From this morning’s Toledo Blade:
Investment from resurgent American automakers made big news in 2011, with General Motors and Chrysler announcing multiple large projects in Toledo and northwest Ohio that together total nearly $1 billion and should create or help preserve almost 3,400 jobs.
Promise for the future of manufacturing in northwest Ohio was one of the brights spots in a year that saw many changes to the business landscape in the region.
The big bucks in manufacturing are coming from Chrysler Group LLC. The automaker last year committed $500 million to its Toledo Assembly complex. That investment, which will go toward updating the line that ultimately will build Jeep’s new sport utility vehicle in 2013, will add a second shift to the plant, and lead to more than 1,100 jobs. Chrysler also said it planned to invest $72 million in its Toledo Machining Plant.
General Motors Co. announced plans for two investments totaling $343 million in its Toledo Transmission plant for upgrades and a new line for an upcoming eight-speed transmission. It also plans to pump $47 million into its Defiance Powertrain plant.
“We’re seeing a tremendous amount of capital investment in our traditional manufacturing sector around the automotive industry,” said Ford Weber, president and chief executive officer of the Lucas County Improvement Corporation.
In addition to the automakers and other large-scale manufacturers, Mr. Weber noted suppliers are investing in facilities here, and that’s likely to continue, especially with emphasis on just-in-time delivery.
Because it can’t be repeated often enough, here are a conservative and a libertarian boldly planning political strategy, in 2009:
“The pattern here is pretty clear,” House Minority leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday. “Every time the president makes a so-called tough decision, it’s the American middle class that gets hit the hardest.”
Obama defends his administration as a reluctant and stern savior of an industry that’s vital to the American economy.
Republicans see in GM a chance for their party to come out with a unified message — a confidence grounded in the conservative belief that government involvement in private industry always spells disaster. And GM’s long history of financial problems — even in more prosperous times — also makes Republicans see the company as a big albatross around Obama’s neck.
“This is somewhere in between Baghdad and fixing the flood in Louisiana,” Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said, comparing the GM decision to major stumbles by former President George W. Bush. Obama “has decided to take this over. He now owns it.”
I’ll just repeat this part, because it’s absolutely key to understanding the (alleged) Conservative Soul:
a confidence grounded in the conservative belief that government involvement in private industry always spells disaster
Not facts or numbers, not a basic working knowledge of the NW Ohio manufacturing scene or the US auto industry or a discussion of the relative merits of several possible extraordinary measures we might have taken after a massive implosion of the economy, but belief.
They may as well have told us they were praying for us, that we were “in their thoughts” during this “difficult time”.
Emma
If I know the Obama campaign, there will be ads with auto workers hitting the airwaves at the appropriate time. And also ads that begin: Republicans didn’t want us to save the auto industry. Good times.
kay
@Emma:
Sherrod Brown is going to be moving into an auto plant. Just set it up there :)
Baud
By the end of 2012, Mitt Romney’s new middle name will be “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”
ETA: For those who don’t get the reference.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
kay
@Baud:
Forget Mitt Romney. John Boehner. Republican of Ohio.
He should have to wear that statement on his lapel. Ye Gods but he’s a hack. He’ll say anything.
Baud
@kay: Let’s not fight. We should take both of them down. :)
Ben Cisco (mobile)
NeoConfederates. They didn’t want the domestic auto industry saved, didn’t want bin Laden boxed, didn’t want the middle class to survive, didn’t want one of the “other” in the White House.
__
Long past time for everyone to quit caring what the NeoConfederates wanted, and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.
kay
@Baud:
I can’t even get riled up about Boehner. He (quite literally) reminds me of a whipped dog. He’s just phoning it in.
He hates that job. As a kindness, they should let him go back to lobbying and golfing. Things he was good at.
BO_Bill
Kay is easily led. My estimation is that she is of Germanic descent, and overweight.
BruceFromOhio
Whenever I hear that for whatever reason, I want to punch who ever said it in the kidney.
Senator Sherrod Brown is awesome, and he will acknowledge the appropriate players appropriately.
