I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
A new study by the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor concludes that the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler in 2009, with $85 billion in taxpayer money going to the two companies to help them survive the restructuring process of managed bankruptcies, saved 1.4 million jobs. The Detroit News reports:
Most of the jobs — 1.14 million — were saved in 2009, during the low-point of the industry’s severe downturn. But another 314,400 were saved in 2010, the Center said Wednesday.
“The government intervention prevented additional personal income losses totaling $71.9 billion for 2009 and $24.6 billion for 2010,” the center said in a statement.
“The net impact to the federal government—in terms of changes in transfer payments, social security receipts and personal income taxes—was $21.6 billion in 2009 and $7 billion in 2010.”
But that is merely the tip of the iceberg. The cost to state and local governments for the sudden increase in Medicaid, unemployment benefits, loss of property taxes and other consequences of allowing the two companies to fail would have been even higher.
Add in the $29 billion cost of taking over the pensions of the two companies by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the effect of another wave of foreclosures that would have been triggered and the bailout was a bargain.
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