First it was Greenville, where thousands lost jobs when the Electrolux Company decided to move refrigerator manufacturing to Mexico. Then it was Kalamazoo, when drug giant Pfizer decided to close what was left of the Upjohn operation in the summer of 2005.

Most recently, it was Pfizer again, announcing two weeks ago that it was closing its entire two million square-foot research facility in Ann Arbor. Some 2,100 direct jobs are disappearing, together with hundreds more contract and spin-off slots.

That was shocking. Pfizer had looked like solid gold: It was anything but a dying rustbelt dinosaur. Instead, it was a great big company with high-paying, high-tech jobs right in the middle of the state's vaunted life sciences corridor, the most rapidly growing part of Michigan's economic future. Sure, "big pharma's" business model was beginning to show some cracks.

Nor did Pfizer seem to have much in the research pipeline to replace drugs like Zoloft, which lost its patent protection on June 30th.

Some layoffs wouldn't have surprised anyone. But nobody expected Pfizer to close down the whole operation. No wonder Gov. Jennifer Granholm aptly called it "a punch in the gut."

What Pfizer did is what big companies do the world over. Slash costs, close plants, do what's needed to survive.

And who knows whose turn it may be next? Could be a domestic auto maker, if things don't turn up. Could be a big bank. Could be anything.

Nothing and nobody is immune to the twists and turns of today's savagely competitive worldwide economy.

So what lessons can we learn from the experience?

First, when they give you lemons, you better learn how to make lemonade, fast. The folks in Ann Arbor are "galvanized." They are scurrying around figuring how to make new businesses out of ruins of the Pfizer operation. They are trying to find investors and persuade scientists they've got a better chance at home than in some big, faceless research facility somewhere.

Second, beware of depending too much on the big guys. They're wonderful when times are good, everybody's happy and there's no compelling reason to take out the axe.

But times are never always good for any company. And when times turn bad and the axe falls, the pain is enormous. It's far better to have a diversified economy, with a mixture of small and medium-sized companies. That's the real reason the economies of Chicago and Minneapolis are able to ride out the inevitable ups and downs of the business world much more easily than we are.

After all, what's the basic reason Michigan is such an economic pickle right now? It's because we rode the prosperity of the big automobile manufacturing companies for so long we forgot how to diversify. We lost the entrepreneurial drive and capacity to take risks, and got seduced by comfortable dependency on Generous Motors.

And now that the industry's in trouble, we're in bad, bad shape.

Last, every living soul in Michigan should pay close attention to the conclusions of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's Emergency Financial Advisory panel, which released its report last Friday.

The report calls for radical reform that includes structural budget cuts, a revised tax system that aligns with the reality of what has happened to the economy over the past 50 years.

The panel's report calls for cuts in expensive fringes for public employees and -- importantly -- for an end to petty quarrelling and partisan finger-pointing. "Fundamentally," the panel concluded, "Michigan must reform its spending and taxing and must reinvent the way state and local government deliver services to be more efficient and productive."

The commission, which included some of the most distinguished names in Michigan, made it clear:

Sooner or later we've got to figure out what our economic strategy really is. Are we going to be a low-tax, low-service, low-wage state that caters to the bargain basements of the world economy? Or are we going to have a level of state services that requires a certain level of tax support in order to produce a high-wage, high-growth economy?

Our leaders need to learn a lesson that is simple, and true, and not stack deck chairs on the Titanic. But time's run out. We're facing a budget deficit that's pretty close to $3 billion - right now - and we've got to get to a clear, clean conclusion within weeks.

There will be critics - from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce on the right to the labor movement on the left (and a whole lot of folks in between) but overall the conclusions of the emergency panel are sensible, far-reaching, and direct.

They should be put into practice as soon as possible -- and form the core of what will turn out to be nothing less than a debate about the very future of our state.

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Phil Power is a longtime observer of politics, economics and education issues in Michigan. He would be pleased to hear from readers at ppower@hcnnet.com. Phil Power is president of the Center for Michigan. However, these opinions and others expressed in Phil Power's columns are individual opinions and do not in any way represent official policy positions of the Center for Michigan.