Davis X. Machina
People forget how divisive the GM bailout in particular was, maybe still is, on the left.
rikyrah
the ads for the DNC write themselves.
BruceFromOhio
@BO_Bill: I feel sorry for your family, especially your mom. What bitter, disappointed people you all are, in my estimation.
Yutsano
@BO_Bill:
Fixteth.
BGinCHI
Your American Taliban at work, Kay.
The only real difference is that the GOP worships the almighty Dollar instead of Allah. They pretend to worship Jesus, but we know who their master is.
If Obama doesn’t clean up in that part of the country people need to have their heads examined.
AlladinsLamp
$1 billion of investments to create or “preserve” 3400 jobs.
So, average $294,000 per job.
I only point this out for comparison to the criticisms of the stimulus, by its’ opponents.
SiubhanDuinne
@BO_Bill:
What the fuck are you on about NOW?
BruceFromOhio
This is what our banksters and 1%’ers don’t see, don’t understand, cannot fathom. There is literally no one who gets left behind in these capital investment scenarios. The 40-hr-week-plus-overtime workers will happily punch the clock. The suppliers and upstream parts makers will do the same. The guys and gals who fix the trucks that deliver the goods are doing what they do – earning a living.
There’s such a serious disconnect between the practical realities and the nimrods who would have every single one of us starving in the fucking street outside the gated communities, it’s beyond politics or belief systems.
cmorenc
The Republicans’ core meme for the 2012 Presidential Campaign, regardless of who their nominee turns out to be, will be that “Obama is a failed President” whose efforts to fix things have been “ineffective” and has only caused the government to run up “tremendous debt” while he’s been in office. ANY FACTUAL REALITY which contradicts these memes will be ignored and even denied by stubborn insistence on presenting an artificial reality constructed for consistency with right-wing ideology and propaganda. Again, they will stubbornly, consistently seek to portray everything in a way consistent with their core meme of Obama as a failed, flailing President; actual facts mean NOTHING to these people as anyone who hasn’t swallowed their kool-aid and who has had the fortitude to bear watching Faux News for even a substantial portion of an hour well-knows.
kay
@Davis X. Machina:
I remember it. It was hotly debated here, on this site, in the comments.
SiubhanDuinne
Sorry everyone.
Note to Self: DNFTT. DNFTT. DNFTT. DNFTT. DNFTT.
BruceFromOhio
@AlladinsLamp: Yeah, that’s quite an average, if you stop there.
Suppliers, plumbers, truck drivers, barbers, mechanics, electricians, the girl at the grocery store checkout ALL benefit from those 3200 jobs and the factory that preserves them. Every dollar spent on capital, parts, supplies, salaries, gets spent and re-spent.
Unless you’re a fucking soulless bankster locking your gold away in the Cayman’s, this is how an economy functions.
Maude
@SiubhanDuinne:
You do it again and I’ll send the counter top inspectors.
BruceFromOhio
@SiubhanDuinne: It was a moment of weakness. I’m … I’m really sorry.
It’s like I need a sponsor. =)
kay
@AlladinsLamp:
That’s not accurate, though. The whole area is auto-industry focused. The whole thing would have gone down, small business, service, all of it. These are jobs with health insurance, so even the health care industry would have been hit. I don’t think there would have been anywhere to hide.
kay
@BruceFromOhio:
Thanks, you said it better.
rikyrah
it’s not just the people who work in the plants.
it’s the people who work for the suppliers.
it’s the people who drive the supplies.
it’s the people who have small businesses that are supported by the people who work in the plants, and the who work for the suppliers.
gwangung
@AlladinsLamp:
Um, what the hell are you trying to say here? It’s not making any sense. Are you trying to compare private investment with the bailout? With the stimulus? What? It’s about as clear as a mud puddle.
Kristine
@BruceFromOhio:
And new businesses open up–lunch stands and shops and service stations and laundromats–and housing prices start to jog upward as more people start to move into the area.
A domino effect that every community wants to experience.
kay
@AlladinsLamp:
And they then all pay taxes, which is public sector jobs….
I really thought we had got past the cost per job calculation, but I guess not.
