Who are these louts who dare to raise their snouts to our governor?  According to Walsh, they are the elderly, prison guards, police officers, firefighters, and university professors.  And they are not only squealing, they are also wailing!  Not satisfied with insulting a healthy swipe of Michigan workers, Walsh then throws the always convenient Michael Moore under the bus for having the impudence to write our glorious governor and complain about his new economic plan.

Mr. Walsh’s porcine literary license brings back memories of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Even though I read it nearly 50 years ago (mandatory reading in 8th grade in the Hilltop Jr. High School in Nyack, New York), I still remember the plot. Under a banner of liberty and equality for all, a couple of pigs lead a successful barnyard revolution against a wicked farmer. The revolution works out well for the pigs, but not so well for the other animals. The pigs learn to walk upright, carry whips and wear clothes and end up governing the barnyard with a single phrase: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Ironically, the mouthpiece for the ruling class was named Squealer, and his job was to glorify the elites and to perfume all of their piggish behavior.

I will leave it to my reader to complete the analogies between Squealer and Mr. Walsh; however, I am compelled to comment on Mr. Walsh’s claim that Wall Street has been avoiding Michigan for decades because the productivity of our economy isn’t growing. Obviously, I am not smart as Mr. Walsh because he is a “regional thought leader” but it seems to me that Wall Street does one of two things—it either invests in fast growing economies or it bleeds mature economies to death.

Now Michigan hasn’t had a fast growing economy for decades and as a matter of fact, neither has the United States, which is why Wall Street has abandoned America for China, India, Brazil, etc. In 2012, private capital flowing into emerging markets will total a trillion dollars. And what is the fastest way to identify an emerging market?  The animals, er I mean workers, don’t get paid very much—in 2010 the average manufacturing wage in Beijing was $441 a MONTH.

As for the second Wall Street strategy for making money, it targets mature economies for Ponzi schemes based on loaning people and governments more money than they can afford  and then “rescuing” them with more debt and higher taxes. You have probably read about the Irish “rescue” and the Greek “rescue.”  Think it can’t happen here?  Illinois just rescued itself with a 66% tax increase to pay off its debt.

Needless to say, these “rescues” always have their Squealers, like Bloomberg, CNBC and local rags like the Free Press, to scare people into submission and to exhort them to be more “productive.”  (Note: For a good read on how Wall Street destroys economies, check out Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.)

I don’t know whether Governor Snyder is working for Wall Street or not, but if Michigan cities start going bankrupt and the state forces increases in millage rates and city income taxes to pay off debt or to fund issuance of new debt, you can be pretty sure what side he is working for.