if you look close enough at the photograph of the service station pictured here, you will see clues to why the michigan economy can’t get traction. in the service station here is a BIG truck, a BIG sedan, and a three BIG SUVs.
while i was getting gas en route to the detroit airport, i saw the threads that governor granholm is wrestling with.
each coming in at well over 250, none of the drivers could pry themselves from the twizzlers, doodles, yoohoos, marylous, and pinkgoos they’d purchased inside moments earlier, which is just as well since few would seem much able to emerge later from their vehicles without assistance of some sort. this largeness is not disconnected from the largess the michigan delegation would have the rest of washington believe is necessary to unhinge detroit from the fat farm it has birthed.
you get the picture. economics is about marketing. its about the degree to which what one party wants another party has, and the agreements they reach during the negotiation process. when you’re in the midwest, like anywhere else, generalities surface. it is more likely in illinois and michigan to be treated nicely than in washington, dc. it is more likely in boulder and colorado springs to be among people who are fit. it is more likely to find pork on the menu in iowa and north carolina than when in berkeley or santa cruz. each of these generalities becomes an advertising campaign, promoting a condition more and less likely to attract different kinds of people with different degrees of purchasing power.
the governor of michigan and her administration have been dealt a lousy hand. but enough time has passed that the michigan economy is hers now. that means what michigan has to sell must appeal to the rest of the world. hints for the governor:
the rest of the world is not interested in bad coffee. the time has come to lose the pot of folgers cooking on a burner for 14 hours and serve it up in a fat diner cup and saucer. or worse, in styrofoam. this is not what is meant by retro chic.
smoking is out people. you have to give virginia and maryland and north carolina a little latitude on being stupid and backwards about tobacco (a little); it was their cash crop and philip morris still pays the bills. but its ridiculous to be in chicago and have to contend with cigarette smoke in a restaurant or hotel. and no less absurd in michigan.
fat. cars. people. serving sizes. by now you would think that awareness of fat would have made its way to michigan. not so. some of the least fit people in the nation live there. either that or there was a fat acceptance convention somewhere between ann arbor and travers city and the waterinng holes dotting the landscape between were where desperation orders of fries and snickers could be located.
girls on mudflaps. what’s that about? you know. the silhouette of the pre-sex woman reclining with on leg bent at the knee, grafted onto the rubber mudflap over rear truck tires. invariably these decorations come alongside bumper stickers of the confederate flag. i must have missed the memo about michigan militia serving under generals lee and longstreet. the way i figure it, there must be a combo purchase option somewhere that gets you two for the price of one: a silhouette of an impossibly unattainable sex kitten sufficient to describe women in the only way some people know how, and a little southern redneck jingo doodad for good measure.
iceberg lettuce. what is this about? it has its place. for sure. but if you want a salad in 2007 you should be able to find one with better proportions than 30 percent iceberg, 50 percent fake cheese, and 20 percent corn syrupped ranch dressing. not in michigan unless in grosse poinnt perhaps, but maybe that’s the problem in michigan: that grosse point has been content to build an economy from which it can suck from an outsourced auto teat with mexican labor and chinese parts, whilst grand rapids and saginaw and flint and battle creek fall into the great water?
when people come to michigan from elsewhere, the first noticeable difference from the rest of the country is how polite people are. this is a definite marketing advantage for a state wishing to attract investment. but when you attach to such niceness a vortex of betty crocker and rush limbaugh and delco auto parts in a world that has moved well past pregnant and barefoot, white and fat and insipid, and clunky, you have a fairly toxic cocktail. no wonder michigan is radioactive. you can’t find a prius or a mexican anywhere and no one in the state seems aware that this is a good proxy for underdeveloped and a good recipe for degenerative.
Originally posted on June 19, 2007