I mean, just living in the world, does that sound right to you? That “a job” exists in isolation? Just as a practical matter that doesn’t make sense, does it? Your…restaurant, whatever, is part of the big wheel ‘o commerce?
People live in the real world?
Roger Moore
@BruceFromOhio: @kay: @rikyrah:
Isn’t it amazing how the “pro business” right wingers know so little about how businesses and the economy actually work? It’s almost as if “pro business” only means in favor of giving big tax breaks and subsidies to the rich, rather than anything having to do with the economy the rest of us deal with.
BGinCHI
The troll doesn’t understand what an economy is. And that goes all the way to the top: GOP pols and Fox news people don’t know how an economy works.
It works through a partnership between government and private business/industry. There has to be a system in which this is managed and regulated. If not, there can’t be markets. And if too much money is concentrated in too few hands, the economy suffers, since it is based on velocity and movement, not simple formation and capture.
What the government (the Dems) did with the auto industry was make an INVESTMENT. And that then pays off by knocking on in other ways.
You can’t argue with most Republicans about this because they simply do not understand economics. They don’t know what they are talking about.
AlladinsLamp
@gwangung:
My point was, it’s a meaningless number.
BO_Bill
Don’t get me wrong SiubhanDuinne, the German people are very accomplished. The first production jet fighter plane, the Me-262, was produced by Germans. And while the United States takes credit for a space program, in reality it was a bunch of German rocket scientists that were brought over that were the brains behind it. We know that Kay here is a contributor to a fine blog, Balloon Juice. Germans are also known for tasty pastries. In times of peace, they can eat voluminous quantities of them, and sausages.
But Germans are nonetheless predisposed to follow directives coming from government bodies. We need to be honest and open about this.
JPL
@BGinCHI: haha…Does Fox news explain stuff like that? I don’t think so.
Schlemizel
I know the original story was linked here on BJ but it bears repeating even if I don’t have the link (google works but I’m lazy today). More German made cars are sold than American made cars despite German auto workers making twice what American workers do. The problem with American cars is NOT the UAW.
Germans pay higher income taxes than Americans.
The problem with American made cars is NOT taxation
German companies are more regulated than American ones.
Government regulation is NOT a problem for American made cars.
JPL
SiubhanDuinne Now you are being goaded but you can resist.
BGinCHI
@AlladinsLamp: Your point demonstrates that you don’t know what you are talking about.
Spaghetti Lee
@BO_Bill:
What the fuck are you babbling about?
BGinCHI
@BO_Bill: I was really into the Germans until they bombed Pearl Harbor.
Egg Berry
@BO_Bill: Does this guy get banned or what?
BGinCHI
@JPL: They can’t or won’t, same thing. They aren’t interested in economy or economics; they are interested in capital capture, exploitation, and a culture war that privileges the haves over the have-nots, people of color, and anyone who threatens the status quo.
They are barely hiding it these days.
Joel
JETS!
Mark S.
I’m glad to see people challenging Greenwald’s bullshit post from yesterday.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@BGinCHI: I was into Germans until I found out you could still get a beer through the McDonald’s drive through. I envy their living with more adults than we have here.
gwangung
@AlladinsLamp: Your point is stupid and doesn’t make any sense. Just because you don’t understand what’s going doesn’t mean other’s don’t as well.
Try again. Don’t insult our intelligence.
WereBear (itouch)
Belief is a powerful thing; but it has nothing to do with economics.
kay
@BO_Bill:
Bill, I’m not German. I would be okay with it if I were, I think it’s a fine thing to be, but I’m not. Okay? Not German. That’s a “belief” you have, not a fact.
You may now run through all of the other possibilities, but, IMO, you shouldn’t rely so much on ethnic or nation of origin identities/traits, because that’s silly and narrow.
Origuy
If GM and Chrysler had gone down, their suppliers would have gone down as well. That would have meant no suppliers in the US for Ford or the foreign-owned plants in the US. Some of those plants would have closed and moved overseas. Eventually the whole American auto industry would have gone away.
BGinCHI
@kay: You know who else denied being a German?
Hint: Austrian.
Calouste
@Schlemizel:
The problem with American cars is shitty management. For example, how come I see Smart cars and Fiat 500’s driving around in quite decent numbers while Ford has a strong competitor in that segment, the Ka, that has sold millions world wide over the last 15 years but is not sold at all in the States?
AlladinsLamp
It is as meaningless a number as one used by critics of stimulus, as on Fox and Friends, or as by, say, Rep. Gringrey (my Rep), before he shows up at a job site with an oversized “stimulus check.”
kay
@AlladinsLamp:
Well, then, sorry for jumping all over you!
Happy New Year! You didn’t know you were walking into this, I bet. I hope you’re not hungover.
SiubhanDuinne
@BruceFromOhio:
I meant it for me, not you. Maybe we should be No-Troll Buddies.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
I am strong. I am invincible.
SiubhanDuinne
@Maude:
LOLZ
Cain
@Calouste:
Fixed.
kay
@BGinCHI:
I didn’t want to do it, but I felt like it was spinning out of control, and I’d end up rabidly defending my fake-homeland.
God, but BO Bill and I have had stupid exchanges. This is really one of the better ones.
SiubhanDuinne
@BGinCHI:
I wish I could remember exactly how this goes, but there’s a great line to the effect that the Austrians are the cleverest people in history, because they managed to persuade everyone in the world that Hitler was actually German and Beethoven was actually Austrian.
gwangung
@AlladinsLamp: A billion dollars in private investment is meaningless?
It’s STILL doesn’t make sense. It’s STILL a stupid statement. And you still seem like you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, or know what kind of point you want to make.
I’m asking you to clarify and you’re refusing to do so.
Mary Jane
Real world example: a friend in Michigan has worked for an auto seat part manufacturer for 28 years. In 2009 her seniority protected her during a massive layoff but was furloughed for two months. I spoke with her on Christmas, she said they had been working 50-60 hour weeks but was taking some well deserved vacation days off.
BO Bill is funny. I’m of Germanic descent and my well-intentioned friends constantly shove food at me. Naturally thin as a rail.
Search Jimmy the Greek.
Cain
@kay:
I have no idea why you and others engage him. I’ve become quite adapt at using the scroll wheel to scroll past his posts and other people who I know are trolling.
Jay C
Y’know, it may be a bit of piling-on @AlladinsLamp: but hey, let’s pile on some more:
That Chrysler and GM between them are planning to invest $962 million in NW Ohio does NOT mean that they are “spending” “$283,000 per job” (you should check your math, dude) – even from this brief excerpt, it sounds as if the bulk of the funds are going to be spent on capital items: physical-plant upgrades, tooling, machinery, etc.. I’m sure GMs’ and Chryslers’ bean-counters have figured wage costs into the mix as part of the overall budget; but even though (as others have already pointed out), salary expenditures have a multiplier effect on local economies way beyond the direct paychecks of the workforce, viewing an investment plan like this on a “per job” basis is nonsense. And thus, will probably be repeated by Republicans…
carpeduum
“government involvement in private industry always spells disaster [when Republicans are in charge]”
Fixed!
Batocchio
Home run, Kay.
Citizen Alan
@Egg Berry:
He can be pie’d. And is going to be in about 30 seconds.
Allen
Just read this while watching the Marx Brothers and they reminded me of the GOP theme song:
“I don’t know what they have to say,
it makes no difference anyway –
whatever it is, I’m against it!
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I’m against it!
Your proposition may be good,
but let’s have one thing understood –
whatever it is, I’m against it!
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it!
I’m opposed to it.
On general principles I’m opposed to it.
For months before my son was born,
I used to yell from night to morn –
“Whatever it is, I’m against it!”
And I’ve kept yelling since I first commenced it,
“I’m against it!”
Sorry for the lack of originality.
burnspbesq
When the definitive history of the Obama Administration is written, I hope Steve Rattner gets his props.
burnspbesq
@Jay C:
That capex is being spent somewhere. And I’m willing to bet that most of it is being spent in the Midwest. One of the things that US companies are still world-class at is building complex, computer-controlled machine tools. Which means that machine tool companies will be paying overtime, and buying more from their vendors, and so on, and so on. This is where the multiplier effect comes from.
