“In Woodhaven on Friday,” The Detroit News reports, “someone punctured the tires of five foreign cars — a Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Toyota and Volkswagen — and used a marker to scrawl ‘Buy USA’ on the sides of the vehicles, in the lots of Lowe’s and Kohl’s stores near a Ford plant.” As TTAC’s publisher, I decided not to blog the story. There was no proof that the a Ford worker had carried-out the attack. As an isolated incident, I felt the vandalism didn’t deserve what Margaret Thatcher called “the oxygen of publicity.” We can debate the ethics or wisdom of that decision all day long. But today’s DetN story is flat-out incendiary. “Backlash brews in wake of Big 3 bashing” is strong beer. With that kind of headline, the onus is on scribe George Hunter to prove that Detroit is about to erupt into violence– the clearly implied and then directly stated premise of the piece. “After a month of Detroit-bashing in Washington and nationally,” Hunter writes. “some say a backlash is forming among Metro Detroiters, annoyed by the attacks on their lifestyle and angry at their neighbors’ choices of vehicles. Some fear that simmering resentment could turn to outright hostility.” Some? You mean like some people you specifically rounded-up to prove your inflammatory central thesis? Yeah, like that.
“‘I’m afraid we may be about to see a rerun of a bad nightmare we lived through in the late ’70s and early ’80s,’ said Helen Zia, co-founder of the American Citizens for Justice, a civil rights group that serves Michigan’s Asian-Americans. ‘We’re in the midst of tough economic times, and when that happens you get scapegoating.'”
If you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And if you’re a responsible journalist you have to have a screw loose to prompt someone with an axe to grind to grind it exceedingly fine. By the same token, if you’re a hack writing crap copy, generalities are your best weapon in the fight for attention.
“Most agree the current climate doesn’t approach the open disdain in the 1980s and early 1990s, when workers used sledgehammers to destroy Hondas and Toyotas in union parking lots. But some worry that antipathy toward Asians could return.”
Most? How scientific is that? Could? Keep this up and it just might. Keep in mind this story is speaking to the emotions of scared, desperate people. Or, rather, that’s what Hunter and his editors should have kept in mind. So what else you got, George?
“And it’s not just Michigan: In South Carolina, a Ford dealership began airing ads this month blasting Congress and claiming that Japanese cars are ‘rice ready, not road ready.'”
The dealer’s ad was stupid (and that we did blog). But it’s hardly what I’d call a call to arms. And Hunter is running out column inches. Here’s the “best” he can do:
“But some [!], including retired autoworker Joe Babiasz of Huntington Woods, do blame foreign competition for the state of the Big Three. ‘Not enough people recognize the importance of doing the right thing for their country, which is to buy American,’ he said. ‘My dad, his brothers and his cousins all fought the Germans and Japanese to have what we have today. And with all respect to the German and Japanese people, I’m not going to give away everything my relatives fought for through the automobile industry.'”
How long did it take Hunter to find that guy? How many people did he have to go through who didn’t talk about German or Japanese people? Hunter then trots out the organizer of the boycottalabamanow website, without once mentioning the level of support he’s receiving. Or isn’t. [Hint to George: Google Analytics and you’re done.]
Folks, this is the worst kind of journalism imaginable. Check this:
“The situation has some [!] who drive foreign cars re-thinking their decisions. More than a year ago, Jonathan Barlow, 24, of Detroit bought a used Lexus in part because of its gas mileage. Now, his next purchase could come from the Big Three. ‘Most everyone in my circle looks to hopefully buy some type of hybrid in the near future from a U.S. automaker,’ said Barlow, a community organizer. ‘The choice before was what color would you prefer. … But the thought now is: Who would you support?'”
I realize that some of you, Schreiber, are going to defend the central theme of this report. I’ve got no problem with that. I have no doubt that there is considerable anger towards Washington and Senators Corker and Shelby and consumers who buy “foreign cars.” But this is not the time to fan the flames of hatred. Rather, it is the time to encourage rational if passionate debate, and a clear-headed look at how Detroit can have a future.
Oh, and this poll question– Over the weekend, Woodhaven police investigated a rash of vandalism on foreign cars that some fear could signal a growing wave of resentment. Is buying a foreign car un-American?— is simply beyond the pale.
Shame on The Detroit News for publishing this rubbish.
And, of course, no mention of why people are buying Toyotas, etc…..
John
That writing is worse than what I would expect out of a college newspaper. But then again, it is Detroit: their standards are pretty low, but they still think they are God’s Gift to the World.
So they are sinking the Mafia Godfather marketing plan. “Buy our car or we break your kneecaps”.
Newspapers have to pander to their audience if they want to maintain circulation. Some pander a lot more than others.
It would be interesting to find out how the Detroit papers are doing compared to the others. The industry is obviously on hard times, but they must be even more impacted than most.
Detroit is a dying town, and this paper is anchored to it. It wouldn’t be surprising if the paper’s staff is as pissed off and scared as the auto workers. They have a lot in common.
Pch101 made my point in his last graph. I’d make it slightly differently. If I were on the staff of DetN I’d be VERY worried about losing my job if the shrinking 3 go under.
Additionally, I do remember the Asian bashing. My anger over that prompted me to write an op-ed–published in the Plain Dealer and the Indpls Star, the point of which ended up being that competition was good for Detroit.
And, yeah, the article in question is crappy journalism. But unfortunately it has a lot of company.
Talk about pandering, how bout this Headline:
U.S. Senate to Michigan: Drop Dead
http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/12/auto_bailout_congress_to_michi.html
Friday’s Flint Journal front page banner Headline.
The Detroit newspapers are cutting delivery to 3 days a week, so they are hurting.
It would be interesting to find out how the Detroit papers are doing compared to the others.
The Det News and Free Press (Freep) have been on the ropes for years.
In 1989 they formed a joint operating agreement – seperate news and editorial operations – but shared printing/distribution/backoffice-type stuff.
The News in particular is riddled with hack writers that do lazy, sloppy work.
(Just last month I took one to task for their annual (expected, predictable, and irresponsible) reporting of 2 MILLION attendance at the Thanksgiving parade in Detroit. Basic 5th grade math pegs the number somewhere b/w 30K and no more than 50K. The reporter did take the time to read my email and even wrote back …just to insult me).
There is supposed to be a big announcement at the Freep/News today or tomorrow. Most likely layoffs and maybe even truncated delivery days.
“…they still think they are God’s Gift to the World.”
“Detroit is a dying town…”
Those statements are as irresponsible and uninformed as the article the DetNews put out. You’re entitled to your opinion, but take it from a Detroiter: you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The people responsible for smashing imports are a tiny fraction of Detroiters, most of whom are working hard to dig ourselves out of a long downward slide. Detroit is going to be fine, albeit much different from decades past.
WHO exactly is keeping North American (UAW at that) workers busy again?
http://www.nummi.com/
That “Buy American” picture gets clouded when you look real close.
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=109831
Relax, people, nobody is going to be trading in a Lexus for a hybrid Ford. Not him, not you, not Alan Mulally. Oh, wait.
You’re entitled to your opinion
The facts support that position. Unemployment in the Detroit metro area is above 10%, housing prices have declined back to 1998 values, and the city is losing population.
