Michigan's failed Gov. Granholm blames markets for Michigan's 800,000 lost jobs, looks for salvation in the unaffordable Volt

Michigan has been the star witness to the global shift in manufacturing jobs. Early in my first term, Electrolux told us there was nothing we could do to prevent them from moving their Greenville, Michigan, appliance business to Mexico. Since 1892, tiny Greenville had been the refrigerator capital, serving as home to Gibson, White, Frigidaire and Electrolux. Electrolux was the last to close, in 2004, and with it some 2,700 jobs were lost. The reason why? The wages in Ciudad Juarez were just $1.57 per hour, far outweighing our offers of enormous tax abatements, supplier haircuts and skinnied union contracts. Electrolux was the tip of the iceberg. Michigan alone has lost more than 800,000 jobs since the beginning of this century.

Fortunately, sometime along the way, people began waking up.

There was rumbling in some boardrooms that things needed to be done differently. Worker representatives took crash courses in reviewing P&Ls, SEC filings and org charts. And American voters decided they needed a president and federal government that would jettison the old theories of laissez faire, supply-side and hands off -- and weigh in on the side of American workers and the U.S. economy.

While we won't be able to keep all labor-intensive manufacturing jobs in America, here's what we're finding out: We can keep skill-intensive, advanced manufacturing jobs here. We're now seeing the first real evidence that we're "cracking the code" of what it takes for advanced manufacturing to stay and grow in America. Today, as President Barack Obama visits two major auto assembly plants in the heart of the Motor City, he'll hear the heartbeat of the American economy starting to pound. The patient is alive!

At General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, Chevrolet is building its hottest -- no, coolest -- vehicle in its lifetime, the new plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt that'll hit dealerships this fall. A few miles away, Chrysler is cranking out its new Jeep Grand Cherokee. That new Jeep, which its CEO tells me is "flawless," is not your father's Jeep -- it's designed and powered for fuel efficiency and economy.

Repeal of California's global warming law will be on 2010 ballot

From the Chico Enterprise Record:

SACRAMENTO — Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, was elated this week to learn his initiative to suspend the state’s anti-global warming law made the November ballot.
In a phone interview, Logue said he found out Tuesday the initiative had enough valid signatures.

He said the initiative needed 440,000 signatures and it got 800,000. The names were collected by volunteers and paid “signature gatherers,” he said.

AB32 became law in 2006. It provides that between 2012 and 2020, greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced to the levels they were in 1990.
Logue’s initiative would postpone the implementation of AB32 until the state’s unemployment rate stands at 5.5 percent for a year. Now the jobless rate is around 12 percent.

Suspending AB32 only makes sense, Logue said. “We can’t afford it. We’ll lose another million jobs. It will drive business out of the state.”