Despite the tongue clucking at "Michigan", the fact is that many other states are in crisis. Unemployment in California is 10. 5 %, in Nevada 10.1, North Carolina 10.7, Oregon 10.8 and Rhode Island 10.5.
None of these states are perceived at being dependent on the auto industry. Yet, there is no enumeration of their faults.
The moralizing about Michigan "deserving" things smacks of Hoover , and his Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's advice: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate ... It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."
Making a morality tale over destitution and mass unemployment isn't logical or compassionate. It only brings about more factionalism and regionalism, which exacerbates the crisis.