Posted on 12/13/2008 6:26:05 AM PST by re_tail20
The Other American Auto Industry
Plenty of car makers make a go of it in this country--they're just non-union and not headquartered in Detroit.
West Point, Georgia
Drew Ferguson IV is a 42-year-old dentist whose family has lived in this town, population 3,300, "since God put us here." To be precise, the family arrived eight generations ago. Ferguson went off to the University of Georgia, then on to dental school, after which he came back to West Point. He and his wife, whom he met in college, have four kids. A year ago, Ferguson was elected mayor. "There's a reason I live in West Point," he says. "I love it. There's a sense of place here." No doubt, but West Point is located in what might also be considered the middle of nowhere. It's pinched between I-85 and the Alabama border. Atlanta is a good hour's drive away.
West Point today isn't the same town Ferguson grew up in. Textile company executives used to live here. But when the textile industry collapsed in the 1980s, the victim of foreign competition, they moved away. Thousands of jobs were lost. A few small technology firms took up some of the slack. But the high-tech bust of the late 1990s proved to be another job killer. "We survived without a federal bailout," Ferguson says sarcastically. Now, while much of America wallows in the gloom of a recession, there's great joy in West Point. "West Point will have more economic growth in the next 24 months than anywhere else in the country," Ferguson boasts. And he may be right.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
"A subsidy pays to keep jobs. An incentive pays to bring them. If you're paying to keep them, it means somebody wants to leave."I wish more people would understand.
This is about real people making logical decisions to guarantee their own employment and success. And, leading decent lives in a good place, to boot. This should be required reading for all the out-of-touch politicians in Washington.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article, "Doncha Love Chicago Deep-Bleep Politics"
The Declaration, the Constitution, parts of the Federalist, and America's Owner's Manual, here.
I was looking at a GM car, but now definitely not. That company is already a quasi-Gov’t agency with the UAW in control. I feel now it’s like buying a car from the HUD or the Dept. of the Interior
Let them declare bankruptcy, reorganize, renegotiate their contracts, and start over with an eye to being competitive. Oh, and Washington: IT'S MY FRIGGIN' MONEY, NOT YOURS. NO BAILOUTS!
Toyota is building a new plant in the Tupelo, Ms area. It will produce vehicles in 2010. A $1.3 Billion investment and 2000 jobs.
I wonder this while wondering for yet another year how long our fearless leaders, who couldn't sell spring water to a man dying of thirs, will continue telling dying auto makers how to do their jobs.
Paging Arnie "RINO" Schwarzenegger! Does your steroid laden brain register anything with the above? Hint: the south is mostly red states!
Jobs are not automatic today. They are a commodity that an area needs to purchase. People are finally realizing you need to pay someone to supply jobs for your people.
And then there’s this:
“We don’t have a culture that values union organizing,” says Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi who persuaded Toyota to locate a Prius plant in Blue Springs in northern Mississippi. “Our workers like overtime and pay for performance. They feel like they get a better deal without the union.”
There was an article in the WSJ a couple of weeks ago that described how Ford sent a bunch of consultants to a plant in order to streamline the painting process, and the UAW wouldn't even let them in the door.
It was easier to give in to the unions and buy labor harmony than it would be to take them on and try to overcome what decades of bargaining had given them. Those who were doing the negotiating had cushy upper-level management jobs and weren't about to risk them by taking on the unions. As long as they could pass the escalating costs on to the consumer they were content to live their lives of luxury. As for the unions, they quickly learned management was in no mood for a fight and they could get just about anything they wanted, especially if they took some of it now and rest over a period of years. It was simply a win-win situation for all those involved. But it was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, and like all such schemes, destined to collapse under its own weight.
The chickens are coming home to roost.
How do the Big Three manage to de-unionize their plants?
UAW Death Ping! Good article!
i seriously think this article & those agreeing with it are being overly optimistic. Both foreign & domestic car manufacturers are presently cutting back now.
Come back in a yr or 2 & I’m sure you’ll see that even car plants in the south have closed up shop.
That $577 million incentive will be for naught when they decide now is not the time to expand
hasn’t Honda already annouced cut backs in the south?
Doc Hollywood!
It's been thus as long as I have been alive. This should make opening in some "right to work" state even more attractive.
Isn't it the responsibility of the board of directors to insure, first, company survival, then profit maximization? It's been the fate of so many unions to "require" their members into unemployment. It seems the UAW has had a longer run than most, but its time has come.
It's the UAW that's blind now they killed the goose so no more golden eggs unless they can squeeze a few more out of us taxpayers.
In a word, "arrogance". GM and Ford were still powerhouses at that point in time. While Toyota and Honda were hustling to win US market share, GM and Ford were in denial.
What goes around comes around: Companies like Kia and Hyundai are nipping at Toyota's heels.
I work for a very large US firm that struggled in the early 1990's. My company showed the same traits of arrogance and denial. It took a major restructuring and painful changes to rebound.
GM and Ford are like alcoholics. They have to hit rock bottom before they can recover. The Federal government is like the wife that tries to help the alcoholic, but thereby actually prolongs the disease.
For what it is worth, I think Ford will recover. I think GM is already dead.
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