This is certainly a fortuitous time to revisit the Auto Bailout that is still such a relevant political topic today. From my original post of December 2, 2008:
Still
not sure about the bailout idea for Detroit? See who supports letting the
Big Three Automakers die and you’ll find they are the "Supply Side/Free
Market Republicans" (which is a clever way of saying: "Type-A
personalities who would be otherwise antisocial if it weren’t for the fact that
they control all of the money that then forces all of the people in the world
to talk to them." All the more reason we should be suspicious of
letting Detroit die (which last time I checked, Detroit has been on life
support for 30 years now). If anything, Detroit is the very model for why
the Republicans are wrong now, and have been wrong all along. Labor
didn’t kill the auto industry just because it expects the decent wages and
benefits that every single one of us wants and works for. The citizens of
Detroit didn’t kill the auto industry in their hopes and skepticism for a
successful professional sports franchise in the city. Consumers didn’t
kill the auto industry that continued to manufacture fuel inefficient vehicles
when gas prices were always at a “reasonable level of acceptable
robbery”.
So
what is killing Detroit? Answer: selfish, egotistically motivated
money-grubbing. That’s the cause of the near destruction of a major
metropolis and its communities and as a result: its most celebrated
industry. With what is called “sound business practices”, the automakers
do whatever is simple in order to cut costs and generate profit: ship jobs
overseas or across the borders to Canada or Mexico; display an unwillingness to
manufacture quality because it costs money and depresses profits; foist
inflexibility as a sign of trademarking tradition and celebrating the ghosts of
yesteryear (whether it deserves it or not). But business is what kills
business because it’s merely a civilized reenactment of what is otherwise an
instinctual will to survive. It’s lame, really. There are no
animals to be skinned, or rocks to be struck together, or herds to be followed,
or tribes to be warred against for the most part. So Business suits-up
and plays in bastardized scenarios where you can do all of these things
symbolically and with a fake sense of fulfillment, all in some gauzy attempt to
feed some hunger that is supposedly primeval. Instead of sharp sticks and
brawn, it’s all done with dollars and takeovers and “hard decisions” that
replace a sense of empathy with the exalted sense of privilege.
Quite
frankly: I'm not willing to let Detroit die. I'm not willing to let
Michigan get hurt - and no, I'm not from Michigan and have no ties there.
It's about god damned time that someone came along and turned Detroit back into
a place of purpose and the shining beacon it once was (and quite frankly: any
place that gave the world the '57 Chevy and Motown, deserves not only to be
saved, but gilded in gold!).
Here's
the way I think we can solve the situation:
Step
1. Implement the Detroit bailout. We (the tax payer) get first
position. We put the money in, we'll get it back out – and with frosting.
Step
2. The Big Three will retool and make the cars of the future (especially if it
means we finally get the flying cars that we've been promised since the
1950's!). I know this isn't a wave of a wand, but retooling means people
doing a job to retool a place so that more people can then do more jobs once
it’s retooled. Innovate, Innovate, Innovate! Give us the
radical, the scientific, hell, even the hair-brained ideas whether they're
engineering, business, environmental, what have you. Partner with the
education sector to generate these minds and these ideas and get them
implemented for the sake of the planet and its inhabitants, especially those
inhabitants who will be building the very implements that will help save that
planet and its inhabitants. Put people back to work and let's make
something again in this country. Let’s make something we can all be proud
of again. Let’s be known not only as the nation that invented the
mass-produced must-haves, but let’s deserve that continuing sense of awe from
other countries. This can be one of our new New Deal National Work
Programs. It’s time for a revamp or a reboot or a re-whatever that gets
the US back as the leader of smarts in the world. This is the perfect
time to not only get people working again, but to get them working on so many
of the projects that will prove transformational to our environment as well as
our economy.
Step
3. Force insurance and financial companies to keep health and benefits packages
for workers at a super negotiated fixed price in order to keep costs down and
reasonable. Hell, while you’re at it: give the workers a piece of the
company. They're tax payers too so they'll own part of it like the rest
of us, but give them an even bigger stake in the company since they'll be
working in it. If the company kicks ass as a result of their work, then
they'll know it and feel it! The companies will have worker
loyalty. They’ll have superior quality. They’ll have superior
product. They’ll have consumer loyalty. I’ll admit, I glazed over
when it came to Economics back in college, so I may be totally off base, but
all these things at least sound like good economical thingies.
Step
4. Tie the auto bailout to the financial bailout since the god damned money
that was supposed to unfreeze the banking industry isn't unfreezing a
frick-diddling thing! And really, what the hell pool of non-existent
money this comes from is irrelevant. We’re all going to be paying for it
for generations! And, by the way, where the hell is our money that we
already gave to the financial sector? I’d ask Hank, but he doesn’t seem
to know. Honestly, I'd much rather know that the bailout money is being
actively infused to get stuff moving rather than having that money just sit in
all these theoretical vaults. I know about theoretical vaults. I
have theoretical vaults. Mine just happen to be over-brimming with video
games, nude women, tropical beaches, pizza, and sleep (not necessarily in that
order). Look, we gave a handout to a bunch of banks because they were
crying. We did it because we thought it would result in them liking us
better. We were wrong. They still hate us and in fact decided that
they’d charge us a fee for cashing an out of town check. We (and I mean
the Government since there is still some silly notion in this country that the
government is actually us collectively) should force, in no uncertain terms,
the banking industry to unleash money into the markets. If they won't do
it because they're eyeing a smaller bank or shoring up some kind of reserves,
then the money gets returned with interest along with an immediate apology for
wasting our time. And if we could watch the offending CEO get hit in the
nards on TV, that would be cool too.
Step
5. Big Three management gets paid a working wage or takes the Dollar Value Menu
route just proposed on Capital Hill. No bonuses. No golden
parachutes. No huge salaries. If they don't like it, then they can
get a job lobbying the GOP. There are plenty of people who will take
their jobs as leaders of their companies (and the irony is that this is the
very same lame-ass scare tactic that management and business have been planting
into the minds of labor since the beginning of business).
Step
6. Finally, and most importantly: Shut the fuck up! No, not you
guys. I'm speaking to the vaunted Republican "business minded” out
there. Your prowess as a warrior race in the pseudo-fictitious wilderness
of business and economics is truly admirable… if this was World of
Warcraft. But this is real life. And in real life there are actual
living, breathing, people who work for a living, and some of them have to, you
know, get off their asses and do something of consequence like: feed their
families, pay their bills, and share a collective fear of what happens after
High School Musical moves into a possible four year post secondary education
movie stent (never mind the fact that most of these real life people don’t know
how they’re going to pay for their own children’s education, let alone endure
four years of pretty, semi-sexually charged young people gyrating their
cluelessness toward graduate school!) Look, business shitheads, we don't
fucking like your “To hell with ‘em, let ‘em bleed!” approach to
humanity. You’re confusing your ass with a hole in the ground if the only
contributions you can make are endlessly referencing mystical widgets in some
self-serving conversation. The system is broke. It's fucked
up. In fact, you guys fucked it up. It's all kinds of fucked
up. Now, we're going to clean it up. All of us. And you're
going to do your part and then, one day when it is all over, you're going to
look at something you helped to save. Sure, you almost killed it along
with the entire world’s economy, and you damned near severed the artery of an
entire generation of workers and potentially the futures of their children as
well, but you'll feel loads better when you've redeemed yourself and can say:
"I did something right!"
