Thanks, Prime. After reading the executice summary, the PDF is in my printer tray to be read this weekend.
posted by Offshore at 07:45 A.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
I'm with Offshore.
Thanks for posting this. We have to accomplish a paradigm shift. If that means some sacred cows get slaughtered and eaten, then so be it.
(apologies to the vegetarians out there...)
posted by paulhem at 08:41 A.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
Basing any economy on the Great Lakes fishery industry is dicey at best. Today the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, without warning, banned transport of live fish across the Great Lakes region. The financial impact is reported by The Blade to be in the "tens of millions of dollars annually".
posted by holland at 10:46 A.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
As usual, prevailing economic propaganda relies on what reports either don't say, or on what they imply -- not on what they say directly.
As is normal "fair use", I'm going to quote portions of the report here in my postings.
PAGE 4: "Certainly, the Great Lakes region faces several major challenges. Still heavily reliant on mature industries and products, its aging workforce lacks the education and skills needed to fill and create new economy jobs. Its entrepreneurial spirit is lagging, hampering its ability to spur new firms and jobs in high-wage industries."
Firstly, although a mature industry does suffer from declining profit margins, they are also arranged around certain economies of scale that allow them to compete in the marketplace on the basis of the low prices of their products. The Great Lakes industries should be competing still on the basis of this price comparison.
However, companies around here are not willing to compete on price, and are not willing to manage a modest profit margin. They'd rather move their factories and chance greater profit margins (with accordingly larger risks). Once again, this is largely a matter of the outlandish greed of the capital class.
Even the too-high wages of certain unionized industries is a result of the capital class, who had to sign off on labor contracts in the first place. When faced with high wages demands, the dutiful manager fills his positions from other population sectors. Goodness gracious, that might require more personal involvement, like performing detailed interviews, attending job fairs and employment agencies, and visiting schools.
Secondly, an aging workforce is normal. We can't pretend that we didn't anticipate that people would get old, and neither that there would be increased costs of maintaining such workers (largely due to health issues). Again, this fault can be laid directly at the feet of the capital class ... who we must note tend to be highly paid for their services in anticipating the future.
Thirdly, there is no "new economy". The basis for wealth never changed away from MANUFACTURING. In order to be sustainably wealthy, you have to make physical things that have practical uses. The more a society gets away from making useful items -- as a skilled exercise of materials and energy -- the more that society grows impoverished and unstable ... leading to a Third World social model based upon exploitation and violence. Although certain subregions can get away with indulging in exessive service industries, they are only able to sustainably accomplish that by servicing nearby manufacturing.
Fourthly, the "entrepreneurial spirit is lagging" thing is pure mythology. All of America is afflicted with the entrepreneurial spirit, as one of our deepest running cultural currents. What is ALWAYS the case instead is that the capital classes tend to act in exploitative cycles, either starving entrepreneurs of necessary capital, or in deluging them in investments that only serve the ends of financial fraud. Since I helped start a high-tech company in Massachusetts, I saw these starvation/binge forces directly, and professional anecdotes of many others also support this viewpoint.
PAGE 4 CONT'D: "[I]ts legacy of employee benefit, job, and income security programs—many of which the region helped pioneer—has become an unsustainable burden, putting its firms at a severe competitive disadvantage in the global economy."
Once again, although it's true that things like "over-wages" in certain (largely unionized) rusty industries are causing a problem with maintaining profit margins, the report fails to mention the other benefit/security program that is assaulting the region: CORPORATE WELFARE. If it's wrong to simply hand money to a worker for not working (or not working to his natural capability), then it's equally wrong to hand money (via tax abatements, grants and low-interest loans) to a wealthy corporation who should be investing sensibly anyways. It's the task of the worker to work; it's similarly the task of the business to invest.
posted by GuestZero at 12:17 P.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
GZ,
You're mistaken in your assertion that wealth is only created by making "physical things that have practical uses." True, that's the way our economy ran for most of the 20th century, but it is not the sole avenue used to create wealth. The Federal Reserve largely controls the amount of money available for our economy, and wealth is created when that money is transferred from individual to individual or corporation to corporation for any reason whatsoever. It's true that something must be exchanged for wealth to be created, but there is no economic rule that wealth creation is only tied to making a physical piece of equipment. Building and selling a physical piece of equipment is one form of economic wealth creation, but not the only one. It's the transfer of the monetary supply that we're after. Providing a service like insurance leads to the transfer of money and creates wealth. Nothing physical was made, but economic output increased because of the trade.
