Because of Michigan's over-dependence on the auto industry, their economy has been in the toilet for at least three years. Their housing crisis started about that long ago. I remember visiting my sister north of Detroit two and a half years ago. She and her husband were trying to sell their house, but so were one out of three houses in their entire neighborhood. The state actually has a "michigan economic development corporation" to promote the skilled workforce internationally in an attempt to FINALLY diversify their economy.

It certainly is not the ideal time to be trying to break into the business at any level, 121 / 135 or 91. I would guess over the next 18 months MOST jobs will be for attrition of some sort. As always even in crap economic times there will be companies at all these level that flourish, you just have to be positioned appropriately to take advantage of whatever opportunity comes your way.

Personally I think MUCH of the current crisis ( not the sub prime mess ) ... but the general slowdown in spending is due to the constant media hype over the past 2-3 years. I mean those cry babies have been talking recession for years. If you talk about it enough people finally believe it and alter their spending patterns....wallah!!! Self fulfilling recession. Now before somebody blows a head gasket.. I do believe there are some fundamental underlying issues... but CRAP.... many were talked into spending less..... believe it.

we've had 26 out of 28 years of economic growth...it can't keep growing. What goes up always comes back down. I'm not sure, but I gotta believe that this last period of economic growth has to be a record.

I shouldn't have used the word "nobody". As a casual observer, it sure seemed like the crisis @ GM intensified quickly. With the crap vehicles they build it's no wonder they're in the predicament they're in...but I don't want them to go out of business as that would likely force us into a depression.

But they can't get their act together! They've been buildling sub-standard vehicles for years, while Toyota, Honda, and other "imports" have gained a loyal customer base. I also hope they don't go under, taking Michigan with them, but they certainly deserve nothing more

Getting back on topic - Thx for having an opinion. Your avitar fits.

I know, I agree w/ ya 100%. Heck, I drive a Toyota Tacoma '01, still drives like it's brand new. My hope is that if they're bailed out the government sets the conditions of the bailout and focuses on GM building better, more practical vehicles. It's clear that if they don't receive a bailout of some kind, they're going to fail. That affects all of us in that it will result in many more flying jobs lost/slashed.

I know for myself at least that my downturn in spending isn't related to media hype, but related to a lack of funds. Going from a 60k/yr job to a 35k/yr job and still having to make the mortgage payments, car payments, and student loan payments has really put myself and wife towards the "less" spendy side of things. On the contrary, really glad that we're not in the unemployed end of the spectrum, cause it could be much worse.

As far as GM. I grew up on them, my first car was a Pontiac (and it lasted forever...still going actually) but when it came time to purchase a second vehicle, i looked at several domestic cars. One GTO (nice car, has enough aussie in it to seem like it's high quality), a Grand Prix (wasn't impressed) G6 (wasn't impressed...actually, was very very disappointed) and a Charger v6 (the little engine that sounded like a electric motor). All in all, i didn't buy an American car, because the american cars i seemed to find offered soooo little while still demanding a price that was on par with the competition. Something has to change in order for these companies to survive domestically, as well as internationally. It's a global playing field, and unfortunately we've fallen behind. I don't want to see any of the big three go, so i hope they can solve their issues. But you can only bank on selling SUV's (trucks) for luxury car prices for soooo long before people actually turn around a realize what the heck their getting.

Respectfully disagree. Ask anyone who works in the financial industry and theyll disprove your theory in about 3 minutes. Then ask the rest of the world why they are hurting... its not because of the liberal American media.

It seems to me that as a nation we have been here before. In the early 1980's America produced some miserable cars in relation to overseas producers. We also drove a national fleet of gas guzzlers at the time. All the old stuff is coming back. Nationalism will resurface. Soon people will start referring to Japanese cars as "rice burners". My Toyota truck is completely built in the USA while the Ford ranger is only 63% built here.

I do not think that we should bail out the auto industry.

Skyhigh