Michigan is 41st in "Top States for Business"...Why?

In a survey reported by NBC on its Nightly News broadcast this evening, and found here at the cnbc.com website, Virginia and Texas finished as the top two states in the nation for business, based on an analysis of the following ten factors (Michigan's 50-state rank in parentheses):

Cost of Doing Business (31)
Workforce (39)
Quality of Life (40)
Economy (45)
Transportation (20)
Technology & Innovation (7)
Education (34)
Business Friendliness (39)
Access to Capital (10)
Cost of Living (23)

I decided to order these categories in this manner: From those which the government is most obligated to have a role in, to those which the government should least be involved in. Here's what I got* (Michigan rankings still in parentheses):

Economy (45)
Business Friendliness (39)
Cost of Doing Business (31)
Transportation (20)
Education (34)
Workforce (39)
Cost of Living (23)
Quality of Life (40)
Access to Capital (10)
Technology & Innovation (7)

*The ranking is my own subjective interpretation, and I won't be at all offended if you would choose to engage in a little reordering of your own. The data sources are not explicitly noted and consequently, I'm not certain precisely how these rankings were obtained or what precisely they measure...although they seem reasonable.

Do you notice a trend here? If the categories were simply numbered from 1 to 10 (using my order) and a linear correlation were completed, it would be -0.67, implying that the more government involvement, in general, the lower the rating. [Disclaimer: Rigorous statistical analysis would demand more work on my part. This is only an estimate from an estimate.]

Observations, beginning at the top of my list:

The government is inescapably tied to the economy by its policies related to taxation, spending, and legal regulation of economic activity. This is clearly tied to business friendliness and the cost of doing business. Michigan is doing poorly in these categories.

Government—especially at the state level—has responsibilities for transportation (roads, airports, other infrastructure) and for public education. In this survey, however, I suspect that "education" measures the attainments of the populace, which is a collective measure of choices people make. That is why transportation comes ahead of education in my list.

The workforce metric is probably tied to the education metric to some degree, as the overall measure of a workforce is in a large degree tied to its level of education. A large manufacturing sector generally doesn't rate well in this kind of metric.

Cost of living is tied to a variety of factors beyond government, including such things as geography, natural resources, and whether an area is rural or urban.

Quality of life, in my book, is founded primarily on things spiritual and familial—areas which are properly outside the scope of government. Yet, economic issues impact quality of life, so the government has a tangential effect on this. (And if we get Obamacare, it will be a lot more than tangential!)

Access to capital and Technology & Innovation are free-market qualities which, aside from policing illegalities, are usually outside the proper realm of government. Michigan was a top-ten state in both of these areas...and only in these areas.

Notice, by the way, which two categories Michigan finished best in. There is still hope...if we get active and vote!

How did Ohio do? Some interesting observations here.