Interesting segment on Larry King Live with Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford last night that I thought would get more attention today:
KING: What about the UAW in all of this?
FORD: Well, the UAW obviously has been our partner through all of this. Have they made mistakes and have we made mistakes? Of course. The UAW has come a long way. I think their leader, Ron Gettelfinger, is an excellent leader and he really understands our business. In this last contract, he gave up a lot. He’s also indicated they’re willing to come to the table to do more. And so for anybody to blame the UAW as the sole reason for this is frankly wrong.
One other thing is, when I look at the people who work in our plants, I don’t think of them as UAW. I think of them as Ford employees, Ford employees who take tremendous pride in building quality and safety into our products. If you ask someone in our plant, where do they work, they say I work at Ford. To me, everybody who works in our plant is part of our extended family.
So the stated position of Ford, the one company that may survive this with or without a bailout, is that the UAW has made concessions and is not the problem. I’d like to hear Bob Corker’s thoughts on that.
On second thought, no, I really wouldn’t.
Also, this Pat Buchanan quote scores an eleven on a scale of awesome:
Be it BMW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi or Hyundai, the South has become a sanctuary for foreign assembly plants, for which Southern states have been paying subsidies.
Fine.
But why this “Let-them-eat-cake!” coldness toward U.S. auto companies? General Motors employs more workers than all these foreign plants combined. And, unlike Mitsubishi, General Motors didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor.
The Moar You Know
Bob Corker is a fucking asshole. If GM fails, the entire supply chain is going down and then guess what happens? Nobody’s gonna be building cars in America, regardless of who owns ’em or how solvent they are.
The Moar You Know
This may be an academic discussion at this point.
Chrysler shutting all operations through January 19.
It gets better!
Chrysler may pull loans to dealers for inventory.
I think we know which one of the "Big Three" is going to die first.
Oh yeah, major props to Pat B. on that one. Pure win.
Karen
Couldn’t you have gone higher on that quote? It deserved more, considering who said it.
Punchy
I propose that if Corker wants to kill off Michigan’s industry, we make TN pay for all the fucking unemployed that will emerge. On second thought, since all they know is whiskey and inbreeding, let’s just keep allowing them their games of "Asshole" and nailing their cousins.
Laura W
That crazy ass Uncle Pat!
You just never know what he’s gonna say.
Or where he’s gonna touch you.
Laura W
@Punchy: Wow. Sorta freaky, our simu-post there.
Dreggas
Buchanan may be a dick on many, many things but IIRC he was one of the loudest on the whole "Buy American" schtick way back when. While it was somewhat of a cover for his general xenophobia he does at least get some things right regarding the American worker…until he’s bashing the unions of course.
Comrade Stuck
It’s way out of Bill Ford’s arena. This is a war on the middle class that wingnuts are immersed in, nothing more or less, and the facts be damned. It’s in the same mold as the Bankruptcy Bill to fix widespread fraud that didn’t exist, and other intitiative as well. Coupled with deregulation for fraud that does exist.
The real force are the Plutocrat Braintrust behind the scenes, desperately clawing for every single dollar to purchase more political punch. A healthy consumer class to fill the demand part of the free market model be damned. They want power for their mullah and it seems the current GOP officeholders are all in for the big push — Oligarchy or Bust.
I know this is a little extreme thinking on my part, but I do think it’s gone beyond wingnuts just looking out for business. And it doesn’t matter if it’s American business, Chinese, Business, Saudi Business or whomever. Green is the Universal color code for these people, and the more of it, the more to grease the political wheels.
Dreggas
oh, and FWIW my gf works at a dealership for one of those foreign auto-makers. They had their hours cut by 8 per week just to avoid laying people off and so they could keep their benefits. They also are having a hard time financing ANYONE let alone getting people in to actually buy cars.
HumboldtBlue
Why is that Buchanan quote such a winner?
Guess what Pat, Mitsubishi didn’t drop napalm on Hanoi and Nissan didn’t provide cluster bombs for American pilots to drop on innocent Iraqis.
Fuck Buchanan, that racist fuck.
Yeah, we need to save those jobs and those companies, but what the fuck Pearl Harbor has to do with this is beyond me, just more xenophobic ranting from an ass clown of a man.
r€nato
The Republicans realize they’ve lost the American voter for the next 20 years and they’ve decided to take the country down with them.
J. Michael Neal
I happen to agree with Bill Ford this time, but I’m sure that’s just an accident. I will once again point out that this is the guy who, ultimately, runs the Detroit Lions.
chopper
give them time.
