The Detroit News says the General Motors bankruptcy filing “is a hammer blow for a state that was already on its knees.” In an editorial, the paper calls for an “emergency response” from government and an entirely new orientation to attracting businesses and jobs to the state:

Longer term, Michigan’s entire focus must be on creating a business climate that makes the state attractive for job creators in a wide range of industries. It can’t afford to focus on any one segment in hopes of finding the next Big Three. Its future will depend on making itself irresistible to investors across the spectrum.

This echoes Sam Gregg’s Detroit mentary “Entrepreneurs Require More Room to Thrive” published on May 12:

Michigan must create an entrepreneur-friendly economy by lowering the cost of doing business for all firms, not just the favored few darlings of the moment. The state’s policymakers have spent decades trying to pick the winners (automation, biotech, green energy) that would rescue the state from its dependency on automotive manufacturing. But policy makers and elected officials do not “create jobs” or industrial sectors — businesses and entrepreneurs do.

Also in today’s News, Oskari Juurikkala writes about the push for greater regulation in financial markets:

Is lighter regulation the solution to economic crises? It depends. Some over-the-counter financial derivatives are practically unregulated, so there is nowhere to cut regulation. It might be more appropriate to cover such clear gaps in existing rules in a principled manner so as not to lead people to the temptation of recklessness.

But a few clear-and-fast rules are often better than numerous rules that are hard to understand — especially if they are poorly enforced, which seems to be the case in financial market regulation.

When designing rules for a game, one must take into account the moral character of the players. But there needs to be adequate variation: General laws designed for crooks will not produce any saints.