Good economic news from Michigan and elsewhere

I'm in the rare position of being able to report solid news and still indulge my "I can't be all DOOM all the time mood."  Of course, it's all good news from the perspective of Business as Usual, but I'll take good BAU news right now, too.

First, the University of Michigan reported that Consumer confidence improved in April.

ANN ARBOR-Consumer confidence has rebounded to nearly its highest level since 2007, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.

Conducted by the U-M Institute for Social Research since 1946, the surveys monitor consumer attitudes and expectations.

The April level of consumer confidence was just one index-point below the post-recession peak, according to U-M economist Richard Curtin, director of the surveys. The recent gain, he said, was due to much more positive assessment of consumers' current financial situations as well as renewed optimism about the outlook for the national economy during the year ahead.

That's the good news from a nationwide survey.  What about here in Michigan?  Wayne State University reports good news for this part of the state in  Solid economic growth for region continues according to Southeast Michigan Purchasing Managers Index.

DETROIT - The Southeast Michigan Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for April is 53.6. Though that's down slightly from 55.0 in March, it is still indicative of an expanding economy.  A PMI value above 50 generally suggests economic growth.

"The good news is the economy is continuing to come back," said Tim Butler, associate professor of supply chain management at Wayne State's School of Business Administration, who interpreted this month's results.  "That the PMI settled down a bit from March, only demonstrates that the rate of growth is continuing at a steady pace, overall.  Another indicator of an expanding economy is the three-month moving average index, which increased from 51.5 to 52.0," Butler said.

Comments from purchasing managers responding to this month's survey ranged from "Companies continue to hoard cash and postpone capital investments and hiring," to "We are beginning to see our customers finally breaking loose and ordering capital equipment."

It's even better where I live, with the University of Michigan reporting Oakland economy leaving recession in its dust.

ANN ARBOR—Now entering its fifth year of recovery, Oakland County is leaving the 2008-09 recession firmly behind in its rearview mirror.

After bursting out of the recession with more than 65,000 new jobs over the past three years, the Oakland economy will add nearly 43,000 jobs through 2016—11,000 jobs this year, 15,000 next year and 17,000 the year after, say University of Michigan economists. And for the first time since 2003, Oakland's unemployment rate will fall below the national average this year, dropping to 5 percent by 2016.

"We see the continuation of a healthy recovery through 2016, extending its span to seven years, but with the pace of growth moderating a little more this year and accelerating again in the following two years," said economist George Fulton. "Oakland's recovery is supported by an expanding U.S. economy, a recovering local housing sector and increasing vehicle sales, with the Detroit Three fully participating.

"All of this is backed by the county's strong economic fundamentals and forward-looking policy initiatives."

Three years ago, I mocked U of M's forecast for Oakland County in The Business As Usual people are optimistic about Oakland County.  It turns out that the BAU people weren't optimistic enough.  The forecast was for 29,000 jobs over the past three years.  The county added more than twice as many.  As I wrote in October, when I recall I last posted good economic news, "This is great news for Business as Usual.  Too bad these (still) aren't Business as Usual times."  It was still good enough to break out Professor Farnsworth then, so this month's even better news deserves him, too.

Follow over the jump for economic surveys from Florida and Indiana orginally included in the past two Overnight News Digests on Daily Kos, which aren't bad, but aren't as good as the news from Michigan, either.

From baseball to permaculture

Even after Sustainable strawberries and coffee and How farmers can improve the environment, I'm still not done with articles about sustainable farming practices that nourish the planet as well as people.  Here's an article I originally included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (NASA and Super Bowl) back in February from the University of San Diego: Muno: Permaculture Farming is Better Food for Life.

When Kevin Muno wanted to be the best baseball player he possibly could be during championship seasons at the University of San Diego, it wasn’t enough to simply hit, throw and catch a ball. The Torero outfielder (2007-11) knew proper nutrition was essential.

“As an athlete, I was looking to fuel my performance with some of the best nutrition possible,” Muno recalled. “Coach (Rich) Hill did a great job of instilling in us that it wasn’t just about working out, but the nutrition you put into your body made a big impact on how you played on the field.”

He researched different diets, worked with USD’s strength and conditioning staff and learned about the Paleo movement. Muno was educated on grass-fed beef, vegetables, perennial food sources and highly nutritious foods. But what he also gained through this research was a career path for his post-baseball life — farming.

“While I was learning about where the food was coming from, I began to realize that a lot of our food comes from farms very detrimental to our environment,” Muno said. “That’s what led me to farming. This way, I’m combining my passion for nutrition and my longtime love of nature and the outdoors. It just felt right.”

Much to my surprise, I've only mentioned permaculture in this blog twice before, once in 2011 and again in 2012.  It's about time I mentioned it again.

Sustainable strawberries and coffee

I have more on sustainable farming practices than I included in How farmers can improve the environment.  From Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (100% of California in drought) on Daily Kos come these two articles.

First, North Carolina State University presents Strawberry Fields Forever.

North Carolina is the nation’s No. 3 strawberry producer, but many of the state’s berries grow on small plots lacking the acreage to carry out sustainable growing practices like crop rotation. That, combined with constant concerns about soil pathogens and reliance on chemicals to rid plants of ubiquitous pests like spider mites, puts immense pressure on these farms’ long-term health.

Can North Carolina withstand this pressure and keep its top-three status behind fruit and veggie behemoths California and Florida, the top two U.S. strawberry producers?

NC State crop science Ph.D. student Amanda McWhirt is working with fellow university agroecologists, horticulture scientists and entomologists on a National Strawberry Sustainability Initiative research project to implement sustainable soil methods on strawberry farms – methods that won’t blow a hole in farmers’ budgets or overcomplicate their lives.

Next, the University of Texas reports Shade Grown Coffee Shrinking as a Proportion of Global Coffee Production.

AUSTIN, Texas —The proportion of land used to cultivate shade grown coffee, relative to the total land area of coffee cultivation, has fallen by nearly 20 percent globally since 1996, according to a new study by scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and five other institutions.

The study's authors say the global shift toward a more intensive style of coffee farming is probably having a negative effect on the environment, communities and individual farmers.

"The paradox is that there is greater public interest than ever in environmentally friendly coffee, but where coffee production is expanding across the globe, it tends to be very intensive," says Shalene Jha, assistant professor in The University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and lead author of the study published April 16 in the journal BioScience.

Here's to more of our food and drink being grown sustainably.

Examiner.com articles on wolf hunt ban and millage elections

It's time for me to follow up on Wolf hunts and millages with reports from Examiner.com.  First, Michigan's Board of State Canvassers approves second wolf hunting ban proposal.

While voters were going to the polls to decide millage and bond questions Tuesday, Michigan's Board of State Canvassers decided two issues that will affect what will be on the November ballot.

The board certified a second ballot initiative to stop the wolf hunt in the Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  This will join an existing measure that will appear before voters in November.

The commissioners also approved the language for a petition to get a new party, the Independent Non-Affiliation Party of Michigan, on the ballot this November.

So I was right about the wolf hunting initiative and wrong about the petition to put a new party on the ballot.  The latter still may not happen, as it needs 32,261 signatures from registered voters at least 100 signatures each from seven of Michigan's 14 congressional districts to get the party on the ballot this November.  Also, there is the possibility of a pro-hunting measure getting on the ballot or, worse yet, having the legislature approve it, making both anti-hunting initiatives pointless.  That written, that this second proposal will be on the ballot is a small victory for sustainability.

Next, Voters approve Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority millage overwhelmingly.

Voters in Ann Arbor and both the city and township of Ypsilanti overwhelmingly approved a millage increase for the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority (AAATA) Tuesday.

With all precincts reporting in a light turnout of 12.74%, the proposal to increase property taxes 0.7 mill to improve bus service earned 13,949 yes votes (70.69%) to 5,783 no votes (29.31%).

Other millage proposals being voted on in Washtenaw County did not fare as well, as two school millage proposals went down to defeat while one millage was renewed.

The overwhelming approval of the AAATA millage is another blow in favor of sustainability and against austerity.*  On the other hand, the school millages being voted down I find somewhat disappointing.  Stockbridge's would have funded improvements to the buildings and purchased equipment and buses.  Those are probably necessary and the school will have to do without.  On the other hand, Pinckney's would have funded playgrounds and public recreation.  I can see why that would have been turned down.

Follow over the jump for more news on the struggle between sustainability vs. austerity from last night's elections.

Music for Revenge of the Sixth

In addition to the promised reactions to Star Wars VII cast announcement, which will be coming later this week (possibly as late as Saturday), I have one more piece of music for Pyramids in Star Wars--the Star Wars: The Old Republic version of the Imperial March.


Here is the entire track: Domination, The Sith Empire.


Follow over the jump for more music from the Sith Empire on SWTOR.

Wolf hunts and millages

Today is an important day for questions of sustainability vs. austerity here in Michigan.  First, the state Board of Canvassers will be meeting today to decide whether to certify a ballot initiative to stop the wolf hunt in the state.  There is already an intitative that would do that, but the state legislature passed a measure that makes it meaningless unless the law they passed is repealed.  This new ballot measure would do exactly that.  Meanwhile, the pro-hunting forces are trying to get their own measure on the ballot.  This could mean we have three ballot initiatives about wolf hunting this November.  Won't that be fun?

The Board of Canvassers will also be considering whether to give the Independent Non Affiliation Party of Michigan ballot access.  In contrast to the ballot measure about wolf hunting, I suspect they won't approve it.

Today is also an election day for millages.  In addition to the usual school millages, there are two that I'm paying special attention to as questions of sustainability vs. austerity.  In my Examiner.com beat of Washtenaw County, there is a millage to improve service for the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA AKA "The Ride").  I'm not only interested in this professionally, but personally, as I rode "The Ride" regularly for the decade I lived in Ann Arbor.  It was a great bus system then and allowed my family to go from having two cars and driving each one 100 miles a day to having one car and driving it 100 miles a week.*  Of course I'm rooting for it to pass.

The other question is a bond and millage for the Birmingham Public Library, one town over from me in Oakland County.  I'm not covering that for Examiner.com, but I am rooting for that one to pass, too.  Watch the WXYZ video.


Stay tuned for reports on all of these, whether reprinted from Examiner.com or directly on this blog, tonight.

*Of course, moving from Anaheim, California, to Ann Arbor, Michigan, helped.

How farmers can improve the environment

As one could probably tell from my Cinco De Mayo entry, I was in an "I can't be all DOOM all the time mood" this morning.  Three days of bad news was starting to get to me.  So, I think it's time for some good news about how farmers can do things to improve the environment while growing crops.

First, a Michigan State University study shows changes in farming practices could help environmental stability.

By changing row-crop management practices in economically and environmentally stable ways, U.S. farms could contribute to improved water quality, biological diversity, and soil fertility while helping to stabilize the climate, according to an article in the May issue of BioScience.

The article, based on research conducted over 25 years at Michigan State University and the university’s Kellogg Biological Station in southwest Michigan, further reports that Midwest farmers, especially those with large farms, appear willing to change their farming practices to provide these ecosystem services in exchange for payments. And a previously published survey showed that citizens are willing to make such payments for environmental services such as cleaner lakes.

The article is by G. Philip Robertson and six coauthors associated with the MSU Kellogg Biological Station, which is part of the Long Term Ecological Research Network. The research analyzed by Robertson and colleagues investigated the yields and the environmental benefits achievable by growing corn, soybean, and winter wheat under regimes that use one third of the usual amount of fertilizer—or none at all—with “cover crops” fertilizing the fields in winter.

It's not just row crops.  Penn State research reveals true value of cover crops to farmers, environment.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Planting cover crops in rotation between cash crops -- widely agreed to be ecologically beneficial -- is even more valuable than previously thought, according to a team of agronomists, entomologists, agroecologists, horticulturists and biogeochemists from Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

"As society places increasing demands on agricultural land beyond food production to include ecosystem services, we needed a new way to evaluate 'success' in agriculture," said Jason Kaye, professor of biogeochemistry. "This research presents a framework for considering a suite of ecosystem services that could be derived from agricultural land, and how cover crops affect that suite of services.

"Cover cropping is one of the most rapidly growing soil and water conservation strategies in the Chesapeake Bay region and one we are really counting on for future improvements in water quality in the bay. Our analysis shows how the effort to improve water quality with cover crops will affect other ecosystem services that we expect from agricultural land."

Here's to farmers nourishing the planet while raising crops to nourish us.

Cinco De Mayo recipe from Tipsy Bartender

One of the ideas suggested by Nablopomo for May's Nourish theme is sharing recipes.  So to mark today, I'm sharing Tipsy Bartender's recipe for Cinco de Mayo Mexican Flag.

This Cinco de Mayo celebrate with THE MEXICAN FLAG! It's a layered drink loaded with booze! Make it it big batches for all your friends.
...
THE CINCO DE MAYO MEXICAN FLAG
================================
RED LAYER
1 oz. (30ml) Rum
1/2 oz. (15ml) Simple Syrup
1/2 oz. (15ml) Grenadine
1 Cup Strawberries
WHITE LAYER
1 oz. (30ml) White Rum
1/2 oz. (15ml) Coconut Rum
1 Pineapple Slice
1/2 oz. (15ml) Cream of Coconut
1 oz. (30ml) Pineapple Juice
GREEN LAYER
1/4 oz. (7ml) Midori
1/4 oz. (7ml) Coconut Rum
1/4 oz. (7ml) Blue Curacao
1/4 oz. ( 7ml) Spice rum
1/4 oz. (7ml) Bacardi 151
Green Food Coloring (Optional)

Feliz Cinco De Mayo!

Climate change reducing food supply

As if it weren't bad enough that we may be facing a food shortage by 2050 and natural disasters have alreacy caused food shortages, climate change may already be reducing our ability to produce food for the seven billion people already here.  In March, Denise Chow of LiveScience wrote Draft UN Report: Global Warming Could Cost $1.45 Trillion.

The effects of global warming could cost the world $1.45 trillion in economic damages, with the planet's crop production projected to decline up to two percent every decade, according to news coverage of a new UN report.

Last week, North Carolina State University contended that this may be happening this year in the U.S. as Increased Drought Portends Lower Future Midwest Crop Yields.

Increasingly harsh drought conditions in the U.S. Midwest’s Corn Belt may take a serious toll on corn and soybean yields over the next half-century, according to research published today in the journal Science.

Corn yields could drop by 15 to 30 percent, according to the paper’s estimates; soybean yield losses would be less severe.

North Carolina State University’s Roderick Rejesus, associate professor of agricultural and resource economics and a co-author of the Science paper, says that corn and soybean yields show increasing sensitivity to drought, with yields struggling in dry conditions in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana during the 1995 to 2012 study period.

“Yield increases are getting smaller in bad conditions,” Rejesus said. “Agronomic and genetic crop improvements over the years help a lot when growing conditions are good, but have little effect when growing conditions are poor, like during droughts.”

As 'Years of Living Dangerously' is pointing out, climate change is NOW.

Pyramids on Star Wars Day

The Rebel Base on Yavin 4
I concluded Happy Star Wars Day from North Star and NASA by promising "I'll be back with more Star Wars Day entries later, just as I did last year."  It's time to make a down payment on that promise with something light-hearted.

I ran a poll of my readers yesterday about which story I should use for my lead at Overnight News Digest, the latest news about pyramids or Star Wars Day.  It wasn't even close; Star Wars Day got every single vote.  So I compromised.  I used the NASA video I posted last night after Midnight and then the story about pyramids I already had on hand to yield Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Pyramids on Star Wars Day).

Here's the pyramid story from the Washington Post: The surprisingly simple way Egyptians moved massive pyramid stones without modern technology by Terrence McCoy.

Few have traveled to the pyramids of Egypt and not wondered how an ancient civilization without modern technology could have constructed structures so large they can be viewed from space. Some have theorized they were built inside out.

On the flakier side, some say aliens did it.

Perhaps the most confounding mystery of all involves how incredibly large stones made their way to the middle of the desert without massive mechanical assistance. No camel, even the Egyptian kind, is that strong.

It turned out the ancient Egyptians just wet the sand in front of their sleds to keep it from piling up.  It's the same principle that allows the building of sand castles.  Very simple, really.

To tie the two together, I then wrote "To combine the topics of pyramids and Star Wars day, here is a pyramid in Star Wars: The Old Republic."


Welcome to Korriban AKA Evil Space Egypt.  Unfortunately, that's the wrong music for the planet.  This is the right music.

Title: Korriban, The Homeworld
Composed by: Mark Griskey

So, is this, albeit from KOTOR II.


And, yes, there are pyramids in the very first film on Yavin 4, as seen in the first image, but that's a Mayan pyramid, not an Egyptian one, which is what I wanted to go with the story.  Speaking of which, I leave my readers with a better view of the pyramid on Korriban.


As for the connection to my usual theme of decline and collapse in entertainment, all of these pyramids are the relics of a fallen civilization, the original Sith Empire.  As was said of Korriban in KOTOR II, "The call of Korriban is strong, but it is the call of the dead."

I'll be back with reactions to the Star Wars VII cast announcement later this week to complete the rest of the promise and live up to my usual standards for my Sunday evening entertainment-themed entries.