Michigan Advance’s Rick Haglund ponders whether state and federal funding for automakers is “a critical public-private partnership needed to save the planet from greenhouse gas-spewing internal combustion engines, and reduce dependence on Chinese-made batteries and computer chips? Or is it corporate welfare gone wild?”
Rick Haglund
Michigan Advance’s Rick Haglund says, “Michigan’s business-centric approach to economic development is lacking.” But how should the state address this apparent issue? Haglund suggests taking “a more local service-based approach.”
Rick Haglund writes, “Motor vehicles and parts as a percentage of the state’s gross domestic product has fallen from 25% in the late 1960s to about 7% in 2018, according to data compiled by Michigan State University economist Charles Ballard. But the state’s economy needs to become even more diverse.”
Critical shortages of computer chips used in cars and trucks are fueling a rift between automakers and their dealers, and the divide is likely to grow deeper as automakers make a radical shift to electric vehicles
University of Michigan economist Gabe Ehrlich predicts Michigan will almost fully recover the 1 million-plus jobs lost during the pandemic by the end of next year but “high inflation is part of the price we’re paying for a fast recovery.”
Rick Haglund writes, “It once seemed unthinkable that Michigan, home to a powerful United Auto Workers union that organized automakers through such historic events as the “Battle of the Overpass” at Ford Motor and the Flint Sit-Down Strike at General Motors, would join mostly southern states in trying to crush labor unions.”