A while back, I listened to a talk radio interview with a couple people representing the state chamber of commerce. The discussion basically gave a laundry list Michigan problems they perceived. Then one of the participants said that she was one of Michigan’s biggest cheer leaders. Knowing what a cheer leader does, I carefully listened for something positive. I never heard a single positive statement – only criticism. I thought to myself, if she’s a cheer leader that would be one depressing game!

Today, politicians believe that they can only get elected by disparaging their district or their home town, county, state and even their own country. I’m suspicious of anyone who tries to get elected by ignoring the positives and focuses on the negatives, trashing everything.

The political races in Michigan right now are so mind-numbing that it’s impossible to avoid nasty commercials or bill boards that are so dishonest I wonder how this could be legal and even worse, “who is buying this crap”? To sort through the facts from fiction I recently subscribed to I subscribed to the “Michigan Truth Squad” at http://michigantruthsquad.com. I find on this site that Michigan is doing much better than politicians have shared. As a matter of fact, this site referred to the Pew Center for the States to rebut claims of one of the Michigan politicians that Michigan is last or almost last in most categories. I was very happy to read that we are doing pretty good. We rate 6th in the country with a B+ grade. The Pew web site says it all. http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/PEW_WebGuides_MI.pdf

I also believe that most, maybe all of our financial problems are due to these negative attitudes about everything in a lame effort to get elected. How many times have you heard the stock market rose or fell because of a speech made by one of our leaders or potential damage from an approaching hurricane or unrest in the middle-east.

Governor Granholm tried to reverse the negative atmosphere in Michigan in the January of 2006 state of the state address by making the statement “in five years you will be blown away”. It was a brave attempt to try to help the people of Michigan to start feeling better about the future. She was selling hope and if we were in an honest atmosphere, things would be better today. However, because politicians are far from honest, she’s taken a lot of criticism for that speech when she was only trying to be a good cheer leader.

It’s been reported that companies are sitting on more money than in the entire history of our country solely because of uncertainty which is ironic because if they all started spending it and hiring, our economy would be in great shape within 6 months.

Think positive!