Sunday, November 08, 2009
Business / Economy / Politics / Autos
Daniel Howes is business columnist and associate business editor of The Detroit News. His column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. From 1999 to January 2003, he was based in Germany as The News' European correspondent and automotive columnist, reporting from more than 20 countries on three continents. Before heading to Europe, Howes was senior automotive writer and an investigative and projects reporter on the business desk. He came to Detroit in 1993 from The Roanoke Times in Virginia, where he covered business, politics and higher education. He can be reached at dchowes@detnews.com or through his blog.
More on Daniel Howes
- On media: He is a regular contributor to the Paul W. Smith Show on NewsTalk 760-WJR in Detroit. He appears often on radio and television locally, in the United States and overseas.
- On education: He holds a bachelor's degree in history from the College of Wooster in Ohio, and a master's in international affairs from Columbia University.
- On awards: Winner of multiple International Wheel Awards for column writing; a four-time winner of Northwestern University's Medill award for general markets coverage; and a three-time finalist for the prestigious Gerald Loeb Awards, including an honorable mention for commentary in 2007.
Podcasts
- On the UAW-GM tentative deal
- Why the Chrysler sale means merger was a failure
- Commentary on the return of Ford's Taurus
- On whether Chrysler is a better or worse company than it was nine years ago
- On The President's meeting with CEOs from the U.S. automakers
Resources
- Detroit Renaissance: Structural Reform Agenda (PDF)
- Road to Renaissance Report (PDF)
- University of Michigan Economic Outlook (PDF)
- Michigan Future Inc.: New Agenda for a New Michigan (PDF)
- U-M's Millenium Project: Roadmap to Michigan's Future
- Brookings Institution study: The Vital Center (PDF)
- Michigan Emergency Fiscal Memo
Blog: Business / The Economy / Politics
GM throws Opel sale into reverse, raising transatlantic questions
Guess the Germans didn't get what they wanted after all. Just weeks after the busy-bodies at the European Union questioned the fairness of the German government's bias … Continued
- Detroit chamber offers boost to would-be casinos -- in Ohio
- Testy Ford-UAW contract vote spawns bad info, lame arguments
- Calling Ferdinand Pecora ... a smart reading of '30s history
- Pile another embarrassment on heap: DTW pols pay for support
- Education + reform + new union mindset = less poverty, more $
- So now the guv wants her turn at Big Mitten's budget mess?
- More in Daniel Howes' Blog
- Join the discussion in Daniel Howes' Forum
The Howes Blog Roll
More in The Detroit News blogs
Washington Bureau Blog
Nick Assendelft: Michigan will receive a $363,609 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to make transit buses across the state more fuel-efficient.
The grants were … Continued
Autos: Scott Burgess' Blog
Scott Burgess: Check out this video from the Toyko Motor Show: The LFA has arrived.
… Continued
Nolan Finley's Blog
Nolan Finley: Another fall-out from Lansing's failure to adopt common-sense, money-saving reforms is that our highways will be more dangerous this winter.
The state has told local … Continued
Chrysler is in a race that already started
Time is not on Chrysler's side because the clock clearly favors crosstown rivals Ford and, yes, General Motors -- both of which have killer products in showrooms, right now. - 11/06/2009
Michigan should go for nuclear jobs
Michigan needs to get on the nuclear power train because it's getting ready to leave the station -- and take the jobs with it. - 11/05/2009
Ford's $1 billion profit signals turnaround
In Ford's surprisingly strong third-quarter numbers, there are all sorts of people who could claim vindication. It starts at the top. The simple fact is that Ford wouldn't be poised for a break-out had Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. and the board of directors failed to recruit CEO Alan Mulally three years ago. - 11/03/2009
Arrogant ex-mayor betrays supporters again
Four of Metro Detroit's most powerful business leaders pony up $240,000 to speed Kwame Kilpatrick's exit from the mayor's office. And what do they get in return? - 10/30/2009
United Way needs help of all
Mike Brennan doesn't say it in the direct, we-need-your-help United Way ads running these days on local radio stations. - 10/29/2009
UAW workers may derail Ford's success
Here, in the week before Ford Motor Co. hopes to maybe, sorta' report encouraging third-quarter earnings, a faction of its United Auto Workers membership is on course to torpedo a revised labor agreement. - 10/27/2009
Feds' war on bankers is folly