Joshua Norton
They also get a comparable pay scale to the Big 3 because of the unions. Let UAW go belly up and see how fast the workers at the transplants in the south are earning $8.00 an hour.
random asshole
Has the whole world gone CRAZY?!?
It must have if Pat Buchanan is making sense.
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
Time to slowly merge the Big 3 and make them a lean mean fighting machine. No need for the three anymore. That’s what I hope comes out of this.
As for wages…the Republicans are never happy when the average Joe makes money. They want them to fight for every scrap. I say we do that with Congress. 75% of them work for pay, the rest for free with no benefits. It’s decided at the end of the year based on performance.
Loneoak
Unionized jobs are highly competitive in an open market. But since Republicans and Blue Dogs hate capitalism they insist on subsidizing foreign car companies to the tune of $100K per non-union job. Douche-nozzles, all of them.
Zifnab
Somewhat of a cover? I’m pretty sure his xenophobia and his "Buy America" schtick basically go hand-in-hand.
I won’t shed a tear when the rotted carcass of Chevy finally goes to the vultures even if I’m not thrilled with the unemployment and economic fallout that will follow it. Dinosaurs like that have to die out sooner or later. Recessions just happen to be when this sort of thing happens most often.
Buchanan might be a horse’s ass on racial and immigrant issues, but at least he’s got the balls to call’m as he see’s’m. Southern states have been going "business friendly" for decades, cutting corporations sweetheart deals in exchange for all sorts of political kickbacks and patronages. But the joke is – like in 3rd world China where 8 year olds make toys they could never afford for their counterparts across the Pacific – Southerners make their cars for export because they can’t afford to buy them themselves.
The regressive tax system in the south won’t be able to sustain this shit in the long run. Once they lose their blue state markets, it’ll be interesting to see what the southern blue collar worker thinks of unions, pensions, health care, unemployment insurance, and various other blue state perks.
r€nato
of course not. When the proles are kept busy trying to stay out of the poorhouse, they don’t have time for rabble-rousing.
Tsulagi
Easy. Corker can see cars from his window so he’s an expert on the auto industry. Like Palin with oil or Putin, he knows how their molecules move.
chopper
@random asshole:
ol’ pat makes sense from time to time. although if you say ‘pat buchanan is making sense’ three times in a row it opens a gate into hell, so be careful.
r€nato
zifnab (and others), remember that whenever Buchanan seems to make sense, it’s only because if he praises X, it’s because he hates Y more.
Buchanan hates foreigners more than he hates American union members, so he supports the unions in this instance.
Buchanan hates the Bush family more than he hates Democrats, so he harshes on W.
This is how his brain works.
gopher2b
Where do you think a substantial amount of them will move? I really doubt all the umemployed workers are just going to walk around Michigan for a decade.
Just more evidence of the stupidity of the Southern GOP party.
Face
Corker beat Ford in 2004. Now he’s beating GM in 2008.
wagonjak
Buchanan is one of those good old boy conservative assholes who alternately enrages me with his comments, or makes me chuckle.
Unfortunately there are many more of the former…
Dr. Squid
One wonders how many Southerners still sore over Sherman’s March will respond that Pearl Harbor is ancient history.
LiberalTarian
Wow. Go Pat.
Dr. Squid
@Punchy: Of course, if Corker kills off GM, he’ll kill off the Saturn in his own state. And all those Tennessee employees put out of a job should send their appreciation to Corker, hopefully in the form of bags of flaming crap on his doorstep.
demimondian
@Face: FTW
yeah, right
If allegedly 3 million jobs are on the line, and the UAW goes the way of the dodo, along with a poorly managed, top-heavy manufacturing sector that fell asleep at the switch, then we’re all gonna die? (yawn).
Isn’t it a little more complex?
unless forced by outside pressure (i.e. gas prices, only one choice, available cash) or interior conviction (only buy foriegn/american), a purchasor will buy the best deal/value for a vehicle with given information, time and money.
protection of the UAW – bad.
protection of a lousily run enterprise – bad.
forcing me to buy a shoddy product – bad.
me choosing to buy a shoddy product – my bad.
my government taking over/forcing me to take over a lousily run enterprise – not good, probably bad.
losing the manufacturing ability to make heavy durables – bad.
old factoid to check: aren’t more americans employed in the manufacture/import/care and feeding of foriegn makes than domestic makes?
UAW or no, labor costs are what drives product manufacturing overseas, along with regulations, material availablity, bribery, etc.
if you want to bail out an industry, why not the housing/construction industry? old number batted about was 22-26% of the US workforce is in there somehow – not just hammer-swingers; lumber, trucks, trains, appliances, carpet mills, etc, etc. including a lot of government workers.
Mnemosyne
Oh, there’s still time for rabble-rousing. And once the rabble are finally roused, it never ends well for the aristos, though the oligarchy hates to be reminded of that.
The Grand Panjandrum
If the Big Three go down how great would it be if Carl Levin ran down to the floor of the Senate while Corker’s speaking and punch him in the teeth. The ensuing brawl would be awesome. The Taiwanese, South Korean and Mexican parliaments seem to have these outbreaks regularly. Now that we are on the verge of being a Third World economy it only seems fitting.
Incertus
@Mnemosyne: No kidding. The worst thing that could happen for Republicans would be if they succeed in killing the UAW in the short term, because the economic pain that would ensue would result in a new New Deal that would put the old one to shame. Unemployed people with no hope of finding work have time to organize in other ways.
MattF
Well, Pat is an actual conservative, so he’s right sometimes. It’s those 1930’s vintage opinions that he comes up with that are jarring– But in any case, I’ll give credit to the old bastard when it’s due.
Retief
Is it really neccessary for you to have an ad in the left sidebar suggesting we go listen to Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin discussing their taints?
Brick Oven Bill
People act like the unions have been sold out by their management. This is not correct. A $30/hr job with benefits is a good job. Skilled machine operators in the construction business make in the $15/hr range with little or no benefits.
The unions have been sold out by the government. This has been done in two primary ways.
First, by eliminating tariffs. Tariffs throughout US history were in the 30 percent range until after WWII. This culminated with NAFTA.
Second, by engineering a huge increase is labor supply relative to available jobs through changes in immigration rules (1965) and by embracing illegal immigration.
The goal is to create a Central American democracy. In Central America, a $3/day ($0.37/hr) job is a good job. The rich down there do not pay income taxes, food is instead taxed.
Globalization does not involve raising these people’s standards of living, it has to do with concentrating economic and political power. $30/hr will be a thing of the past for low-skilled labor.
Fencedude
@The Grand Panjandrum:
There were some rousing fistfights in Congress, way back in the day.
I’d say we’re overdue.
Brick Oven Bill
$8/hr wages will also be a thing of the past for low-skilled labor.
KLG
I have voted for two GOPers in a long life. One was a stupid vote for a Senator who made Dan Quayle sound intelligent and is best forgotten. The other was Pat Buchanan in the 1992 Presidential Primary. My main reason for that vote was that it would give me the opportunity to vote against GHW Bush twice in one year. The other was that Crazy Ol’ Pat is right about some things because he is an actual Conservative, as MattF points out.
Go, Pat, Go!!!
Badtux
According to Payscale.com’s pay surveys, the average U.S. GM assembly line worker makes $29/hour ($27/hour base pay, $2/hour overtime and bonuses). The average U.S. Toyota assembly line worker makes $31/hour ($25/hour base pay, $6/hour overtime and bonuses).
The biggest difference in personnel costs between GM and Toyota are retirement costs. Toyota of course has not been here for 30 years yet thus has no retirees. But according to the Harbour Report, even with retiree costs the Big Three pays only pay $606 more per car in labor costs than Toyota. And once the UAW takes retiree health care off the backs of the Big Three in 2011, that goes down to $96/car more in labor costs, most of which is accounted for by the fact that the Big Three’s workers are older and thus their health insurance is more expensive than for Toyota’s younger workers. Unless you want the Big Three to fire their older workers, there’s nothing to be done about that (other than a real single-payer health care plan out of Washington, of course).
So, what about the notion that the UAW bloats up factory payrolls? Well, if they did, that would show up in the payroll-hours-per-car numbers. Except, well, it didn’t. Chrysler and GM actually show up as slightly *more* efficient than Toyota, with fewer payroll hours per car. GM, for example, put 22.19 man-hours of assembly labor into each car last year, while Toyota put 22.36 man-hours of assembly labor into each car. See the graph on page 8 of the above-named report.
So anyhow, clearly the wages of line workers are not the problem with competitiveness and the UAW has nothing to do with it. But admitting this violates the Two Story Outhouse principle where sh*t always flows down to the lowest man on the totem pole (the line workers in this case). The "corporate culture" of the United States cannot assign blame to management and government policies because that violates the hierarchical principal underlying all large organizations, the most sacred of which is "sh*t falls downwards". That is, no executive in American corporate (or governmental) culture today will ever admit that blame lies in flawed management decisions regarding product mix, national policies that give some makes advantages over others, how many cars to produce, etc. That conflicts with the culture of arrogance. Rather, all blame will automatically be passed downward until it reaches the level of people unable to pass the blame further down even if said people have nothing to do with the decisions that led to the current problems — line workers, in the case of Big 3 auto makers.
— Badtux the Auto Penguin
Zifnab
Bullshit. The only job games American companies have been playing has involved record levels of outsourcing. Millions of manufacturing jobs were shuttled off to China or across the border to Mexico every day. NAFTA rules tore down trade barriers so you could make socks in Tijuana at a tenth the price of Walla-Walla Washington.
But folks in Tijuana can’t afford to buy their own socks. Republicans are brutally extra stupid in their short-sightedness. Tear out the middle class – the $30 / hr blue collar worker – and who the hell are you going to sell socks? How many Mexicans are buying X-boxes compared to their American counterparts? How many Indian tech support gurus are wearing Gucci purses or Hot Topic sweaters?
It’s economic death. The center can’t hold. And all those non-union jobs in Tennessee are going to eat themselves alive when the union guys up north stop buying their southern neighbors’ crap. Likewise, all those Mexican sock shops aren’t going to last long when no one can afford to buy any more socks.
Galen West
pat buchanan is teh awesome.
Jon H
But the Wehrmacht drove Ford.
Brick Oven Bill
Zifnab; Real wages for labor have been going down in America. The reason for this is supply and demand. The supply of labor is growing faster than the demand for labor. Thus, lower wages.
It is wrong to blame ‘Republicans’. Both the Democrats and Republicans have been involved in lowering tariffs. This acts to increase the surplus of labor by allowing foreigners to do the work.
Both Democrats and Republicans have been involved in increasing low-skilled immigration. This acts to increase the surplus of labor by surging the domestic labor supply.
The indigenous American worker is the one who takes it on the chin. Many people do not understand the level of poverty in the third world. Men are willing to work for $0.37/hr.
The alternative to economic death is isolationism.
mclaren
You’re a commie. Unions are the finger of Satan on earth. In fact, we need to get rid of not just unions, but those lazy workers. We’ve got to bring back chattel slavery. Bring on the whips, the chains, the thumbscrews…then you’ll see America’s entrepreneurial genius unleashed!
Child slavery…that’s the ticket! You commie pinko body-pierced leftist hippie bastards don’t understand what made America great. 12-year-old girls used to haul carts full of coal out of coal mines in the 1820s instead of horses…that’s the foundation of America’s prospertiy. Not these commie unions, you pinkos.
joe eibl
LET THE OIL COMPANIES FINANCE A BAILOUT WITH THE RECORD PROFITS THEY MADE GOUGING THE ECONOMY
El Kabong
So, let me see if I have this right. The union has always been the bane of the Auotmakers’ existence, costing their shareholders because of unreasonable demands for things like salaries, benefits, etc. I get that.
The automakers hire (lobbyists to hire) congressmen to tilt the playing field away from the union. I get that.
The paid congressmen do all they can to hurt the union. I get that.
The paid congressmen even take steps to hurt the union amidst steps to put the car companies out of business. I don’t get that. What’s the sense of hurting the union if you also hurt the car companies? Who is left to enjoy the pain of the dead union? The dead car companies?
Comrade Stuck
@El Kabong:
I just want to say that I’ve been a big fan of yours since the Quick Draw McGraw days. Carry on.
Mike G
Actually, GM’s Opel plant at Russelsheim in the Ruhr was a major industrial asset for the Third Reich. Maybe that’s why Pat is a supporter.
Jeff
They are now going back in time to blame the Wagner Act, a law passed in 1935.
TenguPhule
We might as well blame General Sherman for burning the South, because obviously he didn’t do a good enough job of it.
Dave Bailey
…YES!!..I finally found 1 REAL American who isn’t just blaming the Detroit 3(BY THE WAY..IT’s ACTUALLY THE US 3 !). IF only Toyota existed, then Eveyone Would Buy a Toyota..But, even if Toyota Built World’s Best Car, there would always be a College ‘know it all’ who buys, let’s see, a Ford "BUG"..Now that there are12-15 car compamys, ALL w/ some sort of their GOVTS. Support, I’m totally amazed Some Quacker-HillBilly-BOys still want to deny 1/2 of all car buyers in AMERICA opportunities to buy 47%-50% of all cars! THAT IS, Ford , GM, and Chrysler!! by the way, Go to the Auto shows in America(not L.A.!) and prove to yourself the TOTAL Superiority of the US 3!! ..Usually at a MUCH lower Price!..EX. 2008 Dodge Charger R/T w/ AWD $30,000 ( I know, A LOT of Monry for MOST OF US!) or,a SUBARU WRXSTI9Or Whatever!) $37,500! TeCharger Probably Smoke the Subie, even w/ the Subies’ 5 passengers!—OOPS! The Subie only can seat 2 comfortably, not 4 or 5!.. Both get approx. 23 mpg on Highwaysm, so screw THE IMPORT! Even if Subaru does love Homosexuals! ( That’s really a weak joke!) Sorry
James
I have no sympathy for the UAW workers. One stated he hasn’t bought Christmas presents this year, because he’s affraid of what Chrysler might do. My wife and I combined don’t earn what one UAW employee earns per hour! She is getting laid off this week, and she’ll file for unemployment and receive whatever the state gives her. I assure you it won’t be 95% of her pay, which is what the laid off UAW workers will receive! I’m for fairer wages, and if the US taxpayer is going to bail out the big three, then we need to lower their wages. If they don’t like it they can look for work elsewhere.
SixStringFanatic
I think poor Dave Bailey will be in bed for a week when he hits the down side of his bipolar cycle.
That or he should lay off the meth before he goes commentin’ on tha intertubes.
John Cole
And the “haves” have you right where they want you- fighting with the other have-nots over the scraps that fall from their table. Christ people are fucking stupid.
Brett
That’s what I like about Pat Buchanan. He may be a crazy old protectionist, isolationist arch-conservative much of the time, but every now and then he just writes some very interesting and though-provoking articles.
Jeff
I wonder how many of those Southern Conservative Senators will give up the state welfare they get from the federal teat since they are driving down wages in blue states which typically pay more in federal taxes than they get back.
Average of data for 2000-2005 (similar if not worse discrepancy since 1981):
Tennessee received $1.24 in Federal Spending Received Per Dollar of Tax Paid
Michigan received $0.88 in Federal Spending Received Per Dollar of Tax Paid
Martin
Good. Nobody should finance a car. Why spend $40,000 for something that will be worth $9,000 after 5 years?
You can say that again.
TenguPhule
The solution for good wages for some and not for others, take them away and make everyone suffer!
Clap harder Tinkerbell!
Joshua Norton
They’re smart enough to have representation at the bargaining table to get them the things that you’re jealous of. Join a union and you won’t have to settle for table scraps either.
Badtux
What is amazing to me is that I laid out the facts here earlier — that Toyota workers actually get MORE per hour than UAW workers, for example, averaging $31/hour vs. $29/hour for UAW workers, and it actually takes FEWER UAW man-hours to build a car than at Toyota’s non-union plants — yet you *still* have idiots blaming the UAW for the Big 3’s problems, despite having actual NUMBERS showing that the UAW is NOT the problem.
Which brings up Badtux’s Rule Of Right-Wing Morons: There is never any fact too obvious for right wing morons to ignore.
— Badtux the "Better idiots, please?" Penguin
Rick Taylor
An article in the LA Times, "Auto bailout’s death seen as a Republican blow at unions."
Hey, it’s the biggest economic crises in this country since the great depression! What a great opportunity to strike a blow against the unions! A few years in the wilderness is not enough. This party needs to die.
Rudi
@J. Michael Neal: Billy Ford is the son of Henry Ford’s brother who was the last Ford to run the company before Billy screwed up Ford. The elder Billy was shut out of ever running Ford Motors, so he took his money and purchased the Detroit Lions, they haven’t won since this clown owned them.Daddy Ford hired Millen and then gave him an extension after being the WORST GM in the NFL. Billy jr wanted Millen’s head years ago, but the old man is faithfull to assholes like Millen and Russ Thomas.
Ford sucks
Billy ousted by relatives
Ford Motors is a public company, but the Ford family controls the direction with special stocks only they own and control.
wolfetone
@James: That argument drives me nuts! Why should people who have negotiated in good faith for what they and the company for which they work feel is a fair wage be paid less because you make less?
If you aren’t happy with your pay, do something about your situation (maybe even, gasp, form a union).
