The October revenue report for the state of Michigan has been released, and there’s very little good news to be had. Revenues were again below the most recent projections. October saw tax collections that were $31 million below expectations. The best real-time indicators of [...]
Just keep this chart in mind when they come back, in the near future, for debtslaveryus stimulus 2.0. Remember – the politicians are lying to you.
Stimulus Fail
[...]Now that the Federal Reserve-stimulated asset bubble has burst in the housing markets, and the subsequent follow-on government attempts to fix a government-created economic crisis are failing (see cash for clunkers and the market-distorting “first time homebuyer credit”), it’s time to assess your current situation [...]
This week, President Obama re-appointed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke declares that he “saved the world.”
This is a bit like the arsonist firefighter declaring that, after he set fire to your house, he then “saved” it from the fire. Right.
He [...]
Last week the Grand Rapids Downtown Development Authority board approved the expenditure of $850,000 to help the city buy five new DASH buses for the downtown parking lots. The catch is that mayor Heartwell asked the DDA to kick in extra money so the city [...]
I’m working on an article on the state of the downtown condo market in Grand Rapids. I’m looking for assistance from a real estate agent/Realtor with access to MLS sales information. If you’re willing to help out, I’m willing to put in a plug for you/your real estate company in [...]
The Detroit News is reporting this afternoon that the Michigan Democratic Party is proposing five issues to potentially appear on the 2010 general election ballot. They are:
Raise the minimum wage from $7.40 an hour to $10 an hour and remove exceptions in the law [...]The latest monthly state revenue report was finally released today, and it doesn’t look good. A few of the money quotes:
The revenue collected from Michigan’s General Fund and School Aid Fund earmarked taxes totaled $1.3 billion in May, [...]
I found an interesting chart, courtesy of city-data.com, showing the median home price in Grand Rapids, as well as the number of homes sold on a quarterly basis. Clearly things are bad and getting worse. Median home prices have dropped almost in half since [...]
An important article appeared in the Grand Rapids Press last week that highlights several issues regarding the failed Silver Line bus system and the false claims of economic development that are touted by the Silver Line’s supporters.
The Grand Valley Metro Council (very much pro-Silver [...]
Rapid Silver Line: FAIL
It’s fantastic news for taxpayers and for fiscal sanity in the Grand Rapids area. Last night the expensive and redundant Rapid “Silver Line” tax increase request went down in flames. The overall vote total was 52% against and 48% [...]
The supporters of the proposed $110 million Silver Line bus system in Grand Rapids tout it as a “Bus Rapid Transit” line. The proposed route of the Silver Line is [...]
Grand Rapids Pundit has received one of the pro-Silver Line post cards in the mail, as I’m sure many residents of the ITP service district have (Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids, Walker, Wyoming, Kentwood, and Grandville). This post card, which you can view here, exemplifies the continued contempt that [...]
The Rapid's Silver Line - Flushing Money Down the Toilet
The ITP/Rapid transit agency is again asking taxpayers for a tax increase on Tuesday, May 5th. Once again, they are using an off-election date to try and get as [...]
Ouch! The Senate Fiscal Agency just released their February report of state revenue and it’s a doozy. A couple of quotes:
While tax collections in February were expected to fall below last year’s level, due primarily to the impact of the economic recession, the decline was much worse than expected . . [...]
There’s been some buzz lately about the upcoming 2010 census. This post is more of a placeholder for my own future posts on the subject than any official update.
There are some very good reasons to be extremely skeptical of the probing questions the census asks. [...]
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had possibly the most dire article I’ve ever read on a company’s viability. Unfortunately, the article wasn’t online, but here are some highlights:
General Motors Corp. capped a dismal 2008 with a $9.6 billion loss in the fourth quarter, brining its [...]
This is a re-post, courtesy of our friends at Education Action Group.
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RECORDING REVEALS GR UNION LEADERS’ HOSTILE STRATEGY
School board take over, possible strike in store for GRPS
Grand Rapids city residents who are still hoping for a dignified resolution to the teacher contract deadlock [...]
Change we can believe in? Last night’s press conference by President Obama was hardly a departure from the typical George Bush-style fear-mongering. You can sum his speech up like this: “Pass the stimulus, or else the universe will collapse!!! Gravity will fail! The sun will [...]
