Jackson Jambalaya

Well, well, well, the pro-UAW, pro-bailout crowd has been out in full force lately in the local media bashing our representatives for opposing shoveling more money to the Big 3 without requiring major changes in the way they do business.


First up is a letter to the editor written by a Mr. Larry Hice published in today's Clarion-Ledger:

The hypocrisy of the Republican U.S. senators from your great state and others should be of grave concern.

In the states of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia alone, more than $2 billion in taxpayer funds has gone to companies whose profits ultimately flow to Japan, Korea, and Germany. Yet, when it came time to consider assisting American manufacturers, these elected officials turned a deaf ear.
I am not a union man, but I respect what unions have been able to do for their members and this country. The unions never "took" anything. They earned their wages and benefits through negotiation.

Your elected senators should be seeking to raise the standard of living for the citizens of their states as opposed to demanding that it be lowered for the men and women of the United Auto Workers. If "parity" is so important, then why are your senators not demanding that foreign auto makers meet the wages and benefits provided to UAW workers?

These senators make pompous speeches about not interfering with "natural market forces," and then try and dictate salary and wages to everyday Americans. Where were their speeches during the $700 billion bailout for Wall Street investors or the $138 billion give-away to AIG? Those were bailouts; this is a loan.
 
These senators lack the moral courage, the intelligence and the experience to negotiate in good faith with either the UAW or "Big 3" leadership. Instead, they resort to legislative blackmail and populous posturing.

Your citizens are not immune to legislative blackmail. Please act now and remember these self-serving hypocrites the next time they ask for your vote.

Larry Hice
Oakland Township, Mich."

Strong stuff, almost Kingfish-like in its venom. Strong words such as these demand a strong response. Mr. Hice is more than likely a GM Manager as a recent search on Yahoo shows:

Oct. 19, 1999 - General Motors Corporation announced today it raised $710,250 through a new vehicle sales program designed to benefit the Oklahoma and Kansas communities struck by tornadoes last May. Larry Hice, GM general manager, South Central region, presented the American Red Cross of Central Oklahoma with the donation at the GM assembly plant in Oklahoma City today....

So much for full disclosure or fact-checking by our newspaper. However, that is small potatoes compared to his bigger whopper about how the poor ole Big 3 can't compete because backwards Southern states give SO much money to foreigners. Unfortunately for Mr. Hice, last month I documented how NORTHERN states gave nearly $1.5 BILLION in tax breaks and other goodies to the Big 3 with MICHIGAN alone, his state he claims as his home, giving nearly ONE BILLION DOLLARS to Detroit. Of course, when its the North doing it, its ok, when its the South doing it, its hypocrisy. Seems the only hypocrite here is Mr. Hice of Mee-chigan. See post

Next up on deck is Mr. Joe Atkins, a Professor of Journalism at Ole Miss and a long-time union advocate. Mr. Atkins stays true to form in his Clarion-Ledger column as he picks up where Mr. Hice left off:

"The recent spectacle of Corker, Shelby, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky leading the GOP attack on the proposed $14 billion loan to the domestic auto industry - with Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker marching dutifully behind - made it crystal clear. The heart of Southern conservatism is the preservation of a status quo that serves elite interests.

"Dinosaurs," Shelby of Alabama called General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler as he maneuvered to bolster the nonunion Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and other foreign-owned plants in his home state by sabotaging as many as 3 million jobs nationwide..."

3 million jobs? Thats alot of paychecks. In fact, its so many perhaps we should see if its true. A quick glance at Factcheck.org, the favorite "fact-checking" website of local media liberals, reveals:

"The 3-million-jobs figure is based on doomsday assumptions that are unlikely to materialize. Independent economists put the job loss in the hundreds of thousands if GM and Chrysler go under. Ford has said it can survive on its own for now.

We find two sources for the 3 million figure, one with ties to the auto industry and the other with ties to labor unions. Both are based on dubious assumptions.

