Higher Education: A Better Idea

Every time the state gets into financial difficulty there are calls for some kind of centralization of the state’s higher education system. Led by the business community and editorial writers. It’s a bad idea! Hard to figure out since both groups argue that markets are better than centralization of both the private sector and k-12 […]

New High Schools

Our Michigan Future Schools program, proudly announced yesterday grants of $2.8 million to open four innovative new high schools that will challenge and support Detroit students as they prepare them for college and careers. The schools will open to incoming freshmen in Fall 2011 and add a grade per year. Pretty exciting! The new schools […]

Lessons from Metro Pittsburgh

Many in Michigan seem to believe that the decline of the domestic auto industry and more generally the loss of so many high-wage factory jobs, means that the state will never again be prosperous. We disagree! The best evidence of the possibilities of making the transition to a new economy and back to prosperity probably […]

Choosing a Model for Michigan II

As I wrote in my last post, being a low tax and spending state and/or right to work state has little to do with how well a state’s economy performs. But they remain popular “answers” to reviving the Michigan economy. The Grand Rapids Press did a terrific article on Kia coming to Georgia. Their claim […]

Choosing A Model for Michigan

I started a presentation at the West Michigan Policy Forum with a thought experiment. Which of two state economies would you prefer for Michigan? State A per capita income $43,000, unemployment rate of 6.8%, poverty rate of 9.6% or State B  per capita income $34,000, unemployment rate of 9.7%, poverty rate of 15.7%? Pretty easy. […]

Detroit Ain’t Dead

Conventional wisdom here and across the planet is that Detroit is hopeless. Not salvageable. Think again! Take a look at this video from the folks at Palladium Boots. The first part is a must see, if you have the time watch all three parts. It will change how you think of the city. After you […]

What You Need to Know About the Economy

Interesting piece in the NY Times by Harvard’s Greg Mankiw. It’s his recommendations to incoming students – and the rest of us – on “what kind of foundation is needed to understand and be prepared for the modern economy?” Pretty interesting list. Not all economics courses. Not surprising he starts with an introduction to economics, the […]

It’s the Neighborhood

Lots of comments on the Andy Basile email I wrote about in my last post. Most quite positive. A few pushed back. Let me lay out my thoughts on why I thought the email was so important and then give my take on some of the push back. At the core Basile – a private sector […]