The REAL natinal debt - including all unfunded future mandates. The math just doesn’t work. Yes, it currently says $58 trillion.
Margaret Thatcher: “The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”
[...]I just wanted to quickly share a few telling charts regarding what is happening with the US economy over the last year, and especially over the last few months.
First is the number of new home sales.Â
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New Home Sales - Holy [...]
This post will show how the proposed $825 billion “stimulus” package will do absolutely nothing to help the economy and will only serve to make the existing economic problems worse.
“But wait! How could that be?” you ask yourself. All the politicians and talking heads on TV are saying [...]
Do you know where your money is?
US and UK banks are insolvent.
From Bloomberg: “U.S. banking system is effectively insolvent“ From the UK Independent (removed from their site):Â British banks are ‘technically insolvent’The FDIC, which “insures” US bank deposits, has a insurance fund [...]
There’s an old parable about getting hooked on government handouts. I had heard this years ago, but it just popped in my mind again today. I searched the Internet and found one version of it.
A chemistry professor at a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day [...]
The Detroit Three (formerly the Big Three) groveled in front of Congress last month, asking for $25 billion to keep the doors open. Congress rebuffed them and sent them home with instructions to return with “a plan.” What do they come up with? A request that now clocks in at [...]
General Motors, the City of Detroit, and Everyone Else Feeding At the Trough of Government
It was only a matter of time. Now that the Congress and US Treasury have decided that it is [...]
We must bail out Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler because they are far too large to fail. This short video does an excellent job of explaining how it will all work:
[...]Ford and General Motors release their earnings numbers this week. The important bits of information to look at are the cash flows. GM and Ford are rapidly burning through their cash reserves. GM Burned through $6.9 billion in cash during the third quarter of 2008 (that doesn’t include October, when [...]
Nope, no predictions. Just guesses.
President - Obama 53% - McCain 44%
Proposal 1 - 60% Yes, 40% No
Proposal 2 - 52% No - 48% Yes
We didn’t write an article on Proposal 2 because it just seems pointless. Moral arguments aside, why amend the state constitution to allow one specific form of [...]
Next week, the Michigan ballot will contain an initiative piece of legislation that asks voters to approve a new state law to de-criminalize the medical use of marijuana. It is important to note that this is not a constitutional amendment, as many ballot proposals are. Approval of this proposal would [...]
An article in Monday’s Grand Rapids Press outlined the hundreds of thousands of dollars being donated by local doctrinaires to oppose gay marriage proposals in Florida and California. According to the article, Rich DeVos has donated $100,000 to support a ban on gay marriage that will appear on the [...]
Pelosi blubbers with glee over the bailout bill
Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the [...]
Here’s an example of the absolute recklessness of the current bailout mess. An article from Forbes ought to make all Americans go berserk on the members of Congress that are voting in favor of this thing:
In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion [...]
Josef Stalin is pleased with the United States Senate today
The giant socialist bailout bill passed the Senate yesterday 75 to 24. Senator Carl Levin voted YES, Senator Debbie Stabenow noted NO.
Call Senator Stabenow and say thanks! 202-224-4822. Email her here.
Call/write Senator Levin now and [...]
(Note: this post is taken from the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s economic blog)
The events taking place in the financial market offer an illustration of the soundness of the Austrian theory of money, banking, and credit cycles, and Mises.org is your source not only for analysis of these events but also [...]
We here at GR Pundit have made it a general policy to comment and report on local issues only. However, the extent and scope of the current market crisis requires that we break that policy.
What is the origin of the current economic crisis? Is it capitalism run amok? No. It [...]
Exclusive to Grand Rapids Pundit:
GR Pundit has come in to possession of a letter being sent to teachers and substitute teachers, preparing them for an impending illegal strike against Grand Rapids Public Schools. View the GREA Strike Letter. The letter, signed by Grand Rapids Education Association president Paul Helder on August 5th, laments [...]
This weekend’s Grand Rapids Press had an article about the ballooning cost of a potential “light rail” system that is in the works for Grand Rapids. The project hasn’t actually even begun, but already the potential cost has jumped from $69 million to $79 million - in the span of [...]
There’s some good news in regards to charter schools to report for both Grand Rapids and Detroit.
For some quick background - state laws define a “first class” school district, which only Detroit Public Schools qualifies for. This special status allows Detroit’s school system some privileges in terms of funding, but [...]