In one sense, manufacturing is a requirement for economic growth, but not when the word "manufacturing" is defined in the way most people define it today. Someone can "manufacture" ideas and sell them in the form of patent rights, they can "manufacture" a service like H&R Block does with tax preparation, they can "manufacture" a car like Ford Motor Company, or they can "manufacture" an experience like Walt Disney World. In all cases something is given by the creator to the buyer in exchange for money, but that "something" isn't always a physical "something."
posted by HeyHey at 12:51 P.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
Jeebus! This is only page 5 so far!
PAGE 5: "Forge a Great Lakes compact focused on producing highly skilled graduates of K-16+ school systems with rigorous curriculums in science, technology, engineering and design, and math (STEM) disciplines[.]"
The problem with this is that schools should have been teaching sound (not rigorous) curricula in science and math all along. A sound basis in the sciences and math should be accomplished in order to create a knowledgeable (or potentially knowledgeable) citizen. Citizens so soundly based upon reasoning can become rigorous as required by choice and demand.
Forcing rigor on top of a system that's very lazy about the sciences and math, is hardly going to "work". School systems should instead dispense with the fluff and provide only a core curriculum of reading/writing, math (pure and practical), and basic education in the fundamentals of secular society (history, science, government). Each step should be testable for pass/fail (grades don't matter, since this is by definition a production line for education).
The rest of the report's sentiment is another example of pure farce. Today, we're busily pushing folks into engineering programs that not only saddle them with ever growing debts (see below), but also put them in directly offshored careers. It's not worth spending 4 years and $40K just to exploit a 4-8yr career.
The student debt thing is becoming a fucking TRAGEDY. According to the San Franciso Chronicle on Oct 25, 2006:
"The amount loaned to students nearly tripled between 2001 and 2006, from $6.1 billion to $17.3 billion, according to an annual student aid survey released Tuesday by the College Board. [...] Many students turn instead to private loans. A decade ago, such high-interest loans represented 6 percent of all the cash loaned to students. Today they are 20 percent, according to the College Board."
Knowing about offshoring (and its little brother, outsourcing) and the vastly increased costs of secondary education, telling workers to "get a degree" is tantamount to telling them to simply start smoking; it may look cool and feel good and give your idle hands something to do ... but you'll start dying the slow way and it won't end well for you.
posted by GuestZero at 02:25 P.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
No, HeHey, I'm exactly right, and you're just subscribing to the highly pervasive propaganda of our age.
The making of capital equipment (i.e. the stuff that can be used to make other stuff, or can produce an income) is the ONLY basis of sustainable wealth. Everything else is enabled from the practice of manufacturing of capital equipment, then the next tier of general manufacturing, and then on down through manufacturing services and then luxury production and services.
Basically, HeyHey, I'm saying that you can't run a society on strip malls, websites and junk bonds, whereas you are saying that you can. You're dead wrong and are only displaying both or either of:
-subservience to the dominant economic propaganda
-ignorance of industrial socio-economics
Now, it will always be true that some strip mall developer can become monetarily wealthy, as well as some software production house or bond broker. My statements of the truth of industrial economy (the old economy, which never was (and never will be) revoked) do not deny the truth that such economic parasites can exist and even prosper. The question is not about their existence. The question is instead about how pervasive their practices are taken up by the population.
Look at it this way. A financial broker is economically unnecessary since investors should be committing their own wealth towards local projects close to their control. However, investors can't make their own cars.
