Love Letter

Townhall.com ^ | February 23, 2013 | Charles Payne

[Kaslin]

There have been many wonderful letters written through time on a number of topics including love (Napoleon, Beethoven and Lewis Caroll), fatherly advice (Reagan and Fitzgerald), and condolence; perhaps none better than Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby, but my favorite letter of indignation, honesty, and dire warning came this week from the CEO of Titan (TWI) to the industry minister of France.

On January 31 of this year, Goodyear Tire made the decison to close its sprawling commerical and farm tire plant in north France. The company in fact decided to bolt Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. It simply became too expensive.  In fact, the company lost $74.0 million in the fourth quarter on the plant and $230.0 million for the year. Although the company clearly cannot afford to operate the 54 year old plant, which has capacity to make 6 million units a year but eked out only 1.3 million in 2012, it still has to wait for approval to exit from the European Central Works Council. In the meantime, France has been scrambling for a savior. That took them to Titan, which is an American success story of a comapny that began in 1890 making wheels for wagons and farm implentments.

The letter from CEO Maurice "The Grizz" Taylor hit on so many things that all Americans should understand.

France has boxed itself into a corner. It's a giant social welfare state that only knows one solution, higher taxes, and that is obviosly backfiring. The notion we are looking to hike taxes more in America is appaluing. It's not an economic measure but a punitive one.

China is having its way with France, which coupled with so many regulations and high taxes has crushed its industry's might. In fact, its symbol of industrial expertise, Michlin, is now in danger of not being able to generate domestic jobs.

It was Titan that forced the US government to act against unfair advantages of China, and yet tariffs collected by the government stay with the government. What would the government do with taxes on emmissions? What about a carbon tax that increases our energy bills? What did the government do with the money paid back by AIG and Goldman Sachs? All of these great things for the public never put money into the pockets of the public, and take my word for it, there will be taxes on fracking and natural gas production to make alternatives more compeitive but mostly to fund this gargantuan government.

Union greed run amok can destory and become so belligerent as to chase away would-be saviors whether we're talking Hostess or the jobs of 1,173 tire workers in northern France.

I hope this letter makes the rounds and people see it for what it really is-a love letter. A love for capitalism, success, and achievement.

[yldstrk]

love it!

[yldstrk]

oh except for his “I and Titan” which shows he is self involved and selfish to some extent. It is properly “Titan and I”

[RoosterRedux]

Great article, but Charles needs to run a spell check before its submission to Townhall.

He's better than that.

[Kaslin]

You mean the letter by Maurice M. Taylor, jr to Mr Montebourg?

You are correct it should be Titan and I, but then I don't think schools teach that. BTW I am a naturalized citizen and was educated in Germany. Our teachers corrected us when we put I (ich) first in a sentence with a donkey (or Jackass) names itself first instead last

[yldstrk]

Oh, well they taught it when I was in school and I have an English degree..........good for your teacher

[Kaslin]

I assume you meant Michlin? Maybe he doesn’t have spell check or was in a hurry to get the column submitted?

[Kaslin]

I grinch when I hear someone say for example " Me and my buddies..." If they would only listen they should hear how dumb that sounds. The correct statement would be "My buddies and I". Or when I should be used they use the word 'myself'

I am sure you know what I mean.

[yldstrk]

well it depends on what is going on in the sentence, if it is: “She fed me” then the correct sentence would be “she fed my buddies and me”, if it is “I fed her” then it is “My buddies and I fed her”..............see?

[RoosterRedux]

Here are some of his misspellings...

commerical, decison, comapny, implentments, obviosly, appaluing, compeitive, destory.

Jost appaluing.;-)

[CaptainAmiigaf]

We’ve got an American businessman lecturing the French on the basic “facts of economic life” and this is degenerating into a GRAMMAR LESSON abowt INGLESH.
This is two importent too waist tyme on.

[Bryan]

My guess is that it's a rough translation from French. An excellent letter -- and it hits all the right talking points with a baseball bat.

[Graybeard58]

I know you cringe when you hear, "just between you and I".

[Kaslin]

You bet I do. It doesn’t even sound right. It should be “just between you and myself”

[dforest]

Seems like Townhall should have paid attention and read the article to proof for errors.