Schlemizel
@Calouste:
Eggs Act Lee.
I read when the new GM tower was built Rodger Smith had controls for the outdoor fountain installed on his desk so he could control the height and what spouts were squirting.
If you want to find out why Michigan is empty read “Here Comes Trouble”. Moore talks about the government sponsored seminar put on by St. Reagan on how to move jobs to Mexico for tax money. Moore, who was an unknown reporter at the time, attended and it led to “Roger and Me”
AlladinsLamp
@kay:
Not hungover; cleaning, cooking, watching the Falcons, cat herding, reading literature for work. Guess I shouldn’t blog post at the same time.
As a Ford Family member (30+ years), I welcome the rebirth of the US auto industry (even GM) and credits to the Obama Adm. for their efforts.
Chris
@Allen:
Another good Marx Bros quote –
“Do you want to be wage slaves? Answer me that.”
“NO!”
“No, of course not. But what’d’you think makes wage slaves? Wages! I don’t want you to be slaves, I want you to be free!”
I saw that movies years and years and years ago, and I thought it was just Groucho being silly as per usual.
Now that I’ve read so many mind-bogglingly stupid economics statements in the “tax cuts increase revenues” and “if you want to help workers take away their rights” range, I’m thinking Groucho was probably quoting verbatim from the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, or whatever its equivalent was in those days.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Kristine:
I call it “bubble up” economics. Inject money at the bottom (i.e., worker level), where it will get spent on goods and services, which supports other jobs. Rising tide lifting all boats and that stuff. Works a helluva lot better than “trickle down”, at least for most of us. Naturally, for the people whose battle cry is “own all the things,” it’s anathema.
arghhh!
Wait a minute. All these tax breaks and abatements that Kasich is doling out to Ohio businesses — isn’t that government involvment in private industry?
I wish someone with some influence would get a newspaper or some such outlet to go through all the deals Kasich has been making. I know for a fact that one company that received a $5 million tax break for buying a building in order to hire 500 more people not only is not hiring (and never intended to) but is about to cut employees and will be moving out of that building less than months after movining in. And now other companies are making noises about large-scale “hirings.”
arghhh!
Moderation? Was it using the K word more than once?!
arghhh!
Oops, meant to say “less than 6 months.”
Canuckistani Tom
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Got it in one. Or as I like to say, the rich are lazy. They get 100 times my salary, but don’t go out and buy 100 times the amount of stuff that I’d buy
Lojasmo
@kay:
a perfect description of racist social retard, b_o bill.
gaz
Initially, I was opposed to the bailout of GM. The reason was pretty a simple one. They hadn’t made a decent car in probably 20 years, and seemed plagued with upper management issues. Just for starters, the company seemed to be chasing SUV sales, and ignoring the competitors much better safety innovations, gas mileage, and quality.
That said, I’m glad I was wrong. The GM bailout is a true success story.
Not only has the company made good on it’s financial obligations to the American people who bailed them out, but they also improved the core of their business substantially. They are in it to make good cars again.
This was definitely a huge win for everyone.
Signed,
a former naysayer.
Happy new year to you all.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@gaz:
I was right there with you; I thought GM and Chrysler were beyond salvation. I’m impressed with how quickly both turned it around.
Roger Moore
@gaz:
Part of the thing about the GM bailout is that there were some obvious bright spots on the horizon at the time. GM had suffered from poor management, but the bailout was predicated on sweeping out the dead wood. Yes, they had suffered from an uninspiring model lineup, but there were clearly some good new models ready to be released. I was certainly less excited about Chrysler, and they haven’t bounced back as nicely as GM did, but I accepted the idea that we needed to back both companies.
There’s also the whole business of the systemic effects of letting them crash. Even Ford strongly supported the bailouts because they wanted to avoid the crushing effects on their supplier networks from so much of the industry cratering. Meanwhile, the people opposed to the bailouts seemed to be motivated primarily by petty concerns, like driving more of the auto industry to their states, opposing anything the President supported, and punishing union businesses. I didn’t think it was a really easy decision, but on the balance it looked like a good gamble at the time.
