(updated 2-10-09)
Bailout craze of 08’. Where were you? First the banks and investment houses. Now automanufacturors. What’s next, Wendy’s, Home Depot? Where does it end. What gives you the right Detroit Three, to be handed a bailout loan because you don’t know how to properly run a company. The only difference between you and my uncle bert who closed up shop last year, is that you, Detroit employ directly and indirectly so many, some say up to 2.5 million could be lost in 2009, while my cousin bert only employs two.
On the surface it doesn't seem fair. You cant run a business. Tough shit. Fold up shop and try something else, like my nephew Bert. Remember that saying dont quit your day job. Time to quit that day job son.
But there is a compelling arguments against Detroit folding up shop. With our economy in the tank can this country afford to lose a million jobs. With the country’s manufacturing sector pretty much non-existent should we close down our last niche of manufacturing.
These are hard choices. And our congressional leaders and our president are inept, corrupt, and not strong enough to handle issues of such magnitude.
On the surface it appears that the elite class that runs this country is imploding. They cant run companies, they cant run government agencies (katrina), they cant run war (Iraq). They cannot watch over wall street (sec). They forgot how to watch over and protect our airspace (FAA on 9-11). Is the elite class going through a mid life crisis? Is the conservative ideology right that whatever government touches turns to shit. Or have conservatives been waging a battle, letting katrina fail, letting FAA fail, letting the sec fail, in order to prove their point, see we told you, the government cant work, must not be trusted, so lets shrink it down. (small enough to put it in a bathtub and drown it. this last part is something a radical conservative Grover Norquist truly believes.)
If my gut reaction is true, the elite class is imploding. So throwing money at them in wall street or in Detroit is not going to solve core problems. Just like America must look her soul in the mirror and question if her policies overseas is moral, America’s elite must look themselves in the mirror and ask is there ideology, their system of picking only Harvard educated rich kids from the in crowd to run the country, is that the right way to go.
A professor of mine taught me that the upper crust of society must continually call up others from others classes to join the upper crust. For fresh ideas, and a new perspective. Once the upper crust stops doing this they become surrounded by men who think like they do, who have the same experiences, and who all agree on decisions.
I think President W. Bush’s inner circle was a great example of this. After the first few years he was basically surrounded by yes men, who all believed the same things. The result was more disasters than any other presidency, at least in the modern error.
Generals not agreeing with a simple number like how many soldiers it would take to conquer and secure Iraq were fired. Government auditors who didnt agree with the “team” about how much the Medicare Part D Drug bill would cost and had the gaul to talk about it publicly were fired. What ever happened to allowing variety of views? I thought that was democracy? Could it be that for a long time we have not lived in a Democratic nation, or a Republic? Could it be that very powerful men that run this nation hate the notion of Democracy or Republic? It appears that way.
The proof is in the fruit of the tree. I am going to take you to a little area known as Israel right now. I hope not to many Jewish people are reading this. Because even though I am one, most I meet tend to side with the Israeli's and put humanity and morals on the back burner.
Under President W. our theme has been to spread democracy. Yet our actions and our fruit show otherwise. During the early years of president W.’s first term the people of Palestinian territory had a democratic election, I believe their first. Great news right. If you love humanity it was. But the men that run this country did not like the results. The election chose Hamas to run the government ousting the long running PLO organization. So our elite rewarded democracy by cutting off our funding for the Palestinian government. Funding that is like life support to a people who have no jobs, are not allowed to work in Israel, have no food, cannot grow food. These people have nothing and are living in ghettos, they rely on the world for survival and our elites cut that life line off because we didn't like democracy in action.
Our next move was to start funding and arming the PLO and war broke out between the PLO and Hamas. This is the fruit of our tree. After the fighting stopped Israel built a wall around the territory. Today the territory is so closed off and such little food and medical supplies are delivered that many are calling it a humanitarian crisis. Smells like rotten fruit to me.
Or how about the Sudan, in Africa. The government there recently found oil under tribal land in the south of the country. After a few payments to move the people off the land the Sudan government backed by western elites and the oil cartels began arming and funding militias to kill and destroy villages. When that slowed the airforce carried out large air-force strikes on villages. The government of Sudan, in the funniest statement I have ever heard (kinda funny bc the people of Sudan are definitely not laughing), said they are not bombing villages but that the villagers are moving but its because they are nomads, and thats what nomads do. Nice try. Again, more fruit from the tree of western elite cabal.
Iraq. Which had no terrorists there before 9-11. Every piece of evidence used was false. But we have caused so much violence and destruction that we have caused more recruits to join al queda than Osama could ever get on his own. Again, more fruit.
So Detroit. Who is at fault? How can this be solved? Should we just mourn the corpse of the once strong Detroit manufacturing sector. This will be the subject of part two.
Many are blaming the union. They wont make concessions we are told. They make 78 dollars an our we are informed. Or is it a civil war between the northern American autos who have the support of the Democrats vs. the Southern foreign manufacturing plants who have bought off the Republican leaders. I will break this down in a second, but from what i have learned even if Detroit doesn't pay any labor cost at all that will not change the view Americans have of Americans cars. It wont make people buy more of something they dont like. That my friends falls at the feet of management and the board. Americans typcally buy more Japanese because of reliability issues.
UPDATE
Just read an interesting plan in an article written by the documentarian Michael Moore, who began his career reporting on the Detriot auto industry. He is against giving any money to the industry because he thinks it will be flushed down the toilet, and it the companies will still cut thousands of jobs.
1.Just as FDR ordered car manufacturing plants to stop producing cars and begin producing tanks for WWII we should order the car plants to stop producing cars that run primarily on oil,and start building envirnmentally friendly cars, trains, buses, subways, and light rail.
2. Why give GM tens of billions of dollars when you guy buy all the company stock for 3 billion dollars? If your worried about government running the companies, Michael argues there are many qualified men for the job. He also points out this strategy brought success to the national rail system that was crumbling in the 70's. This strategy will not only save detriot, but create national jobs to help jump start our economy.
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