House of Eratosthenes

Dr. Melissa Clouthier’s requiem for her home state of Michigan. Fire it up the flatscreen tonight, folks. Commit it to memory, just like Washington’s Farewell Address. Live it, learn it, love it.

When I moved to Detroit seventeen years ago, I was struck by this weird succotash of concrete jungle urban decay, and the beauty of neo-colonial classic architecture that began with the suburbs, on or about 16 Mi. Road. I had never seen anything like it. And half a year later, the following summer, was the first time (software developer, remember?) I really stepped out of the office for any length of time. Drove ol’ Bessie up and around the “mitten,” saw Batman II, spent the night with an eccentric but beautiful young barmaid in Cheboygan, jetted over from there to Sault Ste. Marie, and just really did all the the partying I should’ve been doing in the half-year leading up to that. Ah, it was really all the sightseeing I would do in that area for the entire year I lived there. And I still have regrets about that. I regret not taking a camera. Lots of young-mans’ indiscretions, committed within hours of each other.

Great googly moogly, what a beautiful country.

Geographical locations are just like women. I don’t know if it’s politically incorrect to say that now…I suspect it is…but I don’t give a good goddamn, it’s true. Ranking them is quite useless. They’re all special. If I had my life to live over again, it would be missing something if I didn’t swing by Yreka, CA, Portland, OR, Kirkland, WA, Coure d’Laine, ID, Fargo, ND, and on and on and on…and Cheboygan, MI. No, not because of the barmaid. She was quite a good looker, but my real memories (aw gee, I hope to hell she’s not reading this) are of those three hundred miles plus-or-minus of lush greenery. Wonderful, wonderful place. I hope to go back there again someday.

I digress.

The real lesson has to do with liberal policies destroying places. I saw it in the winter of ’91 to ’92, the coldest one Detroit saw in some 25 years at the time. Back then, the state was conservative (Engler) but the city was liberal and corrupt as all holy hell (Young).

It was bad. Heap big bad. But the badness started on 8 Mi. Road back then, and headed south. If you were on foot and darkness was falling, it might’ve been a good idea to be somewhere north of 12 Mi. Road by the time the sun set. But anyway, I guess it got worse than that since then.

It didn’t have to be this way. Egregious taxation results in disastrous economic consequences. There’s no avoiding it. The Wall Street Journal summed things up nicely (go read the whole thing to get a perspective of how taxes can kill a state):

The tax hikes have done nothing but accelerate the departures of families and businesses. Michigan ranks fourth of the 50 states in declining home values, and these days about two families leave for every family that moves in. Making matters worse is that property taxes are continuing to rise by the rate of overall inflation, while home values fall. Michigan natives grumble that the only reason more people aren’t blazing a path out of the state is they can’t sell their homes. Research by former Comerica economist David Littmann finds that about the only industry still growing in Michigan is government. Ms. Granholm’s $44.8 billion budget this year further fattened agency payrolls.

Michigan’s unemployment rate as of June was 8.5%. It will get worse as GM makes more cuts.

And that’s another thing: the Democrats, for all their lovey lovey talk seem to not understand that high gas prices brutalize the families they ostensibly care about so much. With high gas prices, just getting to work is an issue because money is already tight. Democrats, Obama leading them, seem to think that another industry bailout by the government (taking more money from taxpayers) will solve this problem, but it just creates more of the same. Then, high gas prices change consumer behavior–i.e. they buy smaller vehicles. Plants making bigger vehicles close. The guys working at those assembly plants, the guys working at sub-contractors manufacturing parts for the plants, and the smaller businesses that supply parts for the parts, fold. Jobs are lost. And when jobs are lost, taxes aren’t paid. And then the government services can’t be sustained just when people need them the most. Here’s what the Heritage Foundation found:

Analysts at The Heritage Foundation recently examined how going from $3 and $4 retail to $5 and $6 retail per gallon of gasoline would affect the U.S. economy. If prices continue to rise at an accelerated pace over the course of a year:

Total employment would decrease by 586,000 jobs, Disposable personal income would decrease by $532 billion, Personal consumption expenditure would decrease by $400 billion, and Personal savings would be spent to help pay the cost.

The contrast couldn’t have been greater in Michigan: gorgeous landscape, bereft of people. Again, I am reminded of Upstate New York, where the death occurred fifteen years ago. The Finger Lakes region possesses the striking loveliness that characterizes Michigan. And yet, these once vibrant areas are devoid of industry and the people who fuel it.

Well, now.

At least we’re making these rich, greedy, evil businesses pay for what they’re doing to these poor people, right? By that, I mean, those awful things businesses do to people. *cough* Give ’em jobs *cough*

That is, after we blame all the suffering poor people do, on those businesses.

Still waiting for someone to explain to me, how jobs are made, and how products are brought to the market with lower price tags, by means of artificial barriers that make it artificially more expensive to do those things. How capitalism is made more painless, after it’s been mucked with by people who just want to make the process more difficult for all concerned. How’s that work again?

I have been waiting a very long time for that explanation, but I’m a patient man.

I won’t take exception to the general premise of this post, coz Liberalism destroys everything it touches, including Michigan. But this?

the beauty of neo-colonial classic architecture that began with the suburbs, on or about 16 Mi. Road.

I lived a stone’s throw SOUTH of Ten Mile… in Ferndale. The next street over from me was Pleasant Ridge… and I’ll quote The Wiki (2000 census data):

The median income for a household in the city was $80,682, and the median income for a family was $92,134. Males had a median income of $66,071 versus $44,231 for females. The per capita income for the city was $40,846. About 1.2% of families and 2.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.3% of those under age 18 and 2.0% of those age 65 or over.

With architecture to match. That includes my neighborhood, as well. There were some beautiful old 1920’s homes there, and I was fortunate enough to own one for nearly ten years. I’d go back, were I still working.
- Buck | 08/06/2008 @ 17:31
Yeah, since those were among the few days I was allowed out of my cage for that YEAR, I was kind of wondering when/if someone with superior geographic knowledge would call me on my biz.

Of course, suburb-Detroit sort of melts into a large metropolis of nice areas with architectural patterns that recall classical periods in American history. Madison Heights, Royal Oak, Troy, Farmington Hills.

I never did see anything that made the effort to look modern, save for office buildings. But the residences were awesome. Even my crummy old apartment building on Big Beaver had a certain elegance to it.

You’ll have to excuse my ignorance about anything south of Four Green Fields Tavern in Royal Oak, Buck. That’s about as far as I ever went. Except that one trip at the stroke of midnight, New Year’s ’92, into Windsor, where the fellas and I raised a little hell. Other than that I kept my distance.
- mkfreeberg | 08/06/2008 @ 17:56
Except that one trip at the stroke of midnight, New Year’s ‘92, into Windsor, where the fellas and I raised a little hell. Other than that I kept my distance.

Ah… The Windsor Ballet. I have a few of those tee shirts! 😉
- Buck | 08/07/2008 @ 15:00

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

“I Don’t Want Michigan To Die. It’s Home.”Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

“I Don’t Want Michigan To Die. It’s Home.”
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008