The presumptive Republican nominee for president, Mitt Romney, is campaigning this week in Michigan and Ohio and claiming credit for the controversial auto bailouts , even as he’s criticizing them. And Team Obama, joined by surrogates and such chief water-carriers as United Auto Workers President Bob King, counter that Romney wanted to “let Detroit go bankrupt,” which is exactly what the Obama… Continue reading
Daniel Howes
News and a running commentary on business, the economy, politics and Detroit
Detroit fiscal board appointments long on financial chops, short on politics -- so far
Mayor Dave Bing, preparing to return to work Monday after a month-long medical hiatus, today added two more appointments to the Financial Advisory Board that will help his administration and City Council deliver their side of the state consent agreement. They are Sandra Pierce, the president and CEO of Charter One-Michigan, and Eddie Munson, a former managing partner of KPMG in Detroit and… Continue reading
FoMoCo just step away from getting back its credit mojo, ending journey
The news popped into my Droid this morning marked “URGENT”: Ford Motor Co., nearly seven years to the day after losing its investment-grade credit rating, is back in the Big Leagues , according to Fitch Ratings. Add one more — Moody’s or Standard & Poor’s — and FoMoCo officially will be back and it will once again own its trademark Blue… Continue reading
Slow-walk to resolution won't make reckoning any easier for DTW unions
The stumbling toward a Detroit City Council vote on a proposed “Financial Stability Agreement” with the state Treasury Department is starting to look like one of those gambits in an ol’ Indiana Jones movie: As soon as they tip-toe over the rotting bridge, skirt the poison darts and dodge the spring-loaded blades, a giant boulder… Continue reading
Fitch Ratings shows why, how downhill financial slide can be so dangerous to Detroit
In the continuing battle over perceived power and who will control Detroit’s coming financial reckoning, few wield more real power than bondholders and the ratings agencies they use to assess their investments. With more than $12 billion in total liabilities and a total liabilities-to-net assets ratio of more than 32-to-1, Michigan’s largest city is a cautionary tale for any… Continue reading
Now MI taxpayers have to pony up 'cash' to save DTW from itself?
Kirk Lewis is warming to his mayor gig. In perhaps the most financially consequential week Detroit has seen in two generations, the guy playing stand-in for ailing Mayor Dave Bing says any “consent agreement” with the state to stabilize the city’s miserable finances needs to be accompanied by “cash.” Really? Just asking, but where would that “cash” come from? There is… Continue reading
BHO's 'Europa Complex' ignores history, economic reality
There’s something faintly nauseating about a president of the United States leaning over to his Russian counterpart to remind him that he just needs to get through his “last election” before he can deal with Russia in, what, terms they will love? You make the call: “After my election I have more flexibility,” the president told Dmitri Medvedev. Equally nauseating, to those… Continue reading
Union, Dems campaign to block right-to-work guarantees divisive election season
WIESBADEN, Germany — Our friend Cheryl, a Michigan native who long ago married a German and started a successful business here, was aghast last night. “You’re a one-percenter,” I said, affecting the patois of the disaffected to make my point. “Whatever you have someone gave you, and you need to pay more.” “That’s not true,”… Continue reading
In Detroit financial calamity, when does 'responsibility' cease being a word to ignore?
You know Detroit’s fiscal crisis has reached the big time when Rev. Jesse Jackson shows up. His cause is predictable and, in theory, understandable: Michigan Public Act 4, the revised emergency manager law that empowers the governor to appoint municipal overseers with the ability to void union contracts, is allegedly anti-democratic (even if it was… Continue reading
Saab bankruptcy sealed by former parent GM's fears of Chinese technology predators
Give General Motors Co. credit: Its leaders, past and present, know how to kill a brand. Before the Global Financial Meltdown of ’08 sealed the fate of Saab Automobile AB in the soon-to-be-shrinking GM pantheon, the Detroit automaker spent 20 years under-investing in the quirky Swedish marque it acquired in 1990. They beggared interiors; they… Continue reading