Linnaeus
@Roger Moore:
If I’m not mistaken, even foreign-owned companies like Toyota (who themselves received aid from their own governments)supported the bailout mainly because of the highly integrated nature of the auto manufacturing supply chain. Parts suppliers often provide parts to more than one manufacturer, and if were a significant loss of business due to bankruptcy of a customer like GM, the other companies couldn’t just step in to take up the slack. Which means those suppliers go under, and some of them are the sole suppliers of key parts that every automaker needs. So production from all of the big manufacturers would be severely crippled or even halted.
I could understand some of the opposition to the automaker bailouts from leftists. I supported it, but understood that it was a less-than-optimal situation. What really disappointed me was the seeming lack of understanding, as Roger Moore puts it, of the systemic effects of the bankruptcies of these companies. Entire regional economies would have been devastated and thousands put out of work, and while I didn’t expect right-wing critics to give a shit, I didn’t see much in the way of a serious alternative coming from left-wing critics.
I should say in the interest of full disclosure that I grew up in a certain automaking state and multiple generations of my family made their living through the auto industry. It put me through school and my dad has a halfway decent retirement after 30+ years in the industry. There was real skin in the game for my family.
gwangung
Not really surprising. Most people are a) very parochial and b) aren’t comfortable with anything more complex than A causes B. The nature of systems creating cascading and rippling effects is just so much arm-waving bullshit to them–if they can’t see it happen in front of their eyes and if it takes more than ten seconds to take effect, they won’t believe it.
JR in WV
@AlladinsLamp:
Well, that stacks up pretty well against just giving the billions of dollars to wall street thieves and getting nothing in return.
Or, alternatively, divide the $294k/job by 30 years (the length of a career), that is $9,800 per year, for jobs yielding more than that just in income taxes, ignoring the effect of jobs in an area multiplying into other jobs serving the new employees.
What’s your point?
RalfW
Good lord, people are stupid and forget EVERYTHING. I just got in an argument with a pro-business friend who said “if GM was so great, wouldn’t the market have lent the money to GM?”
So I had to yell at him that the capital markets were fucked up back then. Can no one remember how close to the total implosion of capitalism we were, lo those 3 ancient years ago?
For fucks sake.
RalfW
I mean seriously. Capitalism should have been cut loose to die.
But the soshulist Kenyan took extraordinary measures to keep it from melting down in a death-spiral liquidity trap.
But that cannot be true, because Republicans are pro-business, and Democrats only love the behemoth government at the expense of free markets.
Any narrative, no matter how true, gets destroyed by the meme police.
Roger Moore
@RalfW:
Because “the market” had just lost so much money making insane loans to people who never should have been allowed close to the mortgages they got that they needed to be bailed out by Uncle Sam. But I guess that would have resulted in the same idiotic CRA bullshit the invisible hand worshipers have been spreading to cover for the market’s hopeless stupidity.
IM
@SiubhanDuinne:
Die Österreicher haben Hitler zum Deutschen und Beethoven zum Wiener gemacht.
I thought for a long time that was an insult, but nowadays I think it is rather an compliment. Exporting and importing just the right people.
dj spellchecka
if i was the obama campaign i’d make an ad that loops that norquist quote, then have the president say, “they wanted me to own it….i’ll be glad to.”
pseudonymous in nc
@Calouste:
How much is the Ka sold for in Europe? How much could it be sold for in the US, given the way the market currently stands? You really don’t get a sense of how small the Ka is by US standards when you see it on European roads without Escalades and Suburbans for comparison.
Ford’s been pretty radical already about introducing Americans to the award-winning cars they make elsewhere: the Fiesta is changing people’s expectations of small cars in the US, and creating a market where people might buy the Ka down the road. GM is a few years behind, but it would have been a terrible mistake to abandon it to economic conditions right in the middle of its transition towards a more unified global model range.
(It’s worth remembering that while GM fucked up by betting the farm on SUVs and gas-guzzlers in the US market, it was done because Americans were collectively in a mood to buy big swaggering vehicles, and because there were policies in place that allowed lawyers to buy Hummers and write them off in their taxes.)