Warren Brown is a shameless Detroit cheerleader. The Washington Post’s carmudgeon’s inability to criticize Motown’s products, process or prognosis has provided TTAC grill mist for years. Recently, we chronicled WaPo Warren’s lame, lamentable attempt to play the race card on The Big 2.8’s behalf. “Reluctance to Help Detroit Reeks of Class Bias” takes a different– though equally fabulous– tack. Brown starts by suggesting that anti-bailout journalists are effete intellectual snobs. “The queries [against the bailout] often come from people who earn substantially more than the estimated $71,000 annually in wages and benefits paid to UAW members. They come from people who, having reached upper-middle-class status by virtue of their college educations and communication skills, certainly wouldn’t settle for earning less.” Does Warren know that the UAW has a freelance writers’ branch? Anyway, the main event: “There is a feeling in this country– apparent in the often condescending, dismissive way Detroit’s automobile companies have been treated on Capitol Hill– that people who work with their hands and the companies that employ them are inferior to those who work with their minds and plow profit from information. How else to explain the clearly disparate treatment given to companies such as Citigroup and General Motors?” How else indeed. More WTF after the jump.
“It apparently matters not that the domestic car manufacturers account for 3 million to 5 million U.S. jobs. It matters not that, despite some bad guesses on product development, they’ve remained engines of U.S. innovation. (Their work with biologically derived fuels and emergency communications systems are examples.) Nor does it matter that they pulled us through several wars and one terrorist attack (GM’s zero-percent financing plan after the Sept. 11, 2001, horror).”
Bad guesses? Engines of innovation? Kudos for spending $100 per vehicle to line the fuel system to burn a fuel that’s a bigger boondoggle than the bailout, that earns them spurious federal fuel economy regulation credits (not to mention spending a still-unspecified amount to buy into a bio-fuel company even as the house burned down around them)? Emergency communications systems? GM zero percent financing pulled us a terrorist attack? Bad juju here folks, and lots of it. Now with extra xenophobia, self-hatred and sarcasm.
What the heck? If things get really rough, we can always catch a sale at Wal-Mart. Citigroup most certainly would be willing to finance our purchases at favorable interest rates. What a country! We once rejoiced in building things, innovating, racing to the top. Now, at least for the people who use their hands to make this country go, we’re celebrating a mad dash to the bottom.
Are we not better than this? Is this the America we want to be?
Is that a trick question or is that a trick question?
It may be the Warren Brown is insane and/or a shameless Detroit shill.
But I am not certain that this article is evidence of that.
As he points out, and as I have pointed out in comments here several times, there is a major inconsistency between the way Washington has treated the banking industry (“Here, have $700 billion with no oversight…”) and the automobile industry (“No, we won’t loan you $25 billion because you were dumb enough to fly your private jet here…”).
Given the huge difference in the magnitude of the bailouts (banking industry >> automobile industry) and the huge difference in the amount of discussion/proposed oversight (automobile industry >> banking industry), one wonders what the subtexts are.
I think it’s a mixture of several things:
1) The banking industry overlaps the Washington power elite (e.g. Hank Paulson used to be Goldman Sachs CEO) far more than the automobile industry.
2) The union-busting ethos started back in the Reagan administration continues to this day (“How dare the UAW negotiate decent pay and benefits for their workers?”)
3) Some Republican lawmakers (e.g. Richard Shelby of Alabama) are protecting the interests of the non-union foreign-nameplate auto factories in their states).
4) The “coastal” people in our halls of power (who typically drive foreign-nameplate cars) don’t care much about Detroit.
5) Detroit management has been so intransigent for so long about producing competitive fuel-efficient cars that many in Washington are simply fed up with the big 2.6786
I’m sure there are more, but those are the major reason I see that the Detroit automakers are not receiving the same favorable treatment that the financial industry received.
Warren conveniently forgets to address the part where the auto workers get 95% salary to play checkers. Also, the assembly jobs are basically that of a glorified nut-runner. Even at the transplants, the workers design their own tasks, as opposed to fighting with the industrial engineers. After making complex decisions all day, I relax by digging in the dirt, and walking the dog. For $71k per year, I’d love to stand near cars and spin nuts (sorry, it’s all I have).
