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!”

Wayne State board dysfunction makes case for reform

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.

Howes says meddling shapes MSU coaching search

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.

Iowa's caucus flub should be Michigan's gain

CRED

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.

Whitmer's 'Plan B' undercuts her deal-making cred

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.

Tesla's revenge jolts Detroit Three

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.

Arrival of election year deep sixes trade wars

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.

UAW is hurtling toward a reckoning of its own making

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.

Michigan is shaping up to be the whole ballgame for 2020

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.

Howes says there are no coincidences in politics, business

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.

Howes says new UAW boss has leverage -- if he'll use it

Daniel Howes is columnist and associate business …

Daniel Howes' Weekend Essay

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.

Howes on feds' probe, UAW corruption

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.

Howes on what the General Motors strike ignored

This week, Daniel Howes says Gretchen Whitmer’s budget address helped answer whether Michigan business still has a friend in the governor’s office: not so much. The net effect of her business tax proposals — most of which are unlikely to survive the Republican-controlled Legislature — would be a tap on the economic brakes just as the hometown auto industry’s blistering sales and profit pace is beginning to slow. Credit Whitmer with proving yet again an enduring truth of Michigan politics: it's consistently inconsistent, swinging from one partisan worldview to the other as predictably as crumbling roadways in the freeze-thaw cycle of late-winter Michigan.

On Whitmer and Michigan business

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.

Howes on transnational FCA-PSA deal

This week, Daniel Howes says bipartisan opposition to the rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement is forcing President Donald Trump and his trade team to scramble for votes. The problem: House Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi have precisely zero motivation to give Trump a win on trade amid escalating fights over access to White House documents and witnesses.

Daniel Howes on NAFTA 2.0 reckoning

This week, Daniel Howes says the “goods news” of General Motors Co. finding a potential buyer for its Lordstown Assembly Plant in northeast Ohio is drawing mixed reactions because the potential results could be mixed. Replacing the scale, jobs and payroll of a modern auto plant is next to impossible in an increasingly lean – and non-union – private economy. And the wrenching experience is exacerbated by the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years and economic growth running north of 3 percent.

On General Motors’ Lordstown suitor

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.

The UAW strike of General Motors gets stranger, just won't end

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.

On Michigan's Big Three universities' dysfunction

This week, Daniel Howes says the Ilitch family’s billion-dollar investment in its District Detroit, anchored by Little Caesars Arena, is being dogged by broken promises. Critics, including a new HBO segment, say the owners of Detroit’s Tigers and Red Wings have failed to deliver the residential, retail and restaurant investments promised in exchange for an infusion of taxpayer money. That’s a problem for other current and would-be investors pursuing landmark projects in other parts of town – a problem only the Ilitches can fix.

On broken promises at Little Caesars Arena

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.

Daniel Howes on ‘America’s’ automaker

This week, Daniel Howes says global automakers face a “profit desert” in coming years as spending for the Auto 2.0 spaces of mobility, autonomy and electrification consume vast amounts of capital. But returns on those investments are showing unmistakable signs of declining even as sales in major markets soften and break-even points rise. The trend could have profound implications for Detroit’s automakers, their place in the next-gen automotive hierarchy and future profit-sharing payouts to members of the United Auto Workers.

Automakers face a looming 'profit desert'

This week, Howes says Detroit’s first new auto plant in nearly 30 years is a go, but not without the usual complaining about process and untrustworthy business people. The city’s deal with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV gives city residents first crack at the nearly 5,000 jobs to be created there – and offers yet more evidence that the Motor City is turning a real corner.

Howes on Jeep’s Detroit move

This week, Daniel Howes says signs are growing that Ford Motor Co. is no longer the Rodney Dangerfield of the auto industry – the company that gets no respect. But investor sentiment is changing because reality is changing. The Blue Oval’s global restructuring is taking shape with cutbacks in Europe and South America, greater reliance on its partner in India, salaried workforce reductions in North America. And Ford shares? They’re performing better so far this year than their American peers, including Elon Musk’s Tesla.

Podcast: Howes on Ford getting respect

Escalating trade tensions between the United States and China may be slowing auto sales there, but they’re also exposing the vulnerabilities of Detroit’s automakers in the world’s largest auto market. The net effect could be a reassessment of their collective footprint there, especially as domestic automaker’s claim ever larger chunks of the Chinese market at the expense of foreign players.

On Detroit carmakers' China play

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.

Howes on the UAW scandal and strike

This week, Daniel Howes says federal authorities investigating alleged corruption inside the United Auto Workers are asking some of the same questions a U.S. Senate committee asked 60-plus years ago: are staff donations to their so-called “flower funds” voluntary? And have ranking union officials who control the funds pocketed some of the cash for their own use? If they did, it would confirm one of the worst suspicions on the factory floor: namely, that union leaders are more interested in enriching themselves than enriching members they purport to represent.

Howes on UAW, feds, funds

John Dingell

This week, Daniel Howes says Detroit’s auto industry has lost the best friend in Washington it probably ever had. Congressman John Dingell served in the House of Representatives for 60 years, the longest tenure in American history. He died at 92, but he never forgot where he came from, who his people were, or what industry defined his corner of the country. A friend of Detroit’s automakers, their union members? You bet, and left-wing members of his own Democratic party hated him for it.

Podcast: Howes on Michigan’s John Dingell

This week, Howes says that not since the dark days of bankruptcy a decade ago are contract talks between the United Auto Workers and Detroit’s automakers likely to be as tough as the round beginning next week. It’s not because times are bad. It’s because times are good – a run of profitability and strong sales not seen since the 1960s. Yet change is coming faster than four-year contracts can manage. And that’s an ominous sign for both sides, especially union members seeking certainty.

Looming UAW contract talks look to be tough

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.

Howes on UAW-GM strike’s roots

The Best Multi-Part Documentaries, with documentaries on Obama, Federer vs Nadal, the making of Star Wars, Netflix vs Blockbuster and more. Add episodes you're interested into your queue below!

Best Multi-Part Documentaries

The best podcasts on investing. For anyone interested in the stories in the investing industry, whether it's an interview with Ray Dalio or Ed Thorp to the writer of The Big Short. This topic includes the most fascinating stories from all the best investors. Add episodes you're interested into your queue below!