Fear & Uncertainty yield neanderthal reactions. Time to carry a shotgun in the Honda methinks.
And lack of attention by the media is exactly what these actions deserve.
I’m surprised no one else caught this. A Mazda allegedly fell victim to a Ford employee’s angst. If it was a Mazda 6 then this whole xenophobic business is beyond pathetic.
Adub:
“That writing is worse than what I would expect out of a college newspaper.”
As a journalist with my own history of working the college paper, I have to say this kind of pandering can– and does– happen somewhat unintentionally on the reporter’s part.
A couple of years ago, I was working as an assistant editor at my college paper, doing random beat assignments whenever bigger stories came across my desk. One day, a gentleman called saying that some of the university’s African-American students were going to be attending a basketball game at a local high school to protest what he saw as discrimination against his mixed-race (black dad, white mom) daughter, who had been cut from the team on relatively little notice.
Well, the students did protest at the game. No violence. But it was newsworthy enough to our campus that we figured it warranted a story.
I did a lengthy interview with the girl’s father and with some of the students from our university who protested at the game. I obtained documentation from the Atlanta governmental office which had undertaken a preliminary investigation of the school’s practices– at the father’s behest. But when I tried to talk to people at the school– the principal, the basketball coach, the county school superintendent and even the county school system’s legal adviser– nobody would comment.
As all journalists are taught in school, “No comment” really is a comment. I advised the school officials that I had to put out the story, which would present essentially only the father’s and the students’ arguments if they didn’t take a moment to issue any kind of rebuttal. Didn’t make a difference to them. No comment.
Faced with the looming deadline, I went ahead and penned the story. In retrospect, I probably included more quotes and accusations from the father and protesting students than was necessary or essential to the main point of the story. Also, my editor probably didn’t step up to the plate at this most needed time to tell me to cut it down– way down. In fact, she ran the whole story with very little copy editing, and chose to attach a headline referencing how “Racial tension” was “still alive” in our region. Both bad ideas. And as far as the editing was concerned, sure my young reporter’s ego might have taken a ding, but that’s how you learn to get better at reporting.
The story received a backlash of sorts. I had a few people contact me asking why I had accused the entire town of racism (I hadn’t– in fact, I had gone to pains to make sure to note that despite the town’s historically low population of minorities, it had just elected its first black mayor by a substantial majority. I even got him to comment, however briefly he was willing to do so, on the father’s accusations.) The problem was mostly that the story was too long and too detailed. In skimming over it, people read mostly the father’s incendiary remarks and considered them my own.
The point being this: It is far easier than most people realize to get too close to your story or your beat. And often, you don’t realize it as you’re working that story or beat because you’re incapable of removing yourself from the situation.
For the duration of my career at the college paper, I stood by my conviction that I had done the right thing in crafting that piece and giving the school officials ample opportunity to provide counterpoint. What I did not see until I left the paper some time later was how many mistakes I made– first among them reporting an in-depth investigative-style story where the primary news tip came from someone with an agenda and reputation (then unknown to me) all his own.
I think that in this case, indeed in the case of most of Detroit’s news writers, they’re too deep in the industry to step outside the fray and realize careless mistakes like this one. In my case, I was too deep in the story and the day-to-day duties of the job to realize that I was too wrapped up in reporting everything that was being said about the situation, which resulted in some flaring tempers among our readership.
Though many do it because of failing finances at newspapers, I think many successful reporters’ practice of moving from one metro to the next every five years or so is probably a good way to combat this isolation and thus limit crummy reporting. It is also why most good editors will move reporters away from their beat after a year or two– because you get too wrapped up in it, too close to your sources, and you become too much of a stakeholder in the outcome of big stories. That is to say, you as a reporter hope those stories drag on because they’re important to building your career as a reporter. Will that slant your coverage? Eventually. I’m sure some of the detractors of TTAC’s Detroit Deathwatches, Bailout Watches, and Bankruptcy Watches will draw their own parallels here.
But for reporters in Detroit, the auto stories are so big, they’re in no way limited to a single beat. They touch every story reported, in some way. You can’t get away from it without leaving the DetNews or the FreeP. I suspect Mr. Hunter should want to move to some other metro paper before he makes many more blunders like this one– if only for the well-being of his own resume.
I too read that article, I always thought that the Detroit News was a bit better than the Free Press, its scary and yes I can believe there are people out there that would cause damage to vehicles for many reasons besides being a Auto Worker that is laid off!
The message is, dont shop in Detroit or area eh!
@John R: yup, this kind of thinking got a fellow killed 25 years back.
Huh, it’s really no mystery why Detroit is dying. It’s cars suck and the people can’t think straight.
It’s always easy to slash the tires of a foreign car but not to process the logic of why foreign cars are winning and American iron is rotting.
well at least if you get attacked by angry Ford workers your Honda is reliable enough to make a quick getaway… sorry I had to.
These kind of actions (vandalism) do nothing more than convince people to NEVER buy a product from the Big 2.8 again. Hooliganism is just what the UAW has been practicing against the Big 2.8 for the last 30 years. Not that the Big 2.8 didn’t make every bad decision possible all by themselves.
I’ve had MANY friends say that if the bailout goes through, that they will never buy a Detroit product just BECAUSE the bailout went through. I’d have real concerns that if the bailout goes through (which it will), that the backlash will result in even LESS people purchasing big 2.8 products EVER AGAIN, even those who might have prior to the BO.
Decades of idiot management, rapacious unions, disposable cars and shoddy business practices killed the Detroit-3. A steady stream of terrible vehicles that paled in terms of quality, reliability, durability, desirability, satisfaction, and value for money relative to Asian and German competitors squandered consumer goodwill. Embittered by appalling product quality and inexcusable customer relations tens of millions of potential buyers, an entire generation, permanently deleted domestic brands from consideration causing sales to collapse with ruinous financial consequences.
Concerning the boycottalabamanow web site.
It almost seems like a frequent poster here has a new hobby.
@David Holzman
December 16th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Additionally, I do remember the Asian bashing. My anger over that prompted me to write an op-ed–published in the Plain Dealer and the Indpls Star, the point of which ended up being that competition was good for Detroit.
In order for competition to works its beneficial effects, there has to be two competitors.
Detroit never accepted (deep in their hearts) that the Japanese were outperforming them – they adopted a “people who want those cars aren’t really our kind of people” mindset.
Decades later, Detroit has been outperformed, and then some. It pays to pay attention to your challengers, and to accept the challenge.
Oh my god, the Senate allowed the Chicago based Tribune company to go into bankruptcy.
Why does the Senate hate America?
Is buying the Financial Times or The Economist un-American?
I’m going to go set fire to stacks of the Financial Times and The Economist at local news stands.
Oh, wait, I won’t do that because I’m not an insecure person from a failed one industry town that expects to be put on permanent Federal welfare.
I hope that bankrupt Circuit City employees can be more mature than those in Detroit and not burn down Best Buys.
Those who are not happy about their taxes being wasted to keep dead companies on life support should consider boycotting Michigan, and all big-3 products.
And if the Detroit News wants to live in the past by exploiting a veteran’s service in the war against Germany then it needs to be said that Henry Ford was influential in supporting Hitler’s rise to power and GM’s wholly owned Opel division was instrumental in developing Germany’s military capabilities.