Ironically, I was just thinking a few days ago that I shouldn’t care about the D3 because everyone over there makes so much more money than I do. I don’t really have a problem with them raking in the cash, just don’t try to appeal to me when the shit goes down.
To me the Banks are much more important that any other large industry, because if the Banks go down, then there will be massive damage to the whole economy!
Having been active in a large Union(not Automotive)the people there always try to get the best for there members and over the years Wages have increased as well as the Cost of living dont you think?
I think the 64,000 dollar question is the Wages the Auto Workers make is it too much for such a very repetive job.?
@ Geo. Levecque:
I think the 64,000 dollar question is the Wages the Auto Workers make is it too much for such a very repetive job.?
Are the wages investment bankers make for pushing paper around, doing arbitrage on small differences between prices of financial instruments, and periodically wrecking our economy too much?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g
If there is a disconnect I think it’s more cultural than anything else. A lot of import buyers feel that people who buy domestic brands are redneck types. Funny thing is, the D3 have done nothing to change that image. Their marketing basks in their hillbilly image.
Personally, when I think UAW worker, I think of my redneck alcoholic jackass neighbor who worked at the Chrysler plant and who I couldn’t stand. I really don’t care if he loses his job.
I’ve had one union job before, and the starting wage was less than ten dollars per hour. The job? Caregiving for developmentally disabled victims of institutional abuse. We’re talking about taking care of literally every basic human need for some of the most vulnerable folks in the community. I’d like to see Mr Brown work a week at a UAW job and then a week as a caregiver and then tell me that the UAW folks have it so bad. The problem isn’t that UAW workers earn too much in an absolute sense, they’ve just lost touch with where the rest of the economy is.
That having been said, it’s refreshing to see Warren Brown write an editorial without using the word “sophistry” even once.
Grill mist? Is that some new kind of obfuscation? Perhaps some mill grist would be useful to grind it up and blow it away…
I think I’ve access some serenity about all that is going on. I decided to accept what others are doing, how I feel about, while working on my perspective, behavior and expectations. I do not consider myself to be a tax payer, I just see the Government messing with monetary policy so they can always have a share of the capital in the world. As far as I am concerned taxes are made up numbers that are cashed in my government. The bailout If I choose is none of my business, I can just live my life without a concern for it. Which I’m doing in a big way. Detroit, banks, money, power, and fairness are not going to stop me from having fun, enjoying my life and being happy. Although standards of living are hanging in the balance, I need to accept that its not my fault, and I do not have power over others or life. My misery and suffering is not going to change that, so I need to take responsibility for my well being so I can be happy. I do have strong feelings about what is going on, All the more reason to do the right thing for me. Everyone please search for what is best you each of you individually, overall.
Robert,
Personally, when I think UAW worker, I think of my redneck alcoholic jackass neighbor who worked at the Chrysler plant and who I couldn’t stand. I really don’t care if he loses his job.
Yep, no class bias is involved. Nope, none at all.
So few Americans have anything to do with manufacturing, and so many are going to college to get a piece of paper that’s the ticket to many paper-pushing jobs, that the paper pushers think that they are morally superior to common laborers and think that they are entitled to make more money than someone who works in a factory.
It has nothing to do with the sustainability of union contracts and everything to do with entitlement and perceived class privilege. They are more concerned with how “unfair” it is that a UAW member makes more money than they do, than they are with the economics of automobile manufacturing.
The irony is that at least 1/3 of college graduates are not capable of doing true collegiate level work. They wouldn’t have been able to graduate from my dad’s Erasmus High School in Brooklyn back in the 1930s.
Are the wages investment bankers make for pushing paper around, doing arbitrage on small differences between prices of financial instruments, and periodically wrecking our economy too much?
But Eric, those bankers went to college. That must mean they are smarter than the zhlubs who work in factories.
Or so the paper pushers think.
From another thread:
# luscious :
December 6th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
This is what your typical American car/truck driver looks like! Didn’t you know that trash is “gender-neutral”?
Hey, folks, you have 3 car companies who STRIVE (that is, they WORK at it) …they strive(!!) to reach the lowest common denominator. Is it no WONDER that felonious trash takes a “liking” to their so-called “product”???
Like I said, no class bias here. Just move it along folks.
I am quite surprised that people compare the bailout of the finance industry with the bailout of the big 3.
When you give money to a banker to give him the very thing is going to sell. So in essence the risk for a screw up is low. They put them selves in a ditch trying to generate money. So if you give them money you solve directly a huge part of the problem.
Now if you want to bail out the big 3 in the same way you will have to give them Prius, Accord, Porsches or any other car that people want to buy directly for them to sell.
Giving money to the big three on the other hand is a waste has they have no clue on what sell profitably and they are not gonna get smarter over the holiday.
Also It is the responsibility of every body in an enterprise or any human endeavor for that matter to help make the company better. Wagoner is not responsible for the poor craftsmanship display through GM, Ford or Chrysler product, by the UAW member over the last 20 years! They took the wage but did not pay back there employer.
I just got back from DC and visited with my family. All of them grew up in Detroit, yet none of them would dare drive an American nameplate. My cousin looked at my point blank and said that it is simply too “Midwestern” too drive a Chevy in DC.
What the hell?
“Thinking is the hardest work there is. That is why so few people engage in it.”
– Henry Ford
From the man who created a company that people begged to work at. How many poor people will hire you this year?
Digging ditches or running an airgun is no more honorable than any other job, and any monkey can be trained to stand around (or ride in a rocket into outer space).
Edward Niedermeyer wrote:
I’ve had one union job before, and the starting wage was less than ten dollars per hour. The job? Caregiving for developmentally disabled victims of institutional abuse. We’re talking about taking care of literally every basic human need for some of the most vulnerable folks in the community. I’d like to see Mr Brown work a week at a UAW job and then a week as a caregiver and then tell me that the UAW folks have it so bad.
So, Mr. Niedermeyer, because you had a job that was underpaid and unappreciated, anyone else who works in similar circumstances should also be poorly paid and abused?
Yet the folks who have run our entire economy into a ditch at CitiBank, Lehman Brothers, AIG, etc. “deserve” the millions that they “earned”?
Nope, no class bias here…..
Krugman sees Detroit as done for:
Speaking to reporters three days ahead of the Nobel Prize ceremony, Krugman said plans by U.S. lawmakers to bail out the Big Three automakers were a short-term solution, resulting from a “lack of willingness to accept the failure of a large industry in the midst of an economic crisis.”
He sees Detroit as unprepared for the strong shifts that have occured in manufacturing, and as a last hold-out for a now defunct approach to providing the necessary solutions.
When the dust settles, we can begin discussing how this was possible? Why a major industry can let itself become this blindsided by factors that were evident for years before reaching a critical turning point (Katrina accelerated this, suddenly pulling the plug on Leviathan Cars).
Dodd is now stipulating that “the head of GM will have to go as part of a rescue deal” …
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s unfair with these white-collar paper pushers and all…
BUT everybody contributed to this. Even the “honest working class” stiffs. It always takes two people to make a subprime loan: A ruthless, short-sighted lending organisation that is putting immediate profit before long-term viability and a stupid, short sighted consumer who puts immediate gratification before long-term viability.
This is the fundamental difference. On the one hand, you have the danger of the global financial system collapsing and with it taking down whole countries (including the US of A), on the other hand you have a part (the Detroit based one) of a part (the automotive one) of the economy, that was stupid and inept for decades, losing money long before the shit hit the fan.
“Thinking is the hardest work there is. That is why so few people engage in it.”
– Henry Ford
From the man who created a company that people begged to work at. How many poor people will hire you this year?
They only begged to work at FoMoCo after Henry raised wages to $5/day. Before that, in 1913 he had to hire 52,000 people to keep a wage roll of 14,000. Ford had a 10% absentee rate and about a 97% turnover on new hires. He had to raise wages, start giving benefits and cut the length of the workday in order to get workers to stay.
Digging ditches or running an airgun is no more honorable than any other job, and any monkey can be trained to stand around (or ride in a rocket into outer space).
Nor is digging ditches less honorable than any other job. Ditch diggers are entitled to the same respect, if they do their job well, as lawyers and Senators.
I’m sure that most autoworkers could do at least 90% of your job with a few months of training.
I didn’t go to law school, but I successfully applied for a US patent without the aid of an attorney. Two friends of mine are among the leading heart failure and transplant cardiologists in the US. They regard heart surgeons as glorified plumbers, nothing more.
Like I said, no class bias here. Just move it along folks.
Were it not for the advent of those pesky child labor laws, cars would be built by 10-12 year olds. Especially with all the manufacturing aids that exist in the current factory environment.
I will not argue that the average college grad falls somewhere in the middle of the bell curve. I will also not suggest for a moment that the bell doesn’t have a really lopsided shape to it.
I will not argue that Wall Streeters are fairly compensated.
I will ask you this. Which assembly line worker would you like for your doctor? Your lawyer? Your financial advisor?
As Judge Smales said, “…the world needs ditch diggers too son…) But it’s really hard to make a cogent argument that they get compensated like my CPA. Or the lawyer that fixes my traffic tickets.
I posted early in the comments of the actual Washington Post article both a rebuttal to Brown’s nonsense and also the following point: Warren fancies himself a Detroit apologist, providing counterpoint to the arguments he disagrees with.
The problem is, if Warren’s namecalling, logical leaps and half-truths are the best the “other side” can do in terms of coming up with fact-based, legitimate logical arguments in support of a bailout for the Big Three, they may as well go ahead and hire the bankruptcy lawyers. They’re better off without Warren’s “help.”
While it makes me sad that this just illustrates the point that TTAC and its Best and Brightest are probably right because there’s no legitimate argument being made to the contrary, in my opinion it’s far worse that a well-respected newspaper like the Washington Post is allowing drivel like this to be published.
RF,
Inasmuch as there is a positive element to “curmudgeon,” Brown doesn’t deserve to be called one. He’s too all-around light weight. “Just a hack” is more like it. And for myfollowup to that, just read WEGIV’s last sentence, directly above. Well said.
I think with a guy like WB, you have to give him the label of “A Sharpton”.
-A guy with no ethics or rational formation of education who’s just sociopathic enough, he’ll play every last dirty trick without a hint of remorse.
(remember Towana Brawley)
An old dude I knew called these types so low & twisted they’re, “The kind that would kill you with a smile on their face.”
+Obviously Warren has never run a business.
++It’s $71/hr, WB, so ~$150k/yr. (TC/e), not ~$71k/yr.
And I forget what the particular name for type of Logical Fallacy here is; -I want to call it “Fallacy of Origin” but logic is logic, no matter what your tax bracket is (or your race, creed, flavur, etc.)
Even a Local boutique owner who pulls in $50k or less will tell you he’s got to Produce at Less than the Profit From Sales. Simplest microecon there is.
-And there you are back again at the lack of rational formation unburdening WB with the rules of Logic.
+++++And does any Rational person think that a hs-dropout Semi-pro Bolt-Tightener in Michigan should get paid as much as a Digital Project Manager in NYC with perhaps even an MA or MS???!!?? (AND with better benefits + pension) -HELLZ NO!
Correction:
It’s Grist for the Mill, not
Mist for the Grill.
…-unless there’s some crazy-ass Tandoori-style Korean Barbeque going down in Motown.
hmm… they always seemed more of a ‘kraut and ‘brats type of crowd. -whatever.
Almost..had a good discussion going one here…..
for a minute….
what does assembly line workers and doctors factor come in here?
Do you really think folks on this site are that dammed stupid?
Do you really think that some folks on this site wonder if it wouldn’t have been wiser to have a autoworker manage their ‘devastated’ retirement portfolio..after all,at least,for the most part,autoworkers work!
Also…what training is needed to be a”Financial Adviser”less than an autoworker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After all is said and done
We should be ashamed of ourselves for our poor financial decisions,be it buying a home in the hope that we could turn it before we got in over our heads …or letting our wants overwhelm our needs!
The autoworker is after all,no better or worse than most of us.
He/she was paid extremely well for the work performed,and if the work was substandard,it was allowed buy the same supervisors that allow US to do the same!
This is what really pisses me off…they are workers…yea,workers..and don’t give me any bullshit about how hard my broker works…he makes money weather I buy or sell.now THAT’S REALLY HARD!!!
I need to stop b-4 I get thrown off!
As I think about the plight of the autoworkers I am reminded of the Niemoller poem, “First They Came…” The autoworkers’ version of the poem (with sincerest apologies to Niemoller) might go something like this:
First they came for the textile workers,
And I didn’t do anything because I wasn’t a textile worker.
Then they came for the garment workers,
And I didn’t do anything because I wasn’t a garment worker.
Then they came for the toy and appliance manufacturing workers,
And I didn’t do anything because I wasn’t a toy or appliance
manufacturing worker.
Then they came for me, an autoworker,
And by that time the only ones left to speak up asked,
“Would you like fries with that?”
Merry Christmas to all!
warren brown is ridiculous. i’ve long written him off as a detroit stooge, specifically and especially for gm. he was on the diane rehm show a while ago and came off as an argumentative mongrel idiot. i don’t really give any creed to anything he has to say and am pretty sure he’s on the take from gm
I think the reason Congress is propping up the banking industry is because if they don’t, individuals will lose assets and trust in the financial system which could trigger a run on the banks.
When the automakers fail, they will not fail entirely. They will continue to make cars (at a slower pace) and will not automatically lay off every worker they have.
Besides, the ultimate ‘work with your hands’ laborers, farmers, seem to get a pretty good deal from the government. Don’t think it’s class bias.
Were it not for the advent of those pesky child labor laws, cars would be built by 10-12 year olds. Especially with all the manufacturing aids that exist in the current factory environment.
I’m not saying it never happened, but I’ve never seen any reference to child laborers in histories of the auto industry. Children were more likely to be workers in southern textile mills than northern factories.
I will ask you this. Which assembly line worker would you like for your doctor? Your lawyer? Your financial advisor?
Like I said, with six months of training most assembly line workers could do 90% of what lawyers, financial advisers and even plenty of doctors do. If doctors are so indispensable how come so many of them hire physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners to do most of the work they consider drudgery? Do you really need 8 years of education to take a medical history? Most doctors that I know consider their year of clinical training as a M4 to be more valuable than the previous three years of med school.
My day job is running a small embroidery shop. I’m fairly certain I can do things that most lawyers and doctors could not do without significant training.
I will ask you this. With people in Michigan supposedly being so lazy and stupid, would you rather be treated by a doctor who graduated from med school at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, or the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
As Judge Smales said, “…the world needs ditch diggers too son…) But it’s really hard to make a cogent argument that they get compensated like my CPA. Or the lawyer that fixes my traffic tickets.
Ah, so a member of the club bar who subverts justice on your behalf by leveraging his relationships with the prosecutor, judge and police is more valuable to society than someone who turns raw materials into finished goods, more vital than the plumber who makes sure your house isn’t literally full of shit.
It’s funny that you mentioned CPAs. That’s a profession virtually void of creativity, a vocation where the word “creative” is literally a euphemism for fraud. I suppose if an autoworker was smart he or she would have gone to college. By the same token, if CPAs were really good at math (instead of just having anal retentive organizational skills), they’d have become actuaries. If they were really smart, they’d be economists.
Of course, CPAs, economists and those with financial degrees are up to their elbows in the problems in the RenCen and on Wall Street.
I will ask you this. With people in Michigan supposedly being so lazy and stupid, would you rather be treated by a doctor who graduated from med school at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, or the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
U-Mich no doubt.
A few things,
Doctors need many years of education not to take a medical hx, but to learn to properly diagnose patients and manage their care. That is something that PAs and nurses are not always equipped to do. If you don’t believe me,hang out on an inpatient medical ward and ask the nurse to diagnose and manage a medical condition. While they are great at their jobs, there is a reason that medical doctors exist. Now, I am not an MD, but I work with them and while they are not perfect, I would not want the average auto worker managing my care if I had cancer. All this aside, this a dumb argument.
The simple truth is, the auto worker is culpable. The UAW bargained for a sweet heart of a deal that led to wages that were well above the rates the market had set and benefits as well. Did they blink when the Big 3 were losing market share because of these huuge cost excesses? No. Was build quality or pride in workmanship shown over the competition? No. Sure there are CEO’s and others to blame as well. But, the bottom line was that EVERYONE was simply looking out for number one. This is the reason that people need to compromise for the greater good in a civilized society. You will eventually fail other wise.
Though, after the financial bailout, I have to assume much of the congressional grandstanding is simply for the good press. The American people are angry for having to bailout faulty business practices and, frankly, it is a lot easier for the average person to understand that the Big 3 make a sh*tty car than that AIG, Lehman Bros, etc, underwrote a sh*tty financial inverstment.