A government that spends more time lobbing rhetorical grenades at Wall Street and automakers, bankers and insurance execs, media outlets and other critics, is one that isn't laying the ground work for economic stability. - 10/23/2009
Ex-car czar's unsaid views most telling
President Obama's former car czar may be among the more unpopular guys in Detroit, but he shouldn't be -- because Steven Rattner's right. - 10/22/2009
Europe's politics hold up GM's Opel sale
The Germans aren't the only ones hoping to hurdle European Union objections to General Motors Co.'s plans to sell a majority stake in its Adam Opel GmbH unit. - 10/20/2009
State budget faceoff is absurd
The game of political chicken being played in Lansing between Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, is less about juicing the dismal economy than it is political positioning and crafting legacies. - 10/16/2009
GM out to shock American consumer
After years spent back on their figurative heels -- and the past 12 months on their knees -- GM's message-makers are leaning forward again, theoretically together. - 10/15/2009
Ohio gaming tests Detroit boosters
Dan Gilbert, the self-proclaimed Detroiter working big plans for his diverse business empire, remains bullish on his hometown. - 10/13/2009
Detroit supplies ammo for its bad image
Next time someone laments the tiresome fact that Detroit is getting whacked again in public, remember this: We give them so much material. - 10/09/2009
Bing battles a culture of entitlement
No one who draws a paycheck from the city of Detroit -- or wishes they could -- likely will embrace the plan from Mayor Dave Bing's crisis turnaround team, unveiled Wednesday. - 10/08/2009
So far, Fiat leaders fail to impress at Chrysler
Chrysler has been a cash incinerator for the past decade, helped by successive owners whose chief goal ended up being to milk the pentastar for all they could get. Fiat stands to be the third such controlling force until it displays, by its positive actions, that it isn't. - 10/06/2009
What's it gonna take for Michigan to change?
What's it gonna take for Michigan's political class, in both parties, to acknowledge that they repeatedly have failed the people who sent them to Lansing with some expectation that they would do something to earn the salaries we're paying them? - 10/02/2009
Time for GM to overhaul its culture
Starting today, General Motors Co. officially begins the big push to change its slow, risk-averse, bureaucratic culture. - 10/01/2009
MSU sets example in how to lead
The opening of MSU's Detroit Center is a bricks-and-mortar symbol of a deepening commitment to Detroit despite difficult times for both. - 09/29/2009
GM puts focus back on cars
For the first time in a very long time, GM can focus on what they actually build and market instead of health care, labor costs, debt-laden balance sheets, the politics of the recession and myriad other issues that pushed them into bankruptcy. - 09/25/2009
Dillon fits mold for Michigan governor
Andy Dillon, the speaker of the Michigan House, officially is not running for the Democratic nomination to be the next governor. But he ought to be. - 09/24/2009
CCS center proves Detroit can rebuild
The Taubman Center is bricks-and-mortar validation that a few smart politicians, influential business leaders and innovative educators can coalesce around an idea, push through the soggy blanket of negativity nearly smothering southeast Michigan and show how things can work. - 09/22/2009
Lenders recognize American Axle still has value
American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc., so dependent on shrunken General Motors Co.'s production for its revenue, said Thursday it had reached a last-minute accommodation with its lenders to avoid Chapter 11 bankruptcy. - 09/18/2009
Michigan's year of reckoning isn't over
Wall Street is recovering, bonuses are rising again, humbled banks are repaying the feds and the recession is "over," says Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. But the annus horribilis that changed Detroit, the state of Michigan and their hometown auto industry -- forever -- isn't over. - 09/17/2009
Maximum Bob leads GM marketing charge
In his newest gig, General Motors Co.'s favorite septuagenarian, Bob Lutz, is preparing to double spending this year and next on marketing GM vehicles and unleash a flood of new ad campaigns that will be truly revolutionary simply for what they aim to do -- focus on the cars and trucks. - 09/15/2009
Whether Germans like it or not, GM won't be going away
The only question I have about General Motors Co.'s incipient spin-off of its Adam Opel GmbH unit in Germany is this: Are they popping corks on German Sekt or the old Russian equivalent, that sparkling wine from Georgia favored in Soviet times? - 09/11/2009


















