Natural Disasters

Recent economic research (September 29, 2006) completed by American City Business Journals (www.amcity.com) reveals the following rankings for labor markets in the USA:

TOP LABOR MARKETS -- in terms of job growth

1. Cape Coral-Fort Meyers, Florida
2. Las Vegas-Paradise, Nevada
3. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona
32. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota -- my home area

BOTTOM LABOR MARKETS -- in terms of job growth

98. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California
99. Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Michigan
100. New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, Louisiana

My obvious first observation of these rankings is that my home state of Minnesota is stagnant in terms of economic growth -- note to state Senator Larry Pogemiller: your idea for creating a new income tax bracket to ensure Minnesota has the highest individual income tax rate in the USA will NOT help us generate jobs. Look to Florida my dear public servant -- the Minnesota Twins' spring training is held in Fort Meyers which not only is sunny but they have ZERO state income taxes so prepare for more Minnesota snow birds to simply become Floridians. Note the "Other Taxes" section here -- http://www.myflorida.com/dor/taxes/new.html

Now at the other end of the scale -- the worst performers -- we can excuse New Orleans of course since the area was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. But what can be said of Detroit, Michigan's #99 ranking out of 100 areas in this survey? Unfortunately Detroit was hit by its own natural disaster which as a political scientist would call a "Big Government-Big Labor complex" (BG-BL). President Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower warned us of the growth of the military-industrial complex but that complex would be a blessing for the Detroit area since laid off auto workers could then build military weapons versus continuing as a victim of the BG-BL complex which has driven this community into the ground by failing to prepare workers for a competitive, global economy.

Assuming any Detroit K-12 students can read I would encourage them to start reading the work of my free market think tank friends at:

www.cato.org
www.heartland.org
www.mackinac.org
www.acton.org

Next time I go for Spring Training I will have to check out the condos in Fort Meyers.

Growth not Government,

Todd