The Constitution contemplated letting failed companies fail by outlining the duty and right of the Federal Government to establish bankruptcy laws; the Constitution does not say anything about the Federal Government’s duty to bail out failed single-state special interest industries.
The Founding Fathers would most likely have considered that kind of thing un-American.
It is called free enterprise folks, the customers voted with their wallets.
If you really want to get into forcing people to buy something because it is domestically produced, while putting the “workers’ needs” ahead of the customer, while simultaneously allowing government control of the means of production… well then by definition you are a communist.
So which course of action is un-American again?
–chuck
wytshus :
December 16th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Talk about pandering, how bout this Headline:
U.S. Senate to Michigan: Drop Dead
That’s a direct reference to a famous New York Daily News headline about a different bailout:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ford_to_City.PNG
“Experts fear..”, “most agree…” and ventriloquist quotes. All are hallmarks of lazy-ass hack newspaper reporting. All too common today, unfortunately.
From the “be a whiny baby because you didn’t get your welfare and Boycott Alabama” website:
“The auto companies had nothing to do with this crisis.”
Really, they didn’t have captive finance arms that gave loans at low rates to people that had horrible credit? GMAC did not get into the sub-prime mortgage business?
And then there is this crap:
“It is a national security problem. We only need to go back to World War Two and look at what the domestic auto industry did for the arsenal of democracy. They collectively shut down production of cars from 1942 until 1946 to support the war against Japan and Germany. It is clear that without their support, we would have lost the war and be speaking either German or Japanese today. Does anyone think that Toyota or Mercedes will open up their U.S. plant for a war effort? Unlikely!”
GM helped build the German war machine with Opel. Toyota and Mercedes will allow, if not beg us to use their plants in any serious war the US is involved in; anyone that is threat to US is a bigger threat to them. Anyway, since the plants are in the US we don’t have to ask. China is a great threat to Japan, and Russia is a great threat to Germany and Japan. If we do get into it with China or Russia it will be nuclear. Anyone that thinks it will come down to light infantry vehicles is living in the wrong century.
It must be nice not living in reality.
Puncturing tires? Scratching paint? I think that’s nothing in comparison to what might happen if The Three go down.
(I say this as an observer and not as an expert, and would appreciate being corrected if I’m wrong).
Militancy is normal when a whole area falls apart. You Americans have been lucky — the rustbelt depression went hand in hand with a robust, job-creating economy in the 1980s and 1990s. But what happens when there are no jobs no matter where you go?
Robocop was a apocalyptical vision of a future in which criminality reigned in Motown. But it didn’t go so far as to imagine a Detroit in which no cars are made.
TTAC likes to report, with a wink and a smile, about people who shoot traffic cameras. Where’s the sympathy for misguided criminals here?
Unsophisticated idiots need exactly the Opposite of that type of writing. -Especially in a big Recession.
Aren’t the overpaid bolt-tighteners and people of their stripe racist enough as it is?
In all seriousness, the people doing that piece should have the freaking Riot Act read to them. And if they continue, -with public results, they should be straight-up arrested and thrown into a federal pen for Inciting.
Hopefully, the few among them like our beloved Rick (robot cost-saver, not Waggoner) will help chill things out.
These kind of actions (vandalism) do nothing more than convince people to NEVER buy a product from the Big 2.8 again.
Yep. And everytime I see these autoworkers refer to the competition as Japs, Chinks and Gooks, it makes me feel like buying an Asian import or transplant, just to flip them the bird.
I don’t think that the Detroit defenders realize that this is part and parcel of the marketing side of the problem. Even to those who aren’t civil rights activists, these sorts of comments make it easy to associate Detroit workers and the products they produce with rednecks.
Most of us don’t aspire to emulate the Dukes of Hazzard, we like to see ourselves as being a bit more sophisticated than that. The big and brash and loud and racist message alienates certain customers. It’s no mistake that Lexus, BMW, etc. incorporate sophistication and dignity into their branding.
Robert;
Maybe you could write an op-ed piece for the News. This is the classic “blame somebody else for your problems” tactic.
It’s always the Asians they get upset about. They don’t say anything about the thousands of imported Canadian cars coming across the Ambassador Bridge or the Mexican cars coming from South of the border. There is definitely a racist component to all of this.
In looking at the Babiasz web site, it looks as though he’s one of those people that think we’re going to have to re-fight WWII. In their “Fact and Fiction” section (which seems to be mostly fiction) he states that Does anyone think that Toyota or Mercedes will open up their U.S. plant for a war effort? Unlikely! Do people really think we’re going to have to gear up for a massive land war against Germany and Japan? We’re fighting at least 2 wars right now and how many auto plants has the government taken over? Besides, modern warfare is fought with model airplanes armed with missles. The days of sending in waves of B-29s and Sherman tanks are gone.
This notion of saving manufacturing jobs is a lost cause. Ultimately, it’s not going to be the Chinese and other Asian countries that take away all of the manufacturing jobs. It’s going to be the exponential gains in automation technology. All those wonderful price/performance gains on your home computers and cell phones are happening in the world of robotics as well and there are going to be some huge leaps in capability in the near future.
“Most agree the current climate doesn’t approach the open disdain in the 1980s and early 1990s, when workers used sledgehammers to destroy Hondas and Toyotas in union parking lots.”
I suspect its brimming under the surface…mostly because Union parking lots now have signs that say something like “we are not responsible for damage to foreign vehicles parked here.” Saw it with my own eyes back in ’98. Now if they took them down afterward, I expect they are coming right back up.
“As TTAC’s publisher, I decided not to blog the story. “
In effect, didn’t you do exactly that?
@ Sajeev Mehta – They don’t need to post a sign. If you’re stupid enough to drive a nice import (or maybe even an 88 Accord with popup headlights) to the plant – it’s getting vandalized. It’s like wearing a Giants jersey to an Eagles home game.
It’s not just at the plants either. You should see what happens if you park a BMW in the “no competitor vehicles” lots near the Big 3 HQs.
Pch101:
“Even to those who aren’t civil rights activists, these sorts of comments make it easy to associate Detroit workers and the products they produce with rednecks.”
I find it ironic that it’s NOT the real rednecks that are the ones bitching. The real rednecks have jobs supplied by the Asian + German automakers.
I alway love comments like “My dad fought the Japs and Germans”.
So, did my father. He was on a 3 man landing craft crew in the Pacific. He carried a handgun and a baseball bat. His job was to shoot or break the hands of any soldier that would not get out of the landing craft when it hit the beach. You did not come back with people. He never shot a soldier but he did use the bat. Never joined the VFW or American Legion. He moved on.
He owned a Subaru and a Honda. Bought me a Beetle in 1974.
He didn’t hold a grudge after the war, because he figured the guy on the other side was stuck in the war just like he was.
The war was 60+ years ago. It’s getting tough to find vets on whatever side. But, I guess, use any excuse to feed your hate and shortcomings.
Robert,
Since the topic ostensibly is journalism, you could also call Joe Babiasz and ask him what kind of support he’s gotten yourself. Whitepages.com is even easier to use than Google analytics. Or, if you want, I can give you his phone number. As for your implication that the DetNews searched high and low for Joe, the simple fact is that he was on one of the local tv news broadcasts last week and at least one of the local dailies featured him in a story. People looking for publicity are not hard to find.
I don’t know if Joe will forward you some of the emails he’s gotten at this point but when I spoke to him last Thursday, he’d already gotten over 250, and that after his site was only up for a day.
[Hint to George: Google Analytics and you’re done.]
Hint to Robert: That won’t work. I’m no computer expert, but I did do IT support for about 6 years. I could be wrong but as far as I can find on the GoogleAnalyitcs site, there is no way that you can use GA to find out data on someone else’s site. It’s a tool for site managers. You sign up, you put some code on the pages you want to track, and voila, you get traffic data on your own site. If there’s a way of getting data out of GA about other people’s sites, please feel free to share it. I always like learning new things.
BTW, Joe’s a good guy and has a pretty good perspective on who’s at fault in this mess. He started out as a UAW line worker for Ford in New Jersey, became an engineer and moved over to the salaried/mgmt side of things, eventually retiring from GM. So he’s been in both the union and mgmt and has worked for two different automakers. I’m sure you’ll say folks like Joe are the problem because they are within the industry and insular. He’s no pollyanna, and we had a nice talk about how many of GM and Ford’s most disastrous moves were the result of bean counters overruling engineers (Corvair, Pinto) or asking them to do things to save money instead of following best practices (Olds diesel).
I realize that some of you, Schreiber, are going to defend the central theme of this report. I’ve got no problem with that. I have no doubt that there is considerable anger towards Washington and Senators Corker and Shelby and consumers who buy “foreign cars.” But this is not the time to fan the flames of hatred. Rather, it is the time to encourage rational if passionate debate, and a clear-headed look at how Detroit can have a future.
Since you asked, no I’m not going to defend the article. It’s lazy journalism in my opinion, the kind of pre-written story like the CEOs’ business jets. I expect to see similar lazy journalism as the story filters through the MSM and Detroiters are portrayed as knuckledragging yahoos. The vandals were, well, vandals, sociopaths like the Earth First or ALF terrorists, or like the environmentalists who ‘key’ and otherwise vandalize Hummers and other SUVs.
Once he was committed to writing the story, checking with the Americans For Justice, though, makes some journalistic sense, albeit predictable, since they were the advocates of the family of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American beaten to death by a couple of drunk autoworkers back in the 1980s. Since Hunter devoted a good chunk of the story to an Asian American advocacy group, one could just as easily say that he was portraying Detroiters as xenophobic as saying that the article was inciting hatred.
Sometimes things are not how they appear. A jury awarded Chin’s mother a reparative settlement subsequent to the killers’ conviction, I think it was for manslaughter and I’m too lazy to make a few clicks to check it out. Sometime after that, I saw in the paper how one of the killers was suing Chrysler because they fired him over the beating. His attorney was an old friend of mine so I called him up and gave him a hard time about it and he told me that things are not always how they seem. The guy had no assets and Americans For Justice had asked him to take the case so that Chin’s mother would be able to collect the award. At the time, there were about 30 convicted killers on Chrysler’s payroll.
As for big Dick, Shelby and Sen. Corker. I’m on record as saying that Corker’s plan was a ch 11 in all but name and probably workable, though I do think the UAW wage cramdown was completely symbolic and would have little impact on GM’s ability to survive short term. It’s not the hourly wage rates that are the problem, it’s the legacy costs associated with retirees. Also, I don’t like wage laws in general so I’m uncomfortable with the Senate compelling US workers to take a cut in pay. As well, I think the policy implications of congress compelling an American industry to match the wages of foreign companies is very problematic.
But on whole, Corker was trying to work out a deal and he’s still working with the White House on whatever TARP or Fed based loans they’ll come up with.
Corker acted in good faith for the most part, at least by the standards of big time politicians. Big Dick, Shelby, though, is just a grandstanding hypocrite. He perpetuates the myth that Detroit hasn’t restructured significantly. He ignores the heavy lifting that Mulally has done at Ford, changes that you acknowledge. He also keeps going on about how the “new American auto industry” in his region is doing just fine, something that is demonstrably untrue. If Alabama has such an outstanding workforce, and if Michiganders are so incompetent, why did Toyota spend the better part of a billion dollars building their North American R&D center less than 50 miles from where I sit, in Ann Arbor?
The truth is that, as you have acknowledged elsewhere, there is tremendous engineering and business talent in this region. Lean and mean versions of GM & Ford would be formidable automotive competitors. Around the time Ghosn turned Nissan around I noticed something interesting. None of the people at Ford & GM were cheering for Nissan’s demise. The same is true about Toyota vis a vis GM. While nobody this year wants to be the team that loses to the Detroit Lions, they’d much rather beat the Patriots or Titans. When you have strong competition it means you have to raise the level of your game.
There’s a phrase in Hebrew, al achat kama v’kama. It roughly translates as “how much the more so”. If the DetNews is fanning the flames of hatred for imported cars or Asians, what about big Dick, Shelby fanning the flames of hatred for Detroit? Oh, that’s right, nobody hates Detroit, and if they do, we deserve that hate.
It’s interesting that you featured this story, and said that what was needed was a clear headed look at Detroit but didn’t say anything about Daniel Howes’ article about how an entrenched culture around here of doing things the same way over and over regardless of the insanity prevents progress here, for the car companies, the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan.
It’s ironic that you accused the DetNews of fanning the flames of hatred when some of your own commenters say things like That kind of think will just solidify the Detroit area’s image as a 3rd world wasteland. In a way I hope it happens more, it will kill any support that remains for the bail-out outside of Michigan.
I don’t know if this violates the no-flaming policy, but wanting to see innocent people getting their cars vandalized so hostility to Michigan will be ginned up strikes me as hateful, if not downright sociopathic.
That’s a direct reference to a famous New York Daily News headline about a different bailout:
Geotpf,
Why should he let the facts get in the way of bashing Michigan?
Of course, if our schools actually taught history, people might get allusions in headlines. If I’m not mistaken, I think one of the Detroit dailies riffed on the Daily News headline back during the Chrysler bailout too.
This alone is worth the price of the newspaper:
‘Most everyone in my circle looks to hopefully buy some type of hybrid in the near future from a U.S. automaker,’ said Barlow, a community organizer.
Hilarious, a “community organizer” hangs out among people who want to support US labor unions. Stop the presses! Well I’d say that’s pretty representative of the average man on the street. Heck we just elected a community organizer president!
(Just last month I took one to task for their annual (expected, predictable, and irresponsible) reporting of 2 MILLION attendance at the Thanksgiving parade in Detroit. Basic 5th grade math pegs the number somewhere b/w 30K and no more than 50K. The reporter did take the time to read my email and even wrote back …just to insult me).
The Detroit area regularly has some very large events with 500,000 to a million people attending, like the Woodward Dream Cruise, the Gold Cup hydroplane races, victory parades for the Red Wings and Pistons, and the annual Freedom Festival fireworks on the Detroit River. You don’t need 5th grade math, just aerial views to compare the sizes of the crowds. When there’s a million folks lining Woodward, it’s pretty obvious.
Could you provide a link to the “2 million” figure? That doesn’t pass the smell test since it would mean that fully half the entire region attended the parade. Considering what weather is like around here on Thanksgiving, and considering watching a parade is basically standing around in the cold, that figure is just not very likely.
It almost seems like a frequent poster here has a new hobby
I’m sympathetic to Joe but his site isn’t my style. I did call him to share some information that I thought he would find useful, though. I’d rather contact travel agents and ask them to encourage snowbirds to vacation in Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands. The people there don’t call us whining, lazy, greedy incompetents.
The facts support that position. Unemployment in the Detroit metro area is above 10%, housing prices have declined back to 1998 values, and the city is losing population.
By those standards, I suppose you could say that California is dying too. Unemployment statewide is over 8%, almost as high as Michigan. Property values have plummeted. Gov’t services are getting cut back and even some of the illegals are leaving for greener pastures. The flight of affluent Californians, tired of that state’s ills, who have moved to neighboring states so they can still enjoy the casual western lifestyle without Cali’s massive problems has gotten a bit of press.
If Detroit is in such great shape, then you have nothing to worry about.
I think that you need to pick a position and stick to it. Either you are struggling and in need of our charity, or else you are standing on your own two feet and don’t need any help. You can’t have it both ways.
Journalistic integrity – what a contradiction in terms.
raast :
December 16th, 2008 at 10:28 am
WHO exactly is keeping North American (UAW at that) workers busy again?
http://www.nummi.com/
That “Buy American” picture gets clouded when you look real close.
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=109831
Did you even read the article you referenced? If not, here’s a excerpt:
DETROIT — General Motors has announced it is building a brand-new assembly plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, which will cost up to $650 million and will build vehicles for the domestic Mexico market only.
I guess fear is the only way to get people to buy a GM, Ford or Chrysler. Sorry, it is not 1978 anymore. These companies are all globally linked. I was given this speech when I bought my Mazda even though that same quarter, Mazda was the only thing heavily contributing to Ford’s bottom line.
I just thought to myself,”Could you imagine how much Wagoner would be making and how crappy and outdated their cars would be if everyone bought them just on the basis of being American?”
@Ronnie Schrieber:
“By those standards, I suppose you could say that California is dying too.”
I would agree… if employers representing the percentages that the D3 represent were losing market share consistently. CA has a diversified workforce… heavy in entertainment, but definitely not anywhere near the reliance MI has on the D3. Biggest company in CA is Chevron.
Check this article out from the Fed Reserve of Chicago talking about high unemployment in MI and net payroll loss (ranks last in growth). Most disturbing is that this article is from 2005, before the financial meltdown:
http://midwest.chicagofedblogs.org/archives/2005/10/michigan_auto_w.html
Ever say that someone “gypped” you?
No, I don’t use those racial slurs, either.
Ever call someone out for saying that they were “jewed” down?
As a matter of fact, I have.
Please, cut the martyrdom routine. You constantly lament how much Michigan is at risk, but then dislike it when someone agrees with your position.
This is a microcosm of the overall problem. The Michiganders demand our money and our business, while being completely unwilling to listen to those who might give it to them. When we complain about the automakers being out of touch, this is exactly what we are talking about. You can’t serve the customer if you are too busy attacking him to listen to what he wants.
I love the fact that they don’t realize starting a wave of vandalism on cars will result in a great increase in insurance claims in that area. If claims go up, so do rates on all cars. An increase in insurance premiums will be a nice parting piece.
I’ve never quite understood the rational behind articles like this about some kind of “seething anger” that one group or another has.
Are we meant to think “gee, there are some violent lunatics out there who are afraid Detroit will collapse. Let’s give Detroit money to keep those violent lunatics from breaking loose?”
Seems to me if anything it’s more likely to have the opposite reaction, i.e. “lets not give tax money to industries that employ violent lunatics or whose captive media uses veiled threats of violent lunacy in order to support their favored industry.”
Furthermore doesn’t this just reinforce the stereotypes of auto workers as xenophobic troglodytes railing against the ‘japs?’
“Ever say that someone “gypped” you?”
No, I don’t use those racial slurs, either.
“Ever call someone out for saying that they were “jewed” down?”
As a matter of fact, I have.
Good for you, though I note you ignored my comment about Japanese racism. I worked for a technology leader that had to JV with a Japanese partner to get business from the transplants.
Please, cut the martyrdom routine. You constantly lament how much Michigan is at risk, but then dislike it when someone agrees with your position.
It wasn’t a martyrdom routine, a tu quoque argument perhaps. Martyrs accept their fate. That’s part of what makes them martyrs.
Nobody knows the ills of this region and our primary industry better than folks who live in Michigan. Like the Chicago sports fans who chant “Detroit sucks” who don’t have the first clue just how much Detroit sucks.
The problem is that this saga has brought out all sorts of Detroit haters, disenchanted consumers, enviros, union busters, racists etc. There is a real sense of schadenfreude and a lot of piling on that is not only unseemly but also inaccurate or just plan lies.
I suppose it’s the difference between constructive criticism and personal attacks. I’ll take Robert at his word that he’d like to see a healthy Detroit and US auto industry. Many of the Detroit bashers, though, want Detroit to fail. That’s hardly constructive criticism.
There’s a difference between a surgeon who tells you that you need a tumor or diseased limb removed and someone cackling “off with his legs”.
It almost seems like frequent poster has a new hobby.
Damn!I was thinking it was me they were blaming.
Ronnie S: I havn’t read a post of yours yet,that I disagree with.Stay at em dude!
The print press has gone back to their percieved good old days. They simply report as much divisive crap as they can, and throw as much fuel on the fire as they can. They then stand behind some misapplied journalistic standards as defense.
We will likely have to go back to having wealthy people own the paper, and some of them will likely use it to their advantage.
So I guess pandering didn’t work…
“The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News will be offering fewer days of home delivery beginning in 2009; the math on discontinuing home delivered editions several days of the week is straightforward. It makes a dent on several elements of the high cost structure that newspapers have a hard time supporting anymore with diminished advertising revenue. Spending on paper, delivery and staffing the press room and newsroom all will come down. If those savings exceed the loss of advertising and circulation revenue, the move will be successful.”
Nobody knows the ills of this region and our primary industry better than folks who live in Michigan.
Apparently not. There is an unwillingness to recognize that the problems are self-inflicted, and that they continue to be self-inflicted.
Failure begins when you feel entitled to succeed. The success of a business comes courtesy of the customers who pay the bills. When you find yourself insulting and attacking them, instead of listening, then it’s time for a reality check, because that’s who keep the lights on.
If recent events still hasn’t made that clear, then you have to forgive me for believing that this is hopeless. Even Chapter 11 won’t be enough.
Ronnie Schreiber :
Below is a link to the Nov 25 Det News story referencing the millions (2nd sentence) that come downtown for the parade.
My points to the writer were that it was dumb, lazy, irresponsible journalism to take a PR number at face value that was over-inflated about *40-fold and print as fact.
And, if we can’t trust you on something as simple as this why should the readers take you (beat reporters) or your op-ed columnists seriously on more serious matters. No credibility.
(*20-fold if you give credit for every person at the Lions game that day as well).
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081125/ENT05/811250392/1016
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:s0e2084VQDEJ:www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article%3FAID%3D/20081125/ENT05/811250392/1016+%22detroit+news%22+november+2008+thanksgiving+parade+jennifer+millions&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
I’m really struggling to understand the point of this blog post. It appears as it’s supposed to criticize the DetN for turning a mountain out of a molehill with this vandalism streak that you accuse the paper of overhyping. If that’s the case, then you’ve failed on this count since the majority of commenters now believe that Detroit is full of roving gangs of angry tire slashing, window smashing unionists ready to destroy anything that doesn’t have a bowtie, blue oval, or penstar on the grille.
Perhaps it would’ve been better if you had stuck to your guns and not given this second story the oxygen of publicity either.
I suspect its brimming under the surface…mostly because Union parking lots now have signs that say something like “we are not responsible for damage to foreign vehicles parked here.” Saw it with my own eyes back in ‘98. Now if they took them down afterward, I expect they are coming right back up.
Sajeev,
Sadly, they never left. At last here in the midwest. Some were redone into a more ‘subtle’ text “Do you drive what you build?” and “Did we build it?”. If I drive near a plant today, I’ll snap a pic. I have no fear of retaliation – they’re mostly laid off.
Unions are simply a mob. It was like this in the 70s, sadly it will be back again. People who have been paid very well vis-a-vis their ‘skillset’ are smart enough to know that nobody else is going to pay so much for so little. So they will resort to whatever tactics they think they can get away with.
The sharp ones *will* pack it up and learn a new skill. The rest of them will revert to the same bad behaviour that they demonstrated in the 70s/80s.
The part that always gets me, is that Americans in any other business/industry are able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and do what they gotta do.
The most un-American acts are always perpetrated in the name of patriotism.
There’s a difference between a surgeon who tells you that you need a tumor or diseased limb removed and someone cackling “off with his legs”.
You’re right Ronnie. There IS a difference.
For the last 30+ years the doctor has told you that drinking, smoking, shooting heroin, and sleeping with cheap prostitutes was not good for you.
He offered treatment, paid for it (more than once), gave you every opportunity to cure yourself.
You need a new liver, you have gonasyphaherpAIDS, lung cancer, and a collapsing vascular system.
You still haven’t stopped ANY of the bad behaviors, however you did slow way down on riding the H-train, if only because you can’t afford it anymore.
After having you as a patient for 30 years, most doctors I know will NOT waste much of their valuable time on a patient who has shown no desire to help themselves.
If the patient actually completely turned their life around, and actually tried, then maybe they would be worthy of the immense resources that would need to be dedicated to their survival. Resources that would be much better spent on a 10 year old who has a far better chance of living another 5 years.
If that’s the case, then you’ve failed on this count since the majority of commenters now believe that Detroit is full of roving gangs of angry tire slashing, window smashing unionists ready to destroy anything that doesn’t have a bowtie, blue oval, or penstar on the grille.
I don’t think a majority of us feel that way. My feeling is that Detroit is not “full” of roving gangs, but sadly that there are a few disgruntled individuals who perpetrate this behavior – and then there are millions of others who would never pick up a rock or a hammer but who will chuckle to themselves, shrug their shoulders and say “serves ’em right for driving a Jap car.”
IOW the one or two guys with the hammers or the knives aren’t the problem. The millions who have adopted the victim mentality and who believe these acts are justified (or at least “understandable” which is the wimpy way of saying justified) are the problem.
Furthermore doesn’t this just reinforce the stereotypes of auto workers as xenophobic troglodytes railing against the ‘japs?’
Absolutely. I’m sure that Detroit bashers are busy emailing links to the news article. While they’re at it, they can include photos of Bubba Helms from 1984.
ROTFLMFTO. The irony is too rich. Few cultures on the planet are as xenophobic as Japan. Though that’s the way our leftist dominated educational system (cf. Dewey, John and Gramsci, Antonio) has indoctrinated people, America is not the source of all evil in the world. Everyone is human, with all the good and bad that involves.
Frankly, though it’s clearly based in political correctness, I’ve never understood why the abbreviated form of Japanese is considered bigoted. I mean it’s not like anyone is calling them geijin, “outsiders”, like Westerners are called in Japan. Hell, we’re not even allowed to call people who live in this country illegally “aliens” anymore. If “Yank” is an acceptable shorthand for Yankee, why not use Jap or Nip? I’m certainly not going to complain when someone refers to Jews as “Yids”. While the term is sometimes used by bigots as an epithet, it was first used by Jews themselves (eg. shver tzu zein a Yid, “it’s hard to be a Jew”). When I see friends, I’ll ask them “vus machst du Yid?”. There’s a classic Yiddish film, starring Molly Picon titled Yiddle Mit A Fiddle.
I don’t want to be like my black friends who use “nigger” as a synonym for “guy” but get all bent out of shape if a non-Negro uses it. Unlike “nigger”, though, Yid didn’t start out as a pejorative.
But then I was perplexed when a Japanese supervisor who was not a native English speaker lectured our group that the word “oriental” was “offensive”. I suppose I could have suggested that he look up the term “occidental”, but what’s the point?
Ronnie S: I havn’t read a post of yours yet,that I disagree with.Stay at em dude!
The idea that someone agrees with me 100% is somewhat disturbing. It threatens my self image as a contrarian and non-conformist. If I haven’t offended you yet, don’t worry, I will eventually. While looking for an appropriate graphic for the masthead of my automotive blog, I was going through some old Lotus ads from the early 60s, since I’m a disciple of ACBC, and found one with the tag line “You Can’t Please Everyone”. Perfect.
Seriously, though, thanks for the kind words.
The DTN and Freep just announced they will only home deliver papers on Thu, Fri & Sunday– their big days for advertising supplements.
But they were kind enough to allow folks to buy a paper at the newspaper box on the other four days. I’m sure this will help improve their diminishing readership. Hold on to your wallets local taxpayers…
But then I was perplexed when a Japanese supervisor who was not a native English speaker lectured our group that the word “oriental” was “offensive”. I suppose I could have suggested that he look up the term “occidental”, but what’s the point?
Upon him saying that, you shoulda raised your hand and pointed at him, all Donald Sutherland-like from The Bodysnatchers and said in a moaning voice: “GEEEEIJIIIN!”
Robert,
The Detroit papers have been struggling, as most big city dailies have, for years. The cutbacks at the DNA have more to do with the general economic climate and trends in the news business than with unsuccessful pandering to the domestic auto industry. The Chicago Tribune filed for bankruptcy, the LATimes is not far behind, and the NYTimes’ real estate is worth more than their newspaper. Buggy whip manufacturers all of them. The only big daily papers that will survive are the ones that figure out a workable business model on the internet, how to make money off of freely offered content. For a while they were getting by on revenue from classified ads, but eBay and then Craigslist killed that.
TaurusGT500’s comments about credibility are well stated. Also, the newspaper unions and guilds could teach Ron Gettlefinger a thing or two about intransigence. I’m old enough to remember the Detroit Times. I have a cousin by marriage (well, ex cousin I suppose) who put himself through law school and bought a nice XKE with the profits he and some friends made from the emergency newspaper they published when the unions shut down both big dailies from Nov. ’67 till August of the next year. It’s a good thing they settled or I wouldn’t still have newspapers from the Tigers’ World Series victory in 1968. BTW, color tvs and washing machines back then were about $300, just like today.
Apparently not. There is an unwillingness to recognize that the problems are self-inflicted, and that they continue to be self-inflicted.
Please read the Daniel Howes item I linked to above. Plenty of Detroiters and Michiganders are aware of the problems. But just because we know that many of the problems are our own mistakes, that doesn’t mean that we are blind to government policies that encouraged and exacerbated those mistakes, or that we’re going to join in the free for all bashing of the people who live around here.
I’m getting a little sick and tired of being bashed for the sins of the UAW and the Democrats they support. I’m not a fan of bumper sticker ideology, but don’t blame me, I vote for the other guys. Jenny Granholm may be a GILF, but I’d rather have Thad McCotter be in charge here. Engler made some progress and the state did well when he was in office, but the conservatives/libertarians here shot themselves in the foot by bringing in term limits and he had to quit. If you want to see what happens when Democrats have a monopoly for 60 years, come to Detroit.
we are blind to government policies that encouraged and exacerbated those mistakes
Who in the federal government told them to build a Vega whose front end would fall off or to design a Pinto with exploding gas tanks?
If anything, the federal government doesn’t like cars that explode. Even the evil Japanese aren’t allowed to import exploding cars.
Porschespeed,
There’s not much I can disagree with there.
A friend of mine, actually both he and his wife are transplant cardiologists. I once asked him if he ever got so pissed off at a patient that he wouldn’t treat them and he said that sometimes he does suggest that they see a different physician.
Still, in many ways Washington enabled the bad behavior. It’s as though the doctor was right there with him all the way, lighting up the cigarettes for him, preparing his heroin fix.
As for the hypothetical 10 year old whose treatment would be more cost effective, unfortunately there is no equivalent in the auto industry. Toyota and Honda don’t count, they’re not “our” kids.
Could a successful business be made out of GM’s assets? I’m a fan of the Tech Center so I’d say yes.
Keeping with your analogy, Ford made the necessary lifestyle changes, but like the guy in a NA or AA meeting who is sober but still dealing with the consequences of their actions, making amends as 12 steppers say, they need some encouragement and support.
Who in the federal government told them to build a Vega whose front end would fall off or to design a Pinto with exploding gas tanks?
If anything, the federal government doesn’t like cars that explode. Even the evil Japanese aren’t allowed to import exploding cars.
While Detroit demonstrated it could not build a small car very well in the ’70’s, the government did play some part in Detroit’s troubles beginning then.
Gov regulations eviscerated the product Detroit built well…i.e. big, fast cars. No leaded gas and smog pumps – all products of government mandates – made a big displacement motor into junk. It took a long time to perfect the catalytic converter, and digital control wasn’t there yet, so those regs hurt.
Another thing is CAFE. CAFE in itself isn’t bad from an altruistic perspective, however it played some part in keeping Detroit in a small-car game they weren’t good at. The genius of the minivan and the SUV for Detroit is that you could now sell what Detroit built decently (big people-movers) without a tax-hit because they are “light trucks.”
Detroit I think kept building small cars when there was no economic rationale to do so because of the way the taxes played out in their fleet averages. This will especially be prevalent in a bean-counter’s world-view. It also might explain some of the motivation to churn out rental fleet queens by the zillion.
Companies that are successful play to their strengths, and Detroit’s strengths were diluted by government regulation. Yet it was not “tax efficient” for them to get out of the small-car business at the same time, again via government regulations. This also enabled the Japanese to sit back with excellent CAFE standards and income to slowly hone their products to skew outside their core strengths. Detroit’s failure was their inability to lay siege to the core business of the Japanese, and that is Detroit’s failure alone and symptomatic of their corporate structure and bean-countiness.
So in my opinion the Feds are somewhat culpable in this mess, but only via the laws of unintended consequences.
You need a new liver, you have gonasyphaherpAIDS, lung cancer, and a collapsing vascular system.
Some issues, but the tests came back negative, so I need to see a plumber. You know you have tzorus when you’re hoping it’s an STD. Urologists still use tools like something out of a medieval torture chamber. They have these things called dilators that look like a #15 knitting needle with a 90 deg bend in the middle. Surgery’s a bitch. The definition of uncomfortable is waking up with an erection and a foley catheter.
I don’t think a majority of us feel that way. My feeling is that Detroit is not “full” of roving gangs, but sadly that there are a few disgruntled individuals who perpetrate this behavior – and then there are millions of others who would never pick up a rock or a hammer but who will chuckle to themselves, shrug their shoulders and say “serves ‘em right for driving a Jap car.”
There are about 4 million people in SEMI. About 3.999999 million of them heard about the vandalism and said, “Crap. That’s not exactly going to help us improve our image.”
The millions of people you mentioned include lots of folks who work for foreign owned companies. I drive by a Toyota technical center in Plymouth when I pick up shirts and hats to embroider.
Michiganders are not nearly as stupid as those who hate us think.
we are blind to government policies that encouraged and exacerbated those mistakes
Yeah. How dare people demand that the air be marginally cleaner, or that we have some kind of fuel economy requirements so we make the Saudis slightly less rich. Oh, by the way, can we have your money, evil government?
I am buying American – Toyota and Honda. These companies continually increase their U.S. content while GM Ford and Chrylser shove more and more to China because they need to save money on parts since they cannot fix their labor and retiree cost structure. I’m tired of seeing U.S. suppliers fail because the domestic auto makers move work off shore. I’m buying from the real U.S. automakers, the ones that want to source U.S. made parts in order to shorten their supply chain – Toyota and Honda.
“we are blind to government policies that encouraged and exacerbated those mistakes”
Who in the federal government told them to build a Vega whose front end would fall off or to design a Pinto with exploding gas tanks?
Sigh. I never said all their problems are the fault of government. Actually, I specifically mentioned examples, including the Pinto, where engineers had solutions that were overruled by the money men. In fact, what made the Pinto gas tank such a controversy was that Ford engineers had developed at least a couple of solutions (you can find the actual documentation of their tests online) to the problem but Ford managers decided to save money instead. The engineers tested putting a bladder inside the gas tank and strengthened frame rails to reinforce the back end of the car.
Companies that are successful play to their strengths, and Detroit’s strengths were diluted by government regulation.
The lack of engineering and management talent was never a strength, it just wasn’t an obvious weakness when there were no competitors who could exploit it.
Government did not create barriers that were insurmountable to a bunch of much smaller companies with minimal US brand recognition that were rebuilding from the losing side of WWII. There was no excuse for the huge, successful winners not being able to capitalize from the same things.
Instead of paying lobbyists to push their own regulations, Detroit should have invested the money into building a better product. Wrong priorities lead to the wrong results.
There are about 4 million people in SEMI. About 3.999999 million of them heard about the vandalism and said, “Crap. That’s not exactly going to help us improve our image.”
So if most of Michigan is appalled at this kind of vandalism, who is responsible for the parking lot signs that Porschespeed and Sajeev were talking about?
If import badged vehicles are being vandalized in big 3 parking lots enough for the parking lot owners to post a sign disclaiming any responsibility for said damage, then two things have to be true: (1) Someone is actually doing some vandalizing and (2) Someone else (the person responsible for putting up the sign) is apparently OK with it. If you don’t see that as emblematic of a problem then there’s no point in arguing further.
Michiganders are not nearly as stupid as those who hate us think.
Predictible. Criticism = “Hate.” By that standard we are all beyond criticism.
It took a long time to perfect the catalytic converter,
Another contribution from Ed Cole, who also, if I’m not mistaken, invented air bags.
I like the fact that Mulally is an engineer. Perhaps it’s my DuPont roots showing, but I think manufacturing companies that work with technology should be run by engineers and other techy folks who have a passion for the product.
I’m not dissing business managers or financial folks. The good ones are vital to successful businesses. But as Wall Sreet has shown, you can be very good at math, but even quantified risk carries the chance of failure. In engineering it either works well or it doesn’t and you can get real data on MTBF. Not much middle ground. I think that clear eyed approach works with business as well.
The answer is yes, DetN is getting crappy because they themselves are circling the drain:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/16/detroit.newspapers/index.html
They aren’t going to deliver papers to people’s homes anymore. So these poor schlubs have to go to the gas station so they can do the crossword? Selling ads will be a real bear when they don’t have an audited circulation, if they had any circulation to begin with.
“‘Not enough people recognize the importance of doing the right thing for their country, which is to buy American,’”
No…Doing the right thing for America is to trade freely and not use government laws/guns/jails (force/violence) to extract property from other people including employers.
Instead of paying lobbyists to push their own regulations, Detroit should have invested the money into building a better product. Wrong priorities lead to the wrong results.
I can’t agree with you more that Detroit failed in competing with the Japanese at their core strength of small cars. But CAFE kept Detroit from doing what they were good at with big, fast cars.
Instead, the perverse result of political and corporate myopia was Detroit’s last hurrah consisting of selling bigger, piggier, and from an operator-error perspective, far more dangerous SUVs instead of big cars because it was the most tax-efficient thing to do to deliver to Americans what they have always wanted when gas is cheap: Big, fast, spacious rides.
Ed Cole did not invent the air bag. He did, however, push to have them offered as optional equipment on Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs in the mid-1970s.
This was the first time an airbag was offered on a regular production car, foreign or domestic. They were withdrawn from the options list within a year or two, as customers were unwilling to pay for them.
Do we laugh or cry here.
So. Did any Pontiac Vibes or Saab 9-2s get tires slashed? How about those Saturn Vues with Honda engines? These of course are “GM” “American” cars sourced from Toyondassan but does anyone in Detroit really know this even thought its the “Motor City”?
Perhaps that 25% high school graduation rate in Detroit is really paying off these days.
When the UAW says “Buy American”, they REALLY mean buy UAW so I don’t loose my 6 figure job.
Myself, I’m buying a Legacy 3.0R…proudly made in Indiana.
Boo on me for buying Japanese.
I have to agree with this completely.
Damn those foreigner car makers for building reliable, fuel efficient cars people actually want to buy.
They must hate America.
Could a successful business be made out of GM’s assets? I’m a fan of the Tech Center so I’d say yes.
Keeping with your analogy, Ford made the necessary lifestyle changes, but like the guy in a NA or AA meeting who is sober but still dealing with the consequences of their actions, making amends as 12 steppers say, they need some encouragement and support.
Frighteningly enough we’re on the same page with this, it just seems we interpret the art a bit differently.
Just to beat the analagous horse one more time…
To my vision Ford has done the first step, acknowledging that this course of action is effen up their life, and the lives of those around them.
They’ve tossed the blow and they’re withdrawing from the H. But there’s still a case of Natty Light and a quarter pound of killer weed in the trunk. Hoping like hell they don’t get pulled over, as they’re still buzzed. While on their way to their NA meeting.
GM still has yet to acknowledge the problem – if only their dealer would front them a coupla kilos, they could get their finances in order, and everything would be cool.
Chryslerberus is simply on the Leaving Las Vegas plan.
The only way to save it is to burn it to the ground and start over. Institutionally, only Ford has a snowball’s chance of survival. And if they get too much money, the old ways will return. Overnight.
There really are great minds in this country. But the corporate cultures of the big 2.whatever have been broken since the 50s. They gave up EFI and a host of breakthroughs out of sheer hubris. They gave up customers (and still do) out of sheer hubris.
Evolve or die. DET has never acknowledged this in any real way. Ever.
Painful though it may be, letting them die is the only way to give them a chance. Everything else has been tried and they still just don’t get it.
I really do wish it could be different. But history teaches that it can’t.
GM still has yet to acknowledge the problem – if only their dealer would front them a coupla kilos, they could get their finances in order, and everything would be cool.
Mmmmm…Patriot Crack….yummy.
BTW,
Ronnie, what’s with the Ed Cole revisionist history love fest?
Airbags were patented (primitive, but right idea) in 1951. In the US by a guy named Hedrik, and in Germany by a guy named Linderer. Many developments and iterations followed. Ed Cole had zero to do with any of that according to the patent literature I’ve seen.
Cats were developed for production use in 1973 by Mooney and Keith at Engelhard corp in the US. Same story, many developments and iterations followed. Didn’t see his name on any of those either.
Seriously, if I missed something let me know. But I don’t see Cole’s name anywhere.
So if most of Michigan is appalled at this kind of vandalism, who is responsible for the parking lot signs that Porschespeed and Sajeev were talking about?
I’m skeptical about the disclaimer signs.
Sajeev says that he remembers from 10 years ago a sign that had “something like” a disclaimer about damaged foreign cars. I’m not questioning Sajeev’s credibility, he remembers what he remembers, but a 10 year old memory and “something like” is not exactly compelling evidence.
Then you use his statement as proof that vandalizing was in fact occurring. This is exactly how urban legends get started.
I’ve contacted the UAW public relations department and asked them if they have any information on such a sign. They were not aware of such a sign but promised to get back to me.
There are signs at UAW facilities that don’t permit parking of imported cars. Technically that may violate the international UAW’s policy of only permitting union made vehicles to park in UAW lots, since many imports, at least from Japan, are made in union facilities. The Japanese autoworkers just told Toyota they want a raise, btw. With Toyota now losing money, you can see that American autoworkers aren’t the only ones who are selfish.
I’ve been searching in vain for any reference on the web to UAW signs disclaiming responsibility for damage to imported cars. The web was around in 1998, and something that inflammatory should have gotten some media attention. I searched for [UAW & “not responsible for damage” and “not responsible for vandalism”] and found nothing like Sajeev’s account.
What I did find, was the fact that in 1999 UAW local 659 in Flint put up a sign that read, “The parking of any foreign made autos on Local 659 property is absolutely prohibited. Violators will have their auto towed at their own expense.”
It’s private property, they can make whatever legal rules they want for their own parking lots.
Frankly, it’s no different than how vendors act. You don’t drive a Chevy when you’re making a sales call to Ford or Chrysler. That’s considered poor form in Detroit and is also pretty much how business is done everywhere. A former neighbor of mine worked for a company supplying soundproofