Metroledo

From the Toledo Blade:

Thousands of workers laid off by Michigan’s auto industry as it attempts to restructure pushed the state’s unemployment rate up 1.1 percentage points last month to 15.2 percent, the highest level in 26 years. A year ago, the Michigan jobless rate was 8.1 percent. 

The state’s total number of jobless workers was 740,000, the highest number since 1976 and more than double the figure a year earlier, according to the report yesterday by the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, & Economic Growth.

Via BoingBoing:

Dubai threatens to become an instant ruin, an emblematic hybrid of the worst of both the West and the Middle-East and a dangerous totem for those who would mistakenly interpret this as the de facto product of a secular driven culture.

[Link]

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You’re fired but please keep in touch

Republican Jim Moody announced his candidacy and opened his campaign headquarters today according to a Toledo Free Press article. This announcement follows Democrat Keith Wilkowski’s announcement last week.

So for those of you keeping score at home, the mayoral race in 2009 is shaping up like this:

Michael Ashford (D) - Unknown

Mike Bell (D) - He’s interested(Link)

Opal Covey (I) -She’s in!

Carty Finkbeiner (D) - Unknown (but I’d be shocked if he didn’t)

Larry Kazala (R) - Unknown

Ben Konop (D) - Exploratory committee formed

Jim Moody (R) - Yes

Frank Szollozi (D) - Unknown

Keith Wilkowski (D) - Yes

According to the Toledo Blade, the H. Poll Electric building will be auctioned on January 12th. Located on the corner of Washington & St. Clair across from Fifth Third Field, the property is a prime location for a developer looking to rehab a building in the Warehouse District. Most of St. Clair St. between Monroe and Swan Creek has already been gentrified, leaving potential developers with few properties left to remodel. Given the location of this building and the uncertainty of the real estate market, the auction may serve as a development barometer for downtown.

From the Toledo Blade:

“Owens-Illinois Inc., a Perrysburg glass-container maker, will be making a command reappearance when it is added to the widely watched Standard & Poor’s 500 index next week.

S&P announced yesterday that the suburban Toledo firm, which also is a Fortune 500 company, would rejoin the index, replacing Wachovia Corp., a West Coast bank that is being acquired by Wells Fargo & Co.”

…

“O-I, which will join the index after trading closes Dec. 31, was one of the original S&P 500 when the index began on March 4, 1957. The firm has the rare distinction of being kicked off twice - in 1987 when it was taken over by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., and in 2000, nine years after it went public again, when its stock hit a low of $2.50 a share.”

Link

Boo! First Solar’s peek at 2009

The economy may be all trick and no treat, but you wouldn’t know it from First Solar, one of the few public solar cell makers and thus a bellwether for the industry. This week the Tempe, Ariz.-based company reported solid third-quarter earnings and unveiled two deals that mark a big expansion in the U.S. market.