Rick Taylor
And while congress negotiates a tough deal with the Auto companies and the unions, demanding concessions before handing over a bridge loan, 2 trillion dollars have gone to, we don’t know, and we don’t know under what conditions. From Nicholas Von Hoffman at the Nation:
ELTV
I worked for Ford in the late 90’s as part of a management development program and spent a year on the floor of the Michigan Truck Plant, helping build Expeditions and Navigators. I supervised UAW material handlers charged with off-loading trucks and feeding parts to the assembly lines.
The manager-UAW relationship was spectacularly adversarial. There were objectively two teams on the floor – the Ford Employees and the Union Employees – and you played for one or the other. That is, the UAW folks effectively worked for the UAW, not Ford. As a result, every request from a manager, reasonable or not, was perceived as an attempt to unfairly take advantage of the UAW employee, so the just and ethical response was for the UAW employee to resist as much as possible.
In my experience, this misalignment is a much bigger problem than any (alleged) hourly wage disparity. The loss in productivity is staggering.
ksmiami
As I have stated before, my humble opinion is if Obama plays it smart. he needs to give the southern state reps the shiv. No more federal money to red states period since they are all bootstrappy and all. I am sure it won’t have much of an impact -well not really since these lecherous mofos take in more than they give out anyway. Now that we have NC, CO and VA in blue, Obama can preserve his winning coalition by being a complete hardass on these fools.
Kat
Best rant I’ve seen on the auto bailout:
Big Three battle comes down to party politics
Senators carping about tax subsidies should look at plants in their backyard
By Ed Wallace – BusinessWeek
In the ongoing power struggle between Republicans and Democrats, Detroit is the latest, and possibly the bloodiest, battleground. And because it is a battle of ideologies with no apparent connection to pragmatic economic reality, the matter of whether the U.S. auto industry survives takes a backseat to which party gets its way.
That’s because the two parties see the fate of Detroit as a watershed moment, the kind of event that could potentially redraw the political landscape forever. By refusing to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, Republicans see a way to end the last vestiges of unionism in America and the unions’ longtime backing of the Democratic party — a political base the Democrats will fight tooth and claw to save. If neither side can win — if they destroy the American automobile industry in its entirety and if in doing so they set off a chain reaction that turns out to be the last straw for our shaky economic system — they don’t care.
How can that be? Simple party politics. Because if these individuals bring down the American economy by destroying Detroit, they’ll simply walk away from the disaster saying "It was the other guy’s fault."
[…]What’s amazing is that Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) is such a huge critic of using taxpayer money to bail out Detroit. Amazing because the state of Alabama has provided hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to lure foreign auto companies to build factories on its soil.
Of course, when Alabama gave Mercedes-Benz $253 million to build a factory there, or about $168,000 per job created, that was considered a good thing. When Honda considered building a new factory there, that was worth $158 million, and Hyundai’s Southern site choice forced the state to cough up $234 million more. Again, these were considered wise investments because the promise was that they would create more jobs for the chronically underpaid Alabama workforce. However, in the summer of 2003, Mercedes brought in Polish workers on questionable B-1 work visas to expand the factory because they could be paid far less than the local workforce.
So you had Alabama gifting state tax dollars to Mercedes’ factory, only to discover that some of the jobs it created went to much cheaper labor imported from Eastern Europe.
Look at Senator Bob Corker of (R-Tenn.). The former mayor of Chattanooga was one of those responsible for winning the new Volkswagen factory at a cost of $577 million in tax incentives. Moreover, Tennessee got that factory only because Alabama offered the Germans a mere $385 million.
Mississippi paid $284 million for a new Toyota plant; Kia got $324 million from Georgia. Texas had to fork over only $133 million for Toyota’s Tundra plant in San Antonio, while Tennessee gave $197.6 million not for a new Nissan factory but simply so Nissan would move its American headquarters to Nashville. There are other factories — BMW in South Carolina, Nissan in Mississippi, and so on — but you get the point.
more at the link…
Tim Fuller
The listed location of the manufacture on my Mazda Protege is Hiroshima. Think we kinda got even with them for the Pearl Harbor thing.
The bigger question is exactly how much residual radiation did I finance when I bought the thing back in 1998?
BTW, I just happen to be down here in Mississippi where they have thrown so much money at Nissan (and others) it makes my gut wrench. We’ve got a whole ‘nuther brand new plant being ‘idled’ by the recent auto company calamity somewhere in the state. Our gov is looking into damages against the company if they fail to come through on their end of the deal. He’s a Republican so you know he can’t be trusted.
Enjoy.