Economy

Press conferences and news updates have given us minute-by-minute coverage of Kevyn Orr's appointment as Detroit emergency manager by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder today. 

Orr's repeated assurance that he will "look at the data" before moving forward may be part of his approach, but what does that mean?

Municipal finances and emergency manager laws are being used frequently by Orr, Snyder and Bing.

To outline and define these terms and their implications, Michigan Radio's Cynthia Canty spoke with Michigan State University professor of Economics Eric Scoresone.

Scoresone is an expert in the state's emergency manager laws as well as municipal finances within the state of Michigan.

Listen to the full interview above.

For the first time the Grand Rapids region now has more than a million people.

The boost in the 2012 estimate comes in part because of changes to the way the US Census is calculates the population there. The Grand Rapids metro area now includes Ottawa County because more than a quarter of the people who live there commute to work in Grand Rapids.

Tim Mroz is with the economic development group The Right Place. He says the million mark is significant in attracting big companies to the region.

A Lansing company is seeing a silver lining to the recent horsemeat scare in Europe.

Neogen builds tests to verify the purity of different types of meat.

Business has been growing steadily in the last quarter.

That was when European beef began showing up with horse meat mixed in.

  Part of what makes State of Opportunity different from other reporting projects is that we try to spend a lot of time following the people in our stories, to learn what their lives are really like day-to-day. 

Michigan’s Budget Stabilization Fund – more commonly known as the “Rainy Day Fund” is getting a lot of attention in Lansing.

The Budget Stabilization Fund is more simply known as the state’s savings account.  

When Governor Rick Snyder took office, Michigan's savings account was nearly empty and only held about $2 million.

Now, there’s about half a billion dollars in the fund, and Snyder wants to add $75 million more this year.

While Snyder has been in office, he has been trying to build up the fund, which he says would help improve the state’s credit rating and allow Michigan to get better interest rates. Additionally, there would be money available to protect against huge budget cuts in emergency situations.

What's the significance of Snyder’s efforts, and how might the sequester affect the Budget Stabilization Fund?

Listen to the audio above to hear the story.

The State of Michigan says the new owner of bankrupt battery maker A123 Systems cannot get the company's state tax credits.

In April, 2009 the state awarded a “high-tech state tax credit” worth a little more than $25 million over 15 years and a “battery cell state tax credit” worth $100 million over four years

China’s Wanxiang Group (specially, one of it's American-based subsidies) bought most of A123 Systems' assets for a little more than $250 million. A123 says those assets include the state tax credits for two battery plants in Romulus and Livonia.

This photo has been making the rounds on Facebook.

The photo was pushed out on Ann Arbor SPARK's Facebook page - a group dedicated to building business expansion in the area.

Just two years ago, Blank published an article about the venture capital climate in Ann Arbor.

In a post he wrote in 2011, "What's Missing For Entrepreneurs In Ann Arbor, Mich.," he described the climate as the sound of 'one hand clapping.'

He felt there was plenty of talent, but money and a risk-taking culture were missing in the city (below he mentions VCs - 'venture capitalists').

“Outsourcing” and “off-shoring” - those are words our parents and grandparents never really encountered.

But if you’ve worked in Michigan the past 10 to 15 years, it’s a pretty safe bet you are very aware of outsourcing and off-shoring.

American manufacturers have sent tens of thousands of jobs overseas or across the border - to Mexico, to China, to India, and other countries - setting up foreign plants or farming out work to foreign manufacturers in those countries where labor is cheaper, and costs are lower.

But there’s a new term being heard these days - "Re-Shoring."

Could it be that work is coming home from those distant shores?

Tobias Schoenherr, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, and Tom Harrison, CEO of Michigan Ladder Company based in Ypsilanti, joined us today.

You can listen to the full interview above.