Posted on 06/27/2012 5:46:47 AM PDT by MichCapCon
It’s distressing that the Michigan Senator chairing the U.S. Senate Agricultural committee doesn’t know that, despite rumors, Michigan’s agriculture does not represent the state’s second-largest industry.
In a recent press release on proposed assistance to agricultural industries, Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s office claimed: “Bio-based manufacturing is a key sector of Michigan's agriculture industry, which is Michigan's second largest industry, supporting nearly one out of every four jobs.”
But these statistics being used by the Democrat from Lansing are a hypothetical guess using an inflated definition of agriculture and a multiplier factor.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, there are 63,667 jobs in farming — or one out of 79 jobs. The industry produces 0.9 percent of the state’s earnings. These relatively small figures are nothing to thumb your nose at, but they’re far from the inflated figures used by the senator.
The source for the oft-repeated "second-largest industry" seems to come from an MSU report that uses a very loose definition of agriculture and multiplies the economic impacts from that loose definition.
For instance, cereal factories are included and as are food wholesalers and retailers like grocery stores and restaurants, regardless of their sales of Michigan-grown produce. These jobs are then multiplied for their ancillary effects, meaning that you could be working as a car salesman and still be "induced" by agriculture, even though you directly work in automotive retail.
This makes the multiplier unfair for comparisons. Every industry in the state is connected to each other and some industries are more connected than others. Dropping a dollar on any product produces an echo someplace else.
Regardless of its size, agriculture plays an important role in the state economy. But politicians should not seek to inflate the impacts of the industry when supporting selective favors.
Michigan, would you PLEASE offload that dangerously clueless hag this November? PLEASE???
Debbie Stupidcow has around a 10 point lead right now but we don’t have a nominee yet. It will be either Pete Hoekstra or Clark Durant and both are acceptable.
I hope Michiganders will see the light and bounce her a** out of there.
I don’t care which one runs against her. Well, I may be a little partial to Durant, just because Hoekstra hasn’t been rock solid in years past.
But I am chomping at the bit to work for WHOEVER runs against her and get her stupid, fat ass out of office, ASAP.
That is on my “bucket list”.
Things changed dramatically in Michigan over the last 4 or 5 years. Things like voter ID laws and a secretary of state who takes election law seriously are driving big changes.
she is an idiot.
wayne county routinely undermines the elections, and health of the rest of the state.
Debbie Stabenow can “feel” global warming when she’s flying.
I’ve leaned toward Hoekstra despite some RINO tendencies but he’s still well to the right of McCain. However I’m starting to lean toward Durant based on the need to get rid of the establishment types.
I don’t think either will be a hard sell for conservatives.
The New Mexico Ministry of Tourism has a copy-cat set of adverts, substituting “Pure” with “True”.
Appears to be the same announcer, too.
The Pure Michigan campaign uses taxpayer dollars to advertize for a few industries that can afford their own advertizing. On top of that they only target a small high dollar clientele.
The reality is that most of the tourists who come to Michigan are seeking a low dollar hunting, fishing, or camping type of vacation.
The Pure Michigan campaign would serve us better by setting up a website like FR where we can post travel blogs, fishing and hunting news, photos etc.
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