They have actually moved the reporter from that story to the city to live for a year while they proceed with this story. I saw an interview with him on a local "meet the press" type show that is shown on Sunday mornings here. Interesting guy.

There's an old saying.. It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job. It's a depression when you lose your job.

It is most definitely important to look at what happened to avoid it happening again elsewhere. It's an important study for economists and businessmen.

But can it be stopped from happening other places?

It seems to me that it would be very hard to externally impose restrictions that would protect a state or city from what happened here. (Or maybe just that if that level of restriction were imposed it might be hard for companies to be profitable.)

I certainly hope that industries or individual companies would learn from this, but we expect them to act in self-interested ways and I'm not sure the ways a region could protect itself will be all that compatible with how a company can protect itself.

For example, a region might want to make sure it wasn't almost exclusively dependent on one industry. But individual companies might seem benefit in clustering geographically. It wouldn't make that much sense to me to limit the presence of a potential employer. Sure, you could create incentives for other industries to come in, but that's probably easier said than done. Certainly, it's important to attempt it.

I'm not sure the 'all the eggs in one basket' problem is the real problem here. At the heart of the issue was a conspiracy between the unions, the companies and the state resultant from a fear of all three of saying 'no' to any of the other two which resulted in an industry which was unhealthy.

If the Big 3 had actually decided to compete with foreign automakers, if the Unions hadn't sucked their companies dry and if the state hadn't been complicit in all of that, Detroit would have probably still been a decent place to be.

This was just groupthink on a massive scale.

Okay, so how do you make it preventable?

Get the state to realize that ultimately, for it to succeed, businesses and wealth producing engines which produce something have to succeed. The state shouldn't get involved in propping up the various entities which hinder business, they should support business (of course at the same time, making sure business isn't out there actively hurting people or the environment).

In short, if everyone had voted Republican, Michigan wouldn't be in this mess.

This shouldn't be about "imposing restrictions" - it should be about not being idiots.

Well, sure. But I'm surprised you hold out so much hope that people will be able to pull that off.

Is this a joke?

Sort of.

You do have to admit that single-party rule of certain parts of the state has had its consequences.

Cynicism has always been worse than pragmatism, in literally every implementation.

Look, I feel what you're saying, but there is still a lesson in Detroit - will it be learned? That's borderline irrelevant to this discussion, and certainly irrelevant for people who consider themselves smart.

There's a lesson in Detroit, but it is kind of interesting and important to realize how hard it would be to prevent, even if people were inclined to sort through and assign responsibility, which I don't think the parties responsible and their brethren other places are all that inclined to do. Expecting people to act against their immediate self-interest can be a hard sell, particularly when there's little reason to have long term trust.

I agree that the rest of us can look at it and try to act according to our interpretations of its lessons. There's a value in understanding it absolutely, but when you said "to keep it from happening in other places/industries" I think you're being too optimistic. I think the best we can hope for is to keep it from happening at such a grand scale, which of course, is still important.

But single party rule by the other party probably isn't the answer.

Republicans have been screwing up Georgia for probably the last five years. It's even more frustrating because I voted for the incompetence.

You do realize that we had a Republican governor for 12 years, right? From 1990-2002, when the auto industry began to lose market share? And that 7 of our 15 Congressmen are Republicans? We are considered a swing state for a reason.

Reread what I said before making non-responsive replies. I know damn well that Michigan has been a key swing state, but Detroit-proper is anything but up for grabs with respect to its political allegiance.

Honda just opened up a new plant in Indiana in Dec. 2008. In fact, almost all the new major manufacturing operations right now are locating in 'red' states, primarily due to the less expensive worker's compensation regimes, lower salary requirements for workers, and better protections in tort law.

But, two of the Big Three are not headquartered in Detroit proper. Chrysler's Headquarters are in a solidly Republican county. Ford is in a swing city. Most of the auto plants are not actually in Detroit proper nor are the hundreds of suppliers. I didn't realize that people didn't know this. It's an interesting misconception. The Detroit Zoo isn't even in Detroit proper. The Detroit Pistons don't play in Detroit either. It's crazy, I know. I have often wondered why no Republicans even attempt to run for Mayor in the city of Detroit, but they don't. It's the only place I've ever seen a ticket be Democrat vs Democrat. Maybe if they ran, they'd win. If they don't run, there's no chance. I'm not sure they're willing to take on the city's issues...lol.

ETA: I don't see any reason for the domestic auto companies to open new factories when they have the option of re-tooling existing ones. The foreign auto companies didn't have factories here until the last couple decades so obviously they have to build them and open them. However, Chrysler did just build a new Trenton Engine building to replace their aging one and it will be opening next summer. That's one that I know of for sure.

Manufacturing is still ~13% of the U.S. economy. That's a rather hefty contraction but it's still a big part of the overall makeup of our economy. No doubt that Asia fares pretty well with respect to the growth of the sector. You have to admit though, unless you're GM and you have most of your operations consolidated in Michigan (which no doubt is a big cost savings), it just makes better business sense to locate a facility in a right to work state.

By locating in the U.S., you avoid import tariffs and have reasonable assurances of a stable business environment -- something you don't get in places like Asia.

Does this offset the incredible decrease in labor and materials costs?

Perhaps it does for cars (although the "goodwill" accrued by Toyota etc. may actually have reasonable offset value beyond the basic cost), but it undoubtedly does not for other products, if we assume the business world operates at least somewhat rationally.

I imagine the answer for that would be "it depends."