Look at it another way. A financial broker is like a thief. It's tolerable to have a few thieves in society; they will always be there and aren't eradicated even in the worst totalitarian regimes. However, when Bobby and Susie commonly grow up expecting to be thieves, then society itself breaks down. Most people have to be contributing producers. Strip mallers, websiters, and brokers are not contributers to the wealth of society. This is true since ... waaaait for it! ... wealth is FIRST and SUSTAINABLY created through the manufacturing of useful items.
HeyHey, your sentiments are full exhibitions of the complete poisoning of the American mind by false affluence. Only under such a mindset can anyone even come up with the perversity of calling what Disney does "manufacturing". It's because of such sentiments that we have millions of morons called "homeowners" who signed mortgages at a 100% excess premium. It's the triumph of the mediocrity of short term thinking over the long term. It only shows how horrible the bulk of American public education really is ... and this includes the entertainment-oriented so-called news media around here. People are figuratively believing in Elves and Unicorns, which is a poor way to deal day to day with Humans and Cows. The level of expectation is so far off that our social collapse has reached obvious proportions (to wit: destruction of the nuclear family; destruction of sound personal finances; destruction of the generational family home; destruction of the lifetime career; etc.).
posted by GuestZero at 02:52 P.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
You're the one that has been duped. You've been duped by the anti-capitalist, isolationist Chicken Littles running around saying our economy is on the teetering point of collapse. You have yet to provide a single piece of expert opinion or evidence as to why a society must be based in traditional (cars, planes, and textiles) manufacturing. You ignore the fact that our economy left the traditional manufacturing base of 100 years in the last 25 years and yet every single economic indicator says we are better off now than then.
You're subscribing to economic theory that was disproved decades ago, much like the belief that monetary systems must be based in gold. If you'd lived 30 years ago you would have been front and center lamenting the fact that US monetary supply wasn't based on gold in Fort Knox. If you'd lived 150 years ago you would have been screaming bloody murder over industrialization much like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
You're false beliefs are based on your misunderstanding of the global economy of the 21st century. In a global economy we don't have to make the cars we drive. Someone in the world obviously does, but it doesn't have to be us. In a globalized economy borders are no barrier. Your statements would be equivalent to someone saying 50 years ago that every state in the Union must be based in manufacturing. That's a ridiculous statement because capital has freely flowed from one state to another without outside interference since 1776. If every state had to be involved in manufacturing then Florida and California are SOL. Likewise, in a global economy capital freely flows from one country to the next allowing the parts of the economy to be spread among different countries. It's a paradigm shift in ecnonomic thinking, and it's one you have failed to grasp as of yet.
posted by HeyHey at 03:31 P.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
Basically, HeyHey, I'm saying that you can't run a society on strip malls, websites and junk bonds, whereas you are saying that you can.
I am not saying we can run our entire country off of strip malls anymore than you would say the economy could be sustained through the manufacturing of a single type of car. I am saying that we don't have to have traditional manufacturing to have a very successful economy. This has been proven time and time again the last 30 years.
posted by HeyHey at 03:36 P.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
Actually guestzero, heyhey's exactly right. You've been duped.
posted by junta330 at 04:31 P.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
That stuff is not that easy as people make it out to be.
Toledo didn't choose to have glass and automotive manufacturing, those industries chose it.
Likewise, it's not like today Toledo is choosing not to have technology companies. This state is filled with politicians and civic boosters haplessly chasing Sillicon Valley dotcoms and whatnot. It's the industry that chooses the place. It's not that simple to say "We're going to attract tech businesses" and then expect that to happen, because just about every other community in America is also chasing that goal.
posted by paddington at 04:57 P.M. EST on Fri Oct 27, 2006 #
Well, I came in here to correct GZ's half baked economic ramblings again, but I see HeyHey has taken care of that already. Carry on.
posted by thenick at 04:13 P.M. EST on Sat Oct 28, 2006 #
I come from the paradigm that groups of people can create the future they envision, if they plan and work for it together.
I also know that groups of people can go through a process to achieve this goal.
Maybe instead of having a pissing contest on a "bunch of theories", you can work together to agree on some assertions to move our region forward. Usually that is a start. We all have tendencies at times to think we are smarter and know more about one thing or another, but the truth is, we all come from different worldviews and perspectives, and the only way to make any sense of our world around us is to start talking. Telling our ideas, listening to other ideas, and planning to make a difference in regional development, since that seems to be the topic of this post. Whether it is through think tanks, churches, businesses, or sports leagues, make "regional development" a strategy that people talk seriously about.
posted by jdmsbyrd at 12:39 A.M. EST on Sun Oct 29, 2006 #
It's literally unbelieveable how you economic cheerleaders continue to push the same economic heroin that is so obviously destroying the American middle class with loss of earnings, increase of debt, and hollowing out of future security.
The only thing that's been proven time and time again in the past 30 years is that 1-earner families have transitioned to 2-earner families that are still unable to keep up. As I implied before, you're completely ignoring the social costs of the rat race while concentrating on yuppie extravagences. A widescreen TV can't make up for the hours of family time that you shitheads lost to overtime at work. WAKE UP.
As for this fraud called globalism ... yes, HeyHey, you DO have to make the cars you drive, since cars are expensive and it's best to keep that level of wealth to yourself. Cars are also particularly technical, and it's best to keep such skills to yourself. Cars are also quite useful, and it's best to retain such market interest in your own production.
The people who make things accumulate the wealth of Humanity. Only in America with so many filthy yuppies does this rule seem backward, where some asshole sitting in some office making spreadsheets is the wealth-accumulator. The American yuppie is the world's aberration and sheer energy costs will prove his lifestyle to be wholly unsustainable.
You can't argue away the FACT that manufacturing is the heart of sustainable wealth. All you're implying is that you're happy to become a fucking yuppie shitbag, earning a relatively large salary, while the blue-collar workforce collapses around you. You can drive faster by their blooming neighborhoods of run-down homes, but no speed can get you past the truth. No lifestyle is fast enough to outrun such social decay.
Debt is not wealth, but somehow you've Limbaughed the immense debts of the American middle class into some sort of prosperity. Peace is war, black is white, offense is defense, and lies are truth, too ... given the very same mindset of advocacy. We've heard all that bullshit before. It's propaganda and it's designed to get the victim to accept his slavery or execution. I don't accept it and the American middle class is starting to see that it's a bad choice, too.
You're dimissed, HeyHey. Now go and wave your credit card some more at the local strip mall and enjoy your false affluence until hordes of your manufactured disenfranchised finally crush you underneath their heels. Your sentiments will have local governments chasing the high-tech bugaboo until Toledo's recent levels of shooting become the norm. What a wonderful world you'll make! -- one of groaning masses of indentured servants all watched over by an elite sitting in their often-bombed office towers. We already know what that's like: it's called the fucking THIRD WORLD.
thenick said: “Well, I came in here to correct GZ's half baked economic ramblings again, but I see HeyHey has taken care of that already. Carry on.”
HeyHey brought nothing to the table, and aligning yourself with him, you bring the same sort of empty container -- but smaller, since you used far fewer words to express the same lack of economic comprehension.
You probably didn't get the memo, did you? The middle class is being destroyed and the usual round of economic propaganda is now extraordinarily insufficient for the newest class of bloggers like myself. You'll have to justify your sentiments, now. And you just can't fucking do it, either. Much like the national Republicans, your complacency has created the very environment of your undoing.
The time of pervasive and unexamined economic propaganda is over. What was unsaid (or shouted down) grew too large to ignore. You might as well just tip the fuck on over to the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler site for the environment that you apparently find comforting.
jdmsbyrd said: “Whether it is through think tanks, churches, businesses, or sports leagues, make "regional development" a strategy that people talk seriously about.”
The only regional development that will save the area is to downsize the government since the tax base has either left, is leaving, or is being progressively removed-in-place due to abatements, grants and loans. There aren't enough companies left to base in each region to justify all this so-called "economic development". Taxes must be repealed, and city and county services downgraded ... even removed. For example, there's no reason for the city to undergo the expenses of leaf collection. Either people should compost their own leaves, and/or a private company should gear up (under sensible licensing) to collect the leaves citywide and then sell the resulting compost in some retail fashion.
posted by GuestZero at 03:13 A.M. EST on Sun Oct 29, 2006 #
GAO chief warns economic disaster looms
Guest Zero is right. Ask this guy. He may know more than all of us put together. Last year during the Labor Day Parade, I noticed hundreds of empty windows in the big office buildings downtown. That is a metaphor for the economy. It's being hollowed out, and the national mirage is being sustained on borrowed money.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1155AP_America_the_Bankrupt.html
posted by Bbcmjeep43 at 12:05 P.M. EST on Sun Oct 29, 2006 #
GZ I have to go with HeyHey on this one. You seem not to account for the digital age which is what we are undboutably in today. In the digital age we are not passing a hard product from one hand to the other but rather passing information. This can be best shown in the print media. Every major newspaper has seen a significant decline in circulation. The biggest reason is the internet. Young people are more apt to read stories on the internet than from a delivered paper.
Also you talk of the 2 earner middle class. While the middle class of today may not make as much as 30 years ago most do not feel "left out". I will use myself as an example. My wife and I make comparatively less than what my parents did at our age and that with one person earning an income. Now does that mean my wife and I are worse off? Quite the contrary. We have better benefits, more job security, our jobs that give us more satisfaction, and less stress. Now my father has a Union job which 30 years ago was cream of the crop where jobs were concerned today he is disillusioned with his job, the union, his benefits, and his pension. I will probably never make as much as he does but yet I have a better outlook on my work, my life, and my money.
And while my wife did use a student loan to recieve her 3 degrees it was a personal choice that she does not regret. Whatever financial rewards she has not reaped in her career she will say has been made up for in mental rewards.
posted by MikeyA at 07:19 P.M. EST on Sun Oct 29, 2006 #
Toledo Blade Editorial on the Brookings Institute Report, Friday's Blade.
Article published Friday, October 27, 2006
The Great Lakes 'region'
THE Midwest is blessed with the world's largest fresh water system, yet the states surrounding it don't seem to know how to sufficiently market it to benefit their struggling economies.
As another presidential election season looms, the Great Lakes states must begin to collaborate to take advantage of their greatest natural asset and speak with one regional voice, making them a force to be reckoned with in 2008 and beyond.
The Brookings Institution, a research and policy institution, is urging the Great Lakes states to develop a plan to market their most valuable resource. That couldn't be more timely.
It is true, as Brookings observes in a new report, that the region has important assets to spur significant economic development. Most of all, the rest of the country, indeed the world, covets our fresh water supply.
This report redirects the focus from the east and west coast states to the "north coast." That's how Brookings labels the border on Lakes Erie, Michigan, Superior, Huron, and Ontario. The states are struggling to shed their dying rust-belt images anyway and are trying to develop innovative and technological economies to foster growth and development.
Brookings is touting environmentally friendly new industries that produce alternative energy: wind, solar, and water. They are not futuristic, but are being developed now, and there's no better place for them than in this region. And with the lakes as the common denominator, this is a terrific tourist and recreational attraction and a perfect tool to draw water and other sports and health enthusiasts.
But regional thinking is key. Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New York, must work together with West Virginia, Kentucky, Iowa, and Missouri, the other states Brookings lists.
An example of the regionalism approach exists in the Southern Growth Policies Board in Research Triangle Park, N.C. It represents 13 states and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The groundwork for it was laid in 1971.
It will be tough, but diehard Buckeye and Wolverine fans must set aside their sports loyalty in favor of regional cooperation. The concept is exciting, far-reaching, and loaded with challenges. If the Great Lakes states can lay the groundwork to cooperate to clean up the lakes and lure businesses, imagine the power they could wield.
Presidential candidates might feel they can ignore a state or two. But no one serious about winning can ignore a region with a dozen water-rich states.
posted by prime3end at 10:17 A.M. EST on Mon Oct 30, 2006 #
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