Michigan

Prodded by Mitch Albom, Jeff Daniels, and Mike Binder among others, the state of Michigan under the Granholm administration, passed a program offering tax credits to the entertaiment industry in an effort to induce producers to do business creating product in the state of Michigan.

This program included a 40% refundable tax credit as revealed below in the "Fast Facts" taken directly from the Michigan Film Office's web page.

Fast Facts

Minimum spend of at least $50,000 in Michigan to be eligible.

40% refundable tax credit, across the board on Michigan expenditures.

Claim an extra 2% if filming in one of the 136 Core Communities in Michigan (click the link to download and print a map of the core communities).

Labor and Crew: 40%-42% Resident Below the Line. 40%-42% Above the Line regardless of residency. 30% Non-resident Below the Line.

$2 million salary cap per employee per production. There is no other cap and no sunset.

All applicants can expect a 4 week review process once all materials have been received.

Must spend at least $500,000 annually in Michigan to be eligible for an interactive web site project.

By anyone's standard, the program has been a success at bringing projects to the state of Michigan.

Among the "feature films" shot in the state of Michigan are Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, Michael Moore's Capitalism, a Love Strory , and Up in the Air starring George Clooney (which by the way, I really, really liked) among others.

George Clooney is back in town as I type this, working on something.

Michigan's new governor, Rick Snyder has proposed a drastic reduction in the total amount available for this tax credit program and in so doing has raised the ire of Mitch Albom among others who correctly (I think) contend that movie productions and jobs won't come to Michigan without favored tax treatment.

The below is a chart from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank which demonstrates Michigan's loss of some 400,000 manufacturing jobs during the first decade of the 21st century.

Ok, so here's my question.

To my knowledge, which I will admit to being incomplete on this issue, Mitch Albom, Jeff Daniels, Mike Binder and Michael Moore have never advocated for anything approaching a 40+% "across the board tax credit on all Michigan expenditures" for anyone other than themselves via their industry.

If this idea is working so well when it comes to the movie business, why wouldn't it work equally well attracting business in industries where all the infrastructure, buildings, equipment and a trained up and highly skilled labor force, in other words the whole enchilada ..... IS ALREADY IN PLACE?

Why aren't these guys advocating this kind of a program for everyone?

Just askin'.

From Michigan Capitol Confidential. 

Outbound Michigan 

I can't remember any vacation remotely like this one.

To say that The Thumb of Michigan is slow, is to exaggerate in the extreme.

The cottage I mooched sits dead between Port Austin and Caseville at the northern tip of The Thumb and as such allows for a spectacular view of both the sunrise and sunset over Lake Huron.

The sun moves in a near perfect U around the cottage from about 3 o'clock at sunrise, to behind you at noon, and then sets at about 9 o'clock, at about 9 o'clock.

I caught both every day, coming and going.

Took my nap about 11.

The days' highlights were pretty much limited to sunrise, blueberry pancakes, adventure golf, nap, a walk, dinner, sunset, bonfire.

The occasional trip on the rope swing.

There was only lousy internet service anywhere nearby.

I failed to open any one of the eight books I brought.

As for scorekeeping.

Spain wins the world cup in a very ugly final, earning me a tidy little profit.

Treasuries are booming and thus kicking the crap out of my short position.

The stock market and gold are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty much where I left them.

With regards to "The Bradley Model" and "the summer of doom", the Cardinal Cross begins to perfect itself late this week.

I'll update charts and address another record breaking run of calls and emails tomorrow.

I missed you too.

In the interest of full disclosure, these are very, very, very small records we're breaking here.

While I could have done without the Armageddon reference.

The man makes his point.

"In the midst of economic Armageddon in Michigan there is one part of the economy that is booming ... movie production.

Why?

Because Michigan offers the most generous tax incentives in the nation for movie-makers.

The result?

The liberal progressive hypocrites of the movie business…the same ones who support Obama…the same ones who call tax cuts for the rich “greedy”… have moved Hollywood to Michigan!

Last year 87 films were made in Michigan- a 900% increase from the year before.

3 major movie studios are opening this year in Michigan. Yes, the tax rebates cost Michigan $40 million…but those same tax cuts produced 7000 new jobs (I'm not entirely sure about this part, when I get a minute I'm gonna check it out) and $325 million in new revenues for the Michigan economy. Now that’s a great economic success story.

Michigan is Exhibit A for proving that allowing taxpayers to keep more of their own money works like magic.

Even amidst the most worst (You know it's real, damn bad when you're the most worst) economy and worst weather in America, it’s enough to convince Hollywood hypocrites to relocate from sunny Southern California to depressing and freezing Michigan!

Can you imagine what a dramatic tax cut would do for the entire American economy?" 

I don't think we have the worst weather.

Worst football team ..... worst city ..... Governor.

Tall Paul called about Friday's post.

He must have liked it because he had nothing to say about it except,

"Why make the big deal about Michigan grads?"

"I went there ... I'm proud."

"Did you graduate?"

"Yes."

"Really?  I didn't think you were that smart."

"The standards were lower back then.  You didn't have to be that smart.

You just had to be arrogant."

Paul blows right past my pique and says,

"You want to check out Wolverine Historian he does great stuff."

I know!!!

"No really, you'll like it."

I know!!!

Really, the guy does a good job.

Ok, you win.

Here's about 10 minutes of great Michigan running backs behind great Michigan offensive lines, doing their thing.

From Michigan Historian.  Who does a great job ... really!!!

And while I'm at it, MGoBlog is an outstanding site if you care about Michigan athletics.

“The inevitable coming of the sovereign debt panic finally engulfed Europe this week as the derisively (or perhaps affectionately) named PIGS spilled their slop on the continent.

But Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain are hardly worthy of so much attention.

In truth, they are little more than the currently favored proxies among the leveraged speculator community (cough) for the larger problem of all sovereign debt.

Indeed, the credit default swaps on these smaller European satellite states were not alone this week in making large moves higher.

UK sovereign risk rose strongly, and so did US sovereign risk. With a downgrade warning from Moody’s to boot.

“Notable among three of the PIGS are their relatively small populations, and small contributions to either world or European GDP.

While Spain has a population over 45 million, Portugal and Greece have populations roughly equal to a US state, such as Ohio–at around 10 million.

And Ireland? The Emerald Isle has a population similar to Kentucky, at around 4 million.

While the PIGS are without question a problem for Europe, whatever problems they present for Brussels are easily matched by the looming headache for Washington that’s coming from large, US states such as California, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan.

“My seven states of energy debt represent a full 35% of the total US population.

As with other US states, they face looming policy clashes between protected state and city workers on one hand, and the growing ranks of the private economy’s underemployed on the other.

The recent circus at the LA City Council meeting was a nice foreshadowing that the days of unlimited borrowing by governments–against future growth based on cheap energy–is coming to an end.

Washington can print up dollars and fund these states for years, if it so chooses.

But just as with the 70 million people in Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, the 108 million people in these seven large states are probably facing even higher levels of unemployment as austerity measures finally slam into their cashless coffers, and reduce their ability to borrow.”