As our readers probably already know, a state ballot proposal has been submitted to “reform” Michigan government. It has the title of the “Reform Michigan Government Now” proposal. It may or make not make it to the ballot, depending on how many signatures are validated. The interesting thing about this proposal is [...]
This is truely sad news. Fat Boy, the best restaurant in Grand Rapids to get a greasy, artery-clogging, and amazing cheeseburger, has closed. For those of you who don’t know - Fat Boy is located on Plainfield in the North End of Grand Rapids. It’s been there for decades, [...]
Today Volkswagen announced that they will not be building a new car factory in Michigan. They opted to Tennessee instead. According to the article:
Chattanooga won the site because of incentives and tax breaks offered by Tennessee and better infrastructure, the person said. Alabama was a close second while Michigan [...]
The latest House Fiscal Agency revenue consensus report paints a grim picture for Michigan. Here are a few important bits of information:
Although the US has gained more than 480,000 jobs over [the last year], employment in Michigan fell by more than 78,000 jobs.
That’s right - Michigan has had a [...]
It was announced today that the May unemployment rate in Michigan has jumped to 8.5%, from April’s 6.9%. As the big three continue to face big problems from the jump in gas prices, and of course the gigantic tax increase last year starts to take its toll, employers are [...]
There seems to be some confusion lately about the state’s general fund budget. Have there been cuts? Has revenue gone down? Are $440 million in cuts necessary to balance 2007-2008’s budget? What is the impact of the new $1.5 billion in taxes just passed by the legislature?
The BudgetWe’d like to [...]
The taxpayers of Michigan traded minimal reforms for a massive tax hike this past weekend. A new 6% service tax will apply to the following services:
Astrology services
Carpet cleaning
Consulting services
Investigation, guard and armored car services
Janitorial
Commercial landscaping services
Baby-shoe bronzing
Bail bonding
Balloon-o-grams
Coin-operated blood pressure testing
[...]
Our state government shut down this morning at 12:01 am and remained shut down until 4:18am, when two Senate Republicans broke ranks and voted in favor of $1.5 billion in tax increases. Freedom rang across the land for 258 minutes, but alas, the politicians relented and voted to destroy more [...]
It looks like we are on track for a state government shutdown at midnight Sunday evening. The governor went on TV last night to announce that all “essential” government services will continue. The question arises - then what isn’t essential? Can we do without the non-essential “services?”
The legislature continues to [...]
For those that still think that the state government has “cut to the bone” with no more that can possibly be cut, and that our income tax should be raised from 3.9% to 4.6% (as the Governor is pushing for), check out the below news clip from WXYZ in Detroit. [...]
Last week saw a Grand Rapids Press article on legislators debating the extenion of the current state term limits. Members of the state House are limited to three terms of two years and members of the state Senate are limited to two four year terms. A proposal, which may appear [...]
Both the Detroit News and the Grand Rapids Press have articles today about the apparent near-meltdown occuring in Lansing over the state government’s budget. Apparently, late last night, the State House was flooded by all members of the State Senate, along with the Governor, in an effort to [...]
We’re happy to announce that we have set up a new forum for discussion of all Grand Rapids-related topics - the Grand Rapids Pundit Forums! We got sick of other forums that ostracize and ban people for simply disagreeing with the sentiment that [...]
Today’s Grand Rapids Press reports that Grand Rapids Community College is backing down from its prior threats to raise tuition if the millage that failed on Tuesday didn’t pass. This is typical behavior of bureaucrats and those who love to spend other people’s money. How often do we hear [...]
The perfidy of the GRCC board of trustees was called out by the taxpayers of Kent County last night. Out of over 63,000 votes cast, the second millage request in three months failed by 361 votes. Perhaps it was the fact that everyone just paid their summer property taxes and [...]
The stunning inability of Michigan’s politicians to talk about the 8,000 ton elephant in the room continues to amaze us here at GR Pundit. Michigan’s economy is suffering a “single-state” recession for one primary reason - the United Auto Workers union. Why? Michigan’s economy is/was so heavily dependent on the [...]
The Detroit News has a short article today on the dropout rate of Detroit Public Schools students. The article states that a report from Education Week, a weekly education newspaper, has done a study showing that Detroit’s dropout rate is 75%. You can view the report’s web page [...]
Brief summary of the election two weeks ago:
