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Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – We Almost Lost Detroit from Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. on Vimeo.

By the time you read this, Detroit leaders may have already reached a deal to avoid a state takeover. Or not. City council was scheduled to meet as of this posting to decide whether to sign a consent agreement with Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s administration.

The agreement could still be blocked in the courts, causing further confusion and panic in a city that’s already had plenty of both. According to state statute, a deal must be signed by midnight Thursday, or the governor will be forced to appoint an emergency manager.

It is against this political and economic backdrop that the Detroit-based electronic indie-pop band Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. has decided to release its latest video for the song “We Almost Lost Detroit.”

As the band writes on its website:

“We Almost Lost Detroit” began for us as an homage to one of the great artists of our time, Gil Scott Heron. We were so affected by its continued relevance as a piece of work some 30+ years later that just simply attempting to reinterpret it as a creative exercise seemed like a good enough idea on its own. While the song was originally penned as a reaction to a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor halfway between Detroit,MI and Toledo,OH, so much of the imagery contained in Gil’s words seemed to ring true with the news of today.

Credit: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

Gil Scott-Heron was a spoken word artist, musician and one of the pioneers of rap. He’s a major figure in the musical and literary history of the city of Detroit. Sadly, he died last year. To hear his original version of “We Almost Lost Detroit,” click here.

You might notice that Scott-Heron’s version is much slower and more soulful than Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.’s version. The song is about a partial nuclear meltdown, after all.

But the boys of DEJJ say they hear something else in the song:

… the spirit of the song that always rang out to us was that it didn’t seem to be about simply pointing out what had gone wrong. The message seemingly was one of progress. About setting things right. Coming together as people and moving forward … So we wanted this video to be about people DOING things in and around the city of Detroit. People who are on the job. People who have moved past “what happened?” and are spending more time saying “lets MAKE things happen”. These are the people who we feel represent the city of Detroit.

And so it is. Given the rhetoric surrounding Detroit’s financial situation, you’d think the city is facing a nuclear catastrophe. But regardless of what happens between now and the deadline for the consent agreement – regardless what happens after that – there will still be Detroiters working hard to make the city better.

The city has lost a lot. But it hasn’t lost that.

The auto industry reported strong sales in March, and for some auto companies, the news was even better.

Buyers at General Motors, Chrysler, Nissan and Hyundai paid record amounts for new vehicles during May, according to True Car.com, which tracks statistics about buying habits.

True Car bases its calculations on transaction prices: the final amount people pay, after incentives, bargaining and trade-ins. The numbers include the whole range of vehicles that the companies sell, such as  cars, sport utilities, pickups, and minivans.

Transaction prices are way up since the beginning of 2010. Take a look at this chart by Meg Cramer of Changing Gears, which shows the industry average and what consumers at major carmakers are paying.

Transaction prices are rising because automakers have aligned their production with customer demand, eliminating the necessity for big incentives, said Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends and insights at True Car.

“The auto manufacturers have found their sweet spot,” Toprak said.

Higher transaction prices are good news for Midwest communities that have car and parts plants, because it generally means steady or increasing sales. If transaction prices were to drop dramatically, it could mean problems for the industry that might translate to production slowdowns or even layoffs.

Overall, consumers paid an average of $30,091 for a vehicle in March, just a little below the record set in November. That’s up $1,977 from a year ago, and up $143 from last month.

At GM, the average transaction last month was $33,289, according to True Car. That’s a big jump for GM compared where it was two summers ago, before it had introduced vehicles like the Chevrolet Cruze and Volt, and while it was still closing some of its factories.

Chrysler’s average transaction price, $29,842, is the latest leap for the company, whose sales essentially stalled when it was dealing with bankruptcy three years ago.

For Nissan, its $28,322 March transaction price is up almost $2,000 in just a year. Nissan is on a sales roll, and has gotten plenty of attention for its electric Leaf.

At Hyundai, buyers are paying less than at the other players, an average of $21,717 in March. But that still puts Hyundai into the $20,000 and up category, after months in which its vehicles sold in the teens of thousands.

If anything, the chart is good news for car dealers and communities, and maybe not such good news for bargain hunting consumers. But, True Car and plenty of other sites on the Web offer car buying tips.

Have you been car shopping recent? What’s been your experience on prices?

Jennifer Knightstep

Jennifer Knightstep was a researcher in the media archives at General Motors until she was laid off in 2008. Her first reaction was fear.

“I panicked for a few minutes, and then I tried to think of what I wanted to do next,” she says. “There’s not a big demand for archivists in Metro Detroit or anywhere else for that matter.”

So instead of trying to get a similar job, Knightstep decided to go in a new direction.

“I thought maybe I should start trying to do what I really wanted to do, which was be a writer.”

When she filed for unemployment, she learned about No Worker Left Behind, a program in Michigan that offered up to $10,000 in tuition for degrees in emerging industries. NWLB was scaled back in 2010 following federal funding cuts.

When most people think about growing fields, freelance writing is not the first job that comes to mind, but Knightstep made it work.

She went back to school and graduated with her associate’s degree in December 2011. She has been working as a freelance writer since November 2009.

“I figured education wouldn’t hurt in my quest to become a writer, so I took advantage of No Worker Left Behind and I started taking college classes,” says Knightstep.

“I had no idea what to expect. To be honest, I was really afraid…I expected to be the oldest person in the room and usually I wasn’t. I expected everything to be difficult and I expected to feel really strange, but it was wonderful, actually,” she says.

Knightstep is now self-employed.

“I’m a freelance writer slash reporter and photographer for a couple of local publications,” she says. ”Last year I finished my first book…and right now I am working on a story for the society of automotive engineers in Detroit.”

For the newly unemployed, she offers this advice: “Take advantage of whatever programs [you] can and be bold from the beginning. The only regret I have is that I spent that couple of weeks being fearful, being timid. I wonder how different things would have been if I was intrepid and bold from the start.”

This story was informed by the Public Insight Network. If you want to learn how to be a part of our network, click here.

Ohio-based Export Now will help sell MIchigan-made products on China's TMall.com. Credit: screenshot from TMall.com

China, as you’ve often heard, is the world’s fastest growing economy, and not just for its low-cost manufacturing. It’s also home to a rapidly growing consumer market. Big American companies like GM, Harley Davidson and Amway have made big bucks selling to Chinese consumers.

But for smaller American companies, breaking into the Chinese market can be difficult, confusing and expensive.

This week, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation announced a new program to help small businesses make that leap. It’s the first program of its kind in the country.

“The program will offer Michigan companies the opportunity to test their products in the China consumer market with limited risk,” MEDC President and CEO Michael A. Finney said in a release.

As part of the program, the MEDC is partnering with Export Now, a private company that specializes in helping businesses export their products to China. A hundred small Michigan companies will get a chance to take part. For them, the program could be a transformative opportunity.

But it’s also a sweet deal for Export Now, which is based in Ohio. And the owner of a Michigan-based export services company hopes he won’t be left behind.

Export Now, which is based in Akron, started in 2010. Its CEO is Frank Lavin, a former ambassador to Singapore and Undersecretary of Commerce for U.S. Trade.

Export Now typically charges clients $3,000 to send over a pallet of products to China. Export Now handles all the logistics, taxes and customs issues. The products are stored in a warehouse and sold on Tmall.com. The site is basically the Chinese version of Amazon. But way bigger.

“E-commerce in China … is about twice as big as a share of the retail market as it is in the U.S.,” Lavin says. “This platform we’re in in China is the largest e-commerce platform in the world.”

Under the agreement with the MEDC, Export Now will cut $1,000 off the cost of its service for selected Michigan businesses. The MEDC will also pay $1,000. So the total cost to Michigan businesses will be $1,000 – a discount of two-thirds off the usual price.

But perhaps the biggest winner in the deal is Export Now. It’s a startup company that only began shipping products to China within the past few months. With its new deal, the MEDC will help recruit up to 100 new clients for Export Now. Right now, Export Now has just 11 clients. The MEDC will also directly pay Export Now up to $100,000. The new clients will bring in another $100,000.

Frank Lavin negotiated this deal that could increase his company’s size almost tenfold, all in exchange for a 33 percent discount on Export Now’s services.

“It sounds like a pretty good deal he has,” says Tim Parker, who’s trying to launch an export service business of his own.

Parker says perhaps the best part of the deal is that the MEDC has sent out press releases, and plans to hold four informational meetings across Michigan.

“Any publicity like that is good,” Parker says. “It’s directly building your business for you, and you’re leveraging others’ resources, so of course it’s a good thing.”

Parker started his export-to-China business last year. Unlike Lavin, he’s actually a Michigan resident. But he says his company might be a few months behind Export Now in the race to get U.S.-made products to China. There’s even been talk of partnering with Export Now.

