Daniel Howes' Weekly Essay

This week, Howes says the governance of Wayne State University is so screwed up that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the state's bi-partisan legislative leaders felt compelled to write the trustees a letter. The request? To "make the right decision" and establish a code of conduct or risk the Higher Learning Commission yanking the school's accreditation. It's absurd. The continuing antics, the meddling, the preening for media attention are a screaming billboard to prospective academic talent. The message is: “Don’t come here!” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daniel Howes says Michigan State University's chaotic search for a new football coach demonstrates two things: the Spartans are willing to spend big to try and stay competitive, and the trustees are once again showing zero understanding of the difference between management and governance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Howes says Iowa's Democratic caucus debacle is an opportunity — for Michigan to become a go-first state in presidential politics. Unlike the cornfield capital of America, the home of the Motor City ticks all the boxes today's Democrats theoretically want, even need, to kick off the primary season. Most importantly: the path to the Oval Office runs straight through Michigan, arguably among the most central battleground states. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a former state Senate minority leader, is not living up to her widely touted knack for working with the Legislature. Instead of delivering grand compromises with Republicans, the governor is adopting the unilateral tactics so popular in Washington nowadays — and her $3.5-billion debt-financed plan to repair Michigan's crumbling roads is a prime example. Bipartisan comity in our tribal age is a cruel joke. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Howes says the Silicon Valley automaker, Tesla Inc., is getting its revenge. In one day last week, the company got approval to sell its electric vehicles directly to consumers in Michigan, epicenter of the automotive establishment. And this week, the market value of Tesla topped $100 billion dollars … making it more valuable than General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. -- combined. This new reality should scare Detroit. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says the winding down of President Donald Trump's parallel trade wars signals that an election year is here. Despite impeachment, Trump produced tangible results likely to quicken the country’s economic metabolism in the coming months … which is precisely the point. Racking up wins that buoy the economy … fatten paychecks … and juice stock markets are critical components of Trump’s re-election arguments. Those and your 401(k) balance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says the birthplace of the modern American labor movement is facing a reckoning. Thank a growing cadre of United Auto Workers leaders, including two of the past three presidents. Their scheming and embezzling, alleged and admitted, is pushing the 85-year-old union to the brink of federal oversight. And toward racketeering charges, the tool the feds have long used to fight organized crime. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says President Donald Trump chose Michigan to counter the House impeachment vote because the state is shaping up to be a linchpin in his 2020 re-election effort. The signs are there: NBC News is tracking voter sentiment in and around Grand Rapids; the White House is tracking the votes of the state's Democratic members of Congress; Attorney General William Barr is touting a federal anti-violent crime partnership in Detroit; and Trump is taking his message to the heart of the industrial Midwest — often. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says surreal juxtaposition of Democrats moving ahead with impeachment of President Donald Trump and even as reach agreement with him on a replacement for NAFTA proves there are no coincidences in politics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes say the new president of the United Auto Workers, Rory Gamble, has leverage to drive reform within -- and if he falters, the most likely alternative is federal oversight of the 84-year-old union. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says the antics coming from the boardrooms of the state’s Big Three universities will not change until the way Michigan chooses its trustees does. This is what you get when the over-riding qualification to serve on the boards is surviving the state’s Republican and Democratic nominating conventions. We’re the only state in the nation to elect trustees to its flagship schools on partisan, at-large, statewide ballots. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says the new name for the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot of France should be United Nations Motors. Rarely has the global auto world seen a cultural mash-up like the one announced this week: Jeep SUVs meet Citroën cars. Forget pooling technology spending and rationalizing vehicle architectures. If this transnational merger is going to work, success will ride on the shoulders of its leaders. On their ability to navigate today’s auto industry and prepare for tomorrow’s. On their humility … their creativity … and their cultural patience … in equal measure. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says the United Auto Workers strike against General Motors Co. netted members a healthy set of economics – on pay and bonuses, profit-sharing and continuing Cadillac health-care coverage. But it didn’t repatriate production from Mexico, didn’t reverse plant closings in three states and didn’t seriously address the threat to union jobs posed by electrification of new lineups. That’s a challenge to be confronted by someone else. What a surprise. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Howes says the strange United Auto Workers strike against General Motors Co. is getting stranger in the wake of a tentative agreement. Instead of returning to work pending ratification by Friday, union leaders are keeping members on picket lines as they consider details of a new four-year agreement. And nowhere to be seen or heard from is union President Gary Jones, whose public appearance before the media likely would devolve quickly into embarrassing questions about his implication in the federal investigation into union corruption. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says the United Auto Workers’ fight with General Motors Co. is a battle over dollars and cents pitting radically different visions of the future. And there’s no room for Old Detroit thinking because Old Detroit is dead, or should be, buried by denial, competition and the ignominy of begging Congress and taxpayers for money to avert collapse. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump will freeze Detroit’s automotive agenda in Washington. From trade deals with China, Canada and Mexico to fights over emissions policy, the nation’s capital is likely to be fixated on the political process – and the first casualty, just months from the arrival of an election year, will be policy-making. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says that as United Auto Workers members strike General Motors Co., the union’s rank-and-file and its legion of retirees can thank the leadership’s corruption scandal for opening the political floodgates to the UAW’s traditional adversaries. The tales of greed and self-dealing will be used against UAW organizers … by anti-union Republicans … by right-to-work activists … by cranky union members who feel deceived. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says Detroit’s top two automakers – facing a potential circus surrounding national contract talks with the United Auto Workers – are jostling for position with the public and President Donald Trump. Ford’s claim? To be “America’s auto company,” a label freighted with meaning and subtle digs at rivals rescued a decade ago by American taxpayers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says the federal corruption probe into the United Auto Workers and its joint training centers is heating up just as the union is negotiating new contracts with Detroit’s automakers. That’s a whole lot of not good for a UAW that once prided itself on being America’s, quote, “clean union.” The latest evidence and more than a half dozen convictions suggests that moniker no longer may be justified. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Daniel Howes says there’s growing evidence that southeast Michigan’s auto towns are cool again. Credit the politics of the day, sure. But credit also a growing sense of obligation on the part of a new generation of leaders – and a belief that automakers in the heartland can succeed in an Auto 2.0 world with roots deeply planted in places that delivered the world Auto 1.0 It’s good business. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.