"To start, the "Big Three" U.S. automakers (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler) directly employed 239,341 persons in the U.S. at the end of last year, according to the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research. The Big Three's suppliers employed an additional 732,800. Those jobs add to less than 1 million. Jobs also are at risk at GM, Chrysler and Ford dealerships around the country, and at such places as the newspapers and TV stations where they advertise and the stores where auto industry employees shop. But how many depends on a fair amount of guesswork about which firms would fail and what the ripple effects would actually turn out to be, both inside and outside the auto industry. Getting to 3 million requires us to assume that all of the Big Three fail, that all their suppliers fail as well, and a lot else besides – including an assumption that Toyota, Honda and other foreign manufacturers also shut down all their U.S. production. Some independent economists say these extreme assumptions are improbable."

The article further shows the three-million jobs lost figure comes from a UAW "study". Of course, the "learned" Professor doesn't stop there as he falsely claims Southern Senators bailed out Wall Street while backstabbing Detroit:

"These same senators gave their blessing to hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to the foreign automakers to open plants in their states, yet they were willing to let the U.S. auto industry fall into bankruptcy.......

Why weren't these same senators protesting the high salaries in the financial sector when Congress approved the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street? Why pick on blue-collar workers at the Big Three who last year agreed to huge concessions expected to save the companies an estimated $4 billion a year by 2010...."

He seems to have no problem with the North giving $1.5 billion to Detroit while crucifying the South for doing the same. Mr. Atkins also gets his facts wrong as Cochran and Wicker voted AGAINST the Wall Street bailout. However, such facts would get in the way of Mr. Atkins pre-programmed diatribe against Republicans and Southerners.

Here is a list from Politico.com and it includes all Senators from Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana: "Allard (R)Barasso (R)Brownback (R)Bunning (R)Cantwell (D)Cochran (R)Crapo (R)DeMint (R)Dole (R)Dorgan (D)Enzi (R)Feingold (D) Inhofe (R)Johnson (D)Landrieu (D)Nelson (FL) (D)Roberts (R)Sanders (I)Sessions (R)Shelby (R)Stabenow (D)Tester (D)Vitter (R)Wicker (R)Wyden (D)"

Facts mean little to Mr. Atkins who although a professor of Journalism, would rather engage in hackery than actual reporting. While on the subject of hackery, let us turn to the Queen of Hackery, Madame DeLadd over at the Jackson Free Press:

"Here’s the part that really chaps my butt about southern Republicans selling out to foreign automakers: By making these deals, and paying out all these massive incentives, to foreign automakers who want to locate to union-weak states that give up the farm to them, these lawmakers are keeping our wages in the state lower than they have to be. That, in turn, hurts our tax base and contributes to our brain drain and our overall economic condition (which serves a certain brand of Republican)." post (Notice how she is perfectly fine with the mass migration of foreign workers to America but not investment dollars.)

So the politicians of Michigan, Ohio, and other Northern states are not sellouts for giving $1.5 billion in tax breaks to the Big 3 but Southern politicians are? Talk about binary thinking.

There is no doubt the unions had a big hand in the demise in the Big 3. Although the wages themselves are fairly similar, it was the unions that demanded Detroit set up the jobs bank program where workers were paid nearly their full salaries without working. Such policies prevented Detroit from closing down plants or brands no longer needed (Does GM really need both a Trail Blazer AND Envoy?) or making plants more efficient through automation. It was the UAW who imposed work rules to the point at one time a worker couldn't replace a light bulb, instead a union electrician had to do the work. However, blame for the auto meltdown falls on union AND management (as reported in The American Spectator).

Keep in mind it was GM who paid Ross Perot nearly double the value of his stock to shut him up and who rolled out the disastrous program (among others) to make all of its cars look the same back in the 80's. Even three years ago, GM ran off the last board member who tried to give it some strong medicine so as to avoid this day. Apparently the recommendations of Jerome York: give bond- and shareholders a haircut, close or sell off some of the product lines, cut the dividends, restructure contracts, cancel bonuses, and give everyone from CEO to the janitors pay cuts was too much for them to stomach as they again avoided reality. York warned if they didn't follow his recommendations, in THREE years they would be broke (York Suggestions).

What happened to Detroit is management and the unions have virtually committed suicide as they avoided facing reality for years. If local columnists wish to scapegoat Southerners, lie about Republican votes, and bash companies who choose to invest in the South, that is their prerogative to do so. However, they can also expect to be held accountable when they ignore the truth just to score political points.