods.

I have spent my entire life here in Michigan watching and studying this decay process. Most of my family has left the Detroit Metro area long ago because they could not find jobs here. This has been going on for years. Detroit has sent 10’s of thousands out of the state. It started when “robots” took over plants in the 1980s. Now it is going full throttle with the constant downsizing of GM, Ford, Chrysler every 3 or 4 years since the early 1980s.

We are now demolishing heavy manufacturing in America at a record rate. Have you watched the Komatsu’s steam shovels replace the Cats in construction? Soon it will be Chinese bull dozers.

The only thing keeping this aging industrial juggernaut from crashing is the U.S. government support and the falling dollar (making some of our well manufactured high priced goods cheaper). Don’t get me wrong not all American heavy manufacturing is going away today. It just gets harder and harder for them to survive the downturns. Look no further than our steel industry and the subsidies it continues to demand to make it through the slow years.

Michigan is in the heart of this demolition of heavy manufacturing. Michigan was built with blue collar swear and tears in to an industrial power house that included much more than the automobile. The “Tool and Die” industry, as Howard Hughes called it was centered here in the midwest and built the production lines in every thing from auto plants, tank plants, jet fighter plants to ship yards in the shortest time on earth. Now I drive by rows of for sale signs from this hidden industry. They are now a dying breed. If they go the auto industry as we know it will also die.

On a side note…Michigan will continue to downsize and lose people. But, we are not going to be at the poverty levels in our suburbs I hear people scoffing at. Yes, the central city does have its $7500 to $10,000 homes. But, that is not the case in the suburbs.

It is now time for the auto industry to pay completely for “holding on” through the demolition of heavy manufacturing process. The auto industry will come out of this a shell of its former self. The cruel talk from Washington reminds me of the movie “Gone with the Wind.” We, like the south in the civil war, will be marched on and trampled only to be rebuilt into an entity with little voice left.

But this won’t stop in Michigan. Globalization will leave America a shell of it former self. We will begin to be more and more spoon feed what the global palate says we can have. To Michigan’s detractors I say “Be prepared your turn is next.”

 

For those of you that live in & around Metro Detroit, there is a group of traders (about 20 or so) that get together one evening a month in the Birmingham area to discuss anything trading/financial related.

Most of the people trade full-time and there are some sharp people in the group.

If you're interested in participating, PM me for details.

Eric