John James, Michigan Senatorial candidate: are you familiar with him?

@Mindful What this fellow is doing is walking around the streets, just talking to people. I have NEVER seen any other Senatorial candidate doing that. It lets you know that he really cares what the people of Michigan are thinking and feeling.

@Mindful You must be watching a different Fox News or......

@4meAndyou For some reason, there wasn't an option to reply directly to your below comment. [quote]I have to laugh when I hear people claim it is all because of Obama. When Obama was President, we had enormous unemployment in the low tech job sector. But the worst of it was that some families were actually hungry. Mom had a low paying job and Dad couldn't find work for which he was qualified. Their five kids had to eat boxed mac and cheese. I think we ALL remember what it was like.

I lived in Lansing, Michigan when Obama was elected, and the place was already like a ghost town. You could drive down the street and of seven buildings 5 were boarded up businesses that had gone under. The city of Lansing didn't have enough money to plow snow from the highways. If you didn't have 4 wheel drive, you either had to risk getting stuck...and NO help, because everyone was getting stuck...or stay home.

It was so bad I wrote the (then) governor Jennifer Granholm a letter and asked her WHY the state of Michigan didn't give major tax breaks to businesses to lure them to Michigan. Of course I never heard back...but you should read her website now....bragging about how SHE personally has attracted 4000 new businesses to Michigan.
[/quote] Sure Obama inherited the helm of a nation that was just recovering from the Great Recession that Bush had got us into, so naturally there was high unemployment and lots of people going hungry. A good, long-term solution to our economic woes would take some time.

It puzzles me that you mention that the city of Lansing didn't have enough money to plow snow from the highways, because you're the one that seems to be pushing tax cuts, deregulation, and smaller government in general. If you want street sweepers, well you have to have taxes to be able to pay for that. You see, some things work better when we all contribute our fair share for the public good.

As I stated elsewhere on this page, I've never taken an economics class before, but I'm pretty sure it's not like the business gods are demanding that you make a sacrifice in the form of tax cuts and maybe they'll make it rain jobs on you if they feel like it. I'm pretty sure I understand that the economy has two major components: supply [i]and[/i] demand.

For decades now, big business owners have been doing really well. Their salaries have been rising much faster than the rate of productivity. The problem isn't that they don't have enough money to create new jobs, it's that people aren't spending enough to justify hiring any more workers. That's demand. The prices are too high, so common people can't afford to buy your products or services. Now if common people have enough money to go out and spend frequently, then it makes sense to hire more workers or "create more jobs" because doing so will then allow the business to make more money.

@JP1119 My dear friend, I am not "pushing" anything. I do, however, admire the results seen so far of same.

In the case of Lansing, Michigan, you may or may not be aware that statewide devastation resulted from GM's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They had been a major employer for people in Detroit, and Lansing as well. I don't think there was any President directly responsible for their mismanagement of their own company. When enormous businesses go under, enormous employment goes away. Small business was dragged under. It was sort of a domino effect.

If you google the economy in Michigan or Detroit over the past 10 years, you will see why there was no tax money available to plow the highways.