Do Green Subsidies Work?
I read with interest a recent article from MLive.com on Evergreen Solar. It is closing a solar panel manufacturing plant in Massachusetts and moving the jobs to China. It was in MLive because the company got subsides from the state of Michigan to open a similar plant in Midland. This is another example of the […]
A budget to grow the Michigan economy
Governor Snyder will unveil his budget tomorrow. It will set the direction of state policy for years to come. The public conversation about his proposals will be about balancing the budget – eliminating a General Fund deficit of something like $1.8 billion. But that is the wrong metric. Just balancing the budget is not enough. […]
Flat World Realities
Insightful article from Chrystia Freeland in the Atlantic entitled the Rise of the New Global Elite. As Freeland writes a major reason for the rise of the new super rich is globalization and technology. These two mega forces are what is flattening the economy and transforming the economy for everyone. Elites have benefited enormously, but […]
Worth reading
Always too much good stuff that I can’t find time or space to write about. Here are links to three reports/articles I found worth reading. The Harvard Graduate School of Education released an important study called Pathways to Prosperity which puts back on the table the question of whether the sole focus of k-12 education […]
Politics vs Economics III
In his analysis of the recent elections which I wrote about previously Richard Florida quotes the Cato Institute’s Brink Lindsey. Who said Here, in the first decade of the 21st century, the rival ideologies of left and right are both pining for the ’50s. The only difference is that liberals want to work there, while […]
Jobs but not enough workers again
I need to figure out how often to post this basic story. Because it is going to appear regularly in the press across the state, probably for years, mainly in our big metros. The reason to write about it a lot is that no one believes it. The dominant story is that there are no […]
Really Not Picking Winners
Governor Snyder in his State of the State address announced the state would no longer pick winners and losers. The way he proposed to implement that was by expanding eligibility for subsidies from the state’s Twenty First Century Jobs Fund to all industries rather than just a few pre-selected industries. It’s a curious way to […]
Not the South
What is most disturbing about the “we should be like the South” mantra is that, by and large, these are the lowest education attainment states in the country. Most of those who advocate becoming like the South also say that Michigan can’t be successful unless we substantially increase the proportion of our adults with post […]
State of the State
Thanks to the folks at Crain’s Detroit Business for publishing my reaction to Governor Snyder’s first State of the State address. You can find it here. Lots of good ideas/priorities in the speech – some quite courageous – but there always is the question of how do you make the numbers add up. Can you […]
High School Struggles
MDRC has done a comprehensive evaluation of New York City’s new small high schools. I think the findings are quite important. Mainly because NYC under Joel Klein – who recently left as school chief – is considered to be the best and most comprehensive of the school reform efforts in central cities across the country. Basically […]