Author
Rick Haglund: Business owners, groups take different approaches on COVID-19 closures, reopenings
Normally, the Bluebird Restaurant & Tavern in Leland would be serving hundreds of tourists and summer residents returning to this lovely lakefront town northwest of Traverse City on Memorial Day weekend, as it has since 1927. But the COVID-19 pandemic is keeping the popular restaurant closed this weekend, except for takeout whitefish dinners, pizza and […]
Rick Haglund: Automakers face huge losses, hit pause on electric vehicles
Way back in January 2020 B.C. (Before Coronavirus), automakers were enjoying healthy sales and working feverishly to transform themselves into major producers of electric and self-driving vehicles. “It seems like three months ago, I couldn’t go to an external presentation that wasn’t focused on electrification,” said Joe Zaciek, research and industry analysis manager at the […]
Rick Haglund: Want to stop long-term economic damage from COVID-19? Beef up federal spending.
More than 1 million Michigan workers — about 20% of the state’s labor force — have filed for unemployment in the past month as public health restrictions enacted to end the coronavirus pandemic have brought the state’s economy to a virtual standstill. Forget about the Great Recession, when the state’s jobless rate topped out at […]
Rick Haglund: COVID-19 shows how our economy depends on low-wage workers — and how they’re hit hardest
As Michigan clawed back from the ravages of the Great Recession, in no small part due to the President Obama administration’s 2009 bailout of Chrysler and General Motors, other elected officials grabbed the credit. Former Gov. Rick Snyder regularly touted Michigan as “the comeback state,” citing his deft management of the state budget, business tax […]
Rick Haglund: Big 3 automakers could enlist to produce COVID-19 medical equipment
Detroit became known as “the arsenal of democracy” almost 80 years ago as automakers transitioned from civilian to military production, a crucial element in the Allies’ victory over Germany and Japan in World War II. As the deadly coronavirus grips the nation, could Michigan become “the arsenal of health,” helping to defeat a virus that […]
Rick Haglund: GM jolts business model with electric vehicles bet
Despite decades of decline, General Motors Co. still delivers a spark to Michigan’s economy. A new study by the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research (CAR) found that GM’s 46,800 jobs in the state have led to an additional 153,800 jobs here, creating a job multiplier effect largely unmatched by nonautomotive businesses. Workers at GM’s […]
Rick Haglund: How can Michigan become a top 10 state? It may not be what you think.
Hey, average Michigan worker: How would you like to be making $13,000 a year more than you earn now? You would if Michigan was performing at the average level of the top 10 states in key job, productivity, personal income and population indicators. Unfortunately, we’re not even close. And we’re falling behind in most of […]
Rick Haglund: Amazon shows how the the tax break system is gamed
Just how outrageous has the tax incentives game become? Consider: Amazon chief Jeff Bezos reportedly was so jealous of the $2.4 billion in incentives that Tesla chief Elon Musk had extracted from state and local governments that he pushed his team to top that number for the company’s planned second headquarters. State and local governments […]
Rick Haglund: Tesla settlement means more changes for Michigan’s auto industry
The settlement of a long-running lawsuit between Tesla and the state of Michigan this week cleverly allows the California-based automaker to sell vehicles directly to consumers, sidestepping the state’s dealer franchise laws. But that doesn’t mean auto dealers, whose business model has been protected by state law since cars and trucks started rolling off assembly […]
Rick Haglund: Whitmer should address Michigan worker pay in her State of the State speech
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will have plenty of topics to tackle in her second State of the State speech on Jan. 29. We’ll no doubt hear about a new road funding plan after the Republican-controlled Legislature refused to raise even a single penny toward her request for a 45-cent hike in the gas tax last year. […]
Rick Haglund: Don’t count on Trump losing Michigan in 2020 over the economy
President Donald Trump, who was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, is a bully and world-class vulgarian. Who else would come to Michigan, a state critical to his reelection, and suggest, as Trump did on the same day of his impeachment, that its late, revered native son U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Dearborn) […]
Rick Haglund: Research shows trade, not automation, is killing manufacturing jobs
More than 5 million manufacturing jobs — almost 300,000 of them in Michigan — have been lost since the most recent employment peak in 1998. Many economists have attributed the huge loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs mostly to booming productivity, enabled by the increasing use of robots and other automated processes in factories. But Susan […]