Sign of the Times

The top two stories on the local west Michigan news Monday evening were these:

1) General Motors announced that a metal stamping plant near Grand Rapids will close, affecting 1400 employees.

2) United Solar Ovonic announced that they will open a new plant near Battle Creek, adding 700 jobs.

Why is this so symbolic?

-- Both GM and Uni-Solar are based in southeast Michigan.
-- It takes many small companies to replace the economic impact of a few large corporations.

-- The GM plant is a major source of truck parts. Trucks don't sell like they used to.
-- Uni-Solar makes commercial and residential solar panels, which have a nice sales trend.

-- Metal stamping is low-tech no matter how many "robot" contraptions do the work.
-- Solar cell manufacturing, while still manufacturing, is high tech.

-- The average wage of the new Uni-Solar jobs will be $14-15 per hour.
-- The average worker at the GM plant is 50 years old. I couldn't find wage info there but surely it tops $15/hr.

-- WOOD-TV devoted the first 5-10 minutes of their evening broadcast to the GM plant closing.
-- WOOD-TV devoted about 30 seconds of the same newscast to cover the Uni-Solar plant opening.

What does this mean for the future of Michigan? I can see it now...

By 2050 Uni-Solar will be one of the "big three" solar energy companies and Michigan is the solar capital of the world. It's not ironic because global warming has moved the "sun belt" to the Great Lakes region and we don't get much snow anymore. Amanda and I will have long since moved to one of the many condo retirement communities in Vancouver after selling our house a few years prior for $1M, kicking ourselves because it's now worth $10M. People in Silicon Valley can't believe that their houses are worth the same as what they paid for them in 2005.

By 2090 there will be settlements in Earth orbit as well as on the surface of the moon and Mars, where solar is much more efficient; the space transport industry is booming. Michigan lawmakers, under pressure from the solar industry, fight to keep spaceports out of the state. College grads flock to Wasilla, Alaska (population 20 million - the mayor is a regular presidential candidate) to find work in the extra-terrestrial construction industry. 95% of Michigan's 11,000 inland lakes are privately owned by retirees from the USW (United Solar Workers).

By 2130 scientists discover weather-altering technology and in their efforts to "fix" global warming they mis-calculated and Michigan gets snow or rain 340 days a year. Coupled with the development of cold fusion, solar energy is obselete and Michigan's economy begins to crumble. USW workers near retirement are bankrupt; the national bank (private banks never did survive that bailout that we teach schoolkids about) forecloses on those private lakes and sells all of the water in them to Alaska. Because global warming never existed in Alaska the weather fixes weren't funded for them, so the state is now the world's largest desert.

By 2170 Amanda and I are long gone, but we willed our estate to our dogs - by this time dogs and cats are recognized as sentient beings and are given rights of citizenship. One of them decides to start a blog on the TelePathWay - people say it's the biggest thing since the WorldWideWeb - and writes about how Michigan closed one of its last solar factories but opened a new hub for the TPW...