Conflicting messages
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Today, as I write this, our governor is abroad (ahem!) seeking to bring new business and jobs to Michigan.
It wasn't that long ago that a foreign country bought a certain factory here in Escanaba and promptly closed it down, laying off and early retiring several hundred people.
The rotting, barely used, totally eyesore remnants of Harnischfeger can still be seen, but the people who's future and fortune relied on a job there all but forgotten.
Could her moves overseas attract another country's interest in "cutting out the competition" in an industry?
Are we crazy!? We still have battles going on in Lansing and Washington, trying to keep foreign goods out of the country (especially our state), and our own governor is out and about trying to lure "business" in?
Is she visiting Mexico and Canada on her trip? Will she be visiting China and Japan? I doubt it. We "already" know how those countries affect our economy, jobs, wages and product in this country. I just cannot understand, and probably am too old to be made to do so, why is "that" the answer to getting jobs in Michigan?
I suppose she's in France somewhere trying to lure someone into making handbags or fancy new shoes here in Michigan. Will they pay the price our country needs for leather? Or will that country just import its own leather and rely on factory workers, working at a wage to keep the cost of the goods down so that "rich" Americans will buy them, and actually say, "WE shop locally!"?
After January there will be no "rich" Americans, there'll be long lines in front of employment offices, banks, and I fear, along with bread lines and welfare.
Just wondering, out loud. When a bank, or Wall Street, or even the Big Three fall on hard times, we reach for the bailout button and begin throwing money at the problem in order to save jobs, homes, and industry.
However, when a school's budget in hits the red, we don't throw money at that problem, nor ask for a bailout. Schools are told, "Deal with what you have and start teacher layoffs and class-cutting as soon as you can."
Isn't that an odd way of dealing with two problems that very nearly rock in the same boat? Let's tell the Big Three to start "their layoffs and cutbacks," too!
Better yet, have them "lower the price on their products to better fit the economy of "we got no money to buy your cars!" or, in reality, "The bank won't give me any dough right now, not at a rate I want to pay!" But, I digress.
Oh, I see that gambling is down in the state too, though Lansing just put fancy new Lotto equipment in every Lotto kiosk in the state. Didn't our schools face a budget cut this past year? Isn't gambling money supposed to go to the schools? I think that money would have been better spent on the schools, but it wasn't on the ballot. Who chooses "kiosks over schools" when it comes to this sort of thing?
There'll soon be enough money trickling down to save our homes, save our jobs, save our industry (and pay for trips abroad to find more jobs in Michigan), but not one cent extra for struggling public schools.
Sadly, it seems we would bailout anything but a school in this state.
Edward Stacey, Escanaba
