Two stories from today's Detroit News tell the story. First, a combination of declining sales and restructuring costs have the Ford Motor Co. saying it will post close to a $9 billion loss this coming year.

Not surprisingly, the other story is that Michigan's unemployment rate ticked up to 7.1% in August, which is 2.4% higher than the national average. The News ominously reports that, "the tick upward is the start of a new round of climbing unemployment rates that will continue until late 2008, economists say."