“I guess in some ways, you could think of it as a competitor,” Parker says. But he says his business will market Michigan-made products directly to retail stores. Export Now only sells on the web.

But still, Parker hopes when the time comes the Michigan Economic Development Corporation will help his company, TS Parker Products, just like it helped Export Now.

MEDC spokesman Michael Shore says he hasn’t heard of Parker products, but he says the agency is open to arrangements with other companies that can help market Michigan-made products abroad.

“Export Now came to us,” Shore says. “I can’t speak to any other companies that exist out there, but given similar capabilities, and qualifications and pricing, I don’t why we wouldn’t consider them as well.”

Detroit's Hotel Pontchartrain. Credit: flickr user femaletrumpet02

For the past few years, the Hotel Pontchartrain in Detroit has stood shuttered and empty, a looming symbol of the city’s better days. But now, the Pontch looks like it is coming back to life, thanks to a Mexican developer.

The Detroit News reported this morning that the 25-story hotel was purchased by Gabriel Ruiz, a Mexican businessman, and that the hotel will become a Crowne Plaza once more.

Bill Bohde, a senior vice president of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the InterContinental Hotels Group, which runs the Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts chain, informed him of the sale last week.

Bohde says he understands the group has an agreement in principle to make it part of the Crowne Plaza chain, and restore it as a 416-room property.

The hotel, nicknamed “the Pontch” by Detroiters, has one of the premium locations in all of downtown, across from the Cobo Convention Center. But it has been shut since 2009, when its air conditioning system failed. 

Built in 1965, the Pontchartrain sits on the same spot as Fort Pontchartrain, the European settlement founded in 1701. Legend has it that Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the city’s founder, disembarked from his canoe on the banks of the Detroit River just south of the hill where the Pontchartrain sits.

In its heyday, the hotel symbolized everything modern about the city and the automobile industry. It had a piano bar, a penthouse nightclub called the Top of the Pontch, and its terrace was the site for numerous outdoor parties with live music.

George W. Bush stayed at the hotel during the 1980 Republican convention, and the reporters who covered his campaign, dubbed the Mournful Pundits, held a party attended by Bush as well as historian Theodore H. White. There once were plans for a second tower, never built.

The Pontch became embroiled in the nation’s savings and loan scandal in 1985, when it was sold to the Crescent Hotel Group, a subsidiary of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. You can read how it became linked to the Keating Five here. 

If the Pontch comes back to life, it would face a challenging hotel market. Once a place with few top-flight rooms, Detroit has seen a flurry of new hotels open in recent years, a number connected to the city’s casinos.

But even the new properties in Detroit average a 60 percent occupancy rate. While they are packed during the North American International Auto Show and special events, they often have a number of vacancies during normal weeks.

Another premier Detroit property, the historic Westin Book-Cadillac, reopened with fanfare in 2009. However, its developer last month failed to make part of his interest payment on a $15 million loan, according to the Detroit News.

A city of Detroit pension fund ended up making the payment to avoid a loan default. Hotel developers often are separate from the companies that operate the properties.

Do you remember the Hotel Pontchartrain? Share your memories with us.

Dow and out Dow Chemical says it will lay off 900 workers and close five factories worldwide. The Detroit Free Press reports the company wouldn’t say if any of those cuts would be in Michigan. Dow is based in Midland, Mich. One of the plants that will close is in Charleston, Ill.

Decision day It’s primary day in Wisconsin. NPR reports Romney is hoping to extend his winning streak in Great Lakes states.

Broken marriage The Federal Trade Commission has blocked a hospital merger deal in the Toledo area.

Fewer people on welfare Partner station WCPN reports Ohio’s welfare rolls dropped 18 percent in one year. One reason is the improving economy. But the station reports that a bigger reason is tighter welfare rules.

Clock is ticking Less than 72 hours remain for Detroit leaders to reach a deal with Lansing to avoid a state takeover.

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JoAnne Jachyra learned about the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program when she was laid off from her IT management job in 2009. TAA is a federal program that funds retraining for workers who lose their jobs to international competition.

Jachyra qualified for the funds and used them to go back to school, something she’s always wanted to do. “Ever since I graduated from Michigan State with a degree in astrophysics I had entertained the idea of becoming a teacher,” says Jachyra. “I had to do a process and say ‘OK well here’s what I want to do, here’s how long it’ll take, here’s how much it’ll cost.’ And part of that is they have a list and they say ‘these are the growing professions that you can get trained in because we feel that you will be able to find a job when you are done with that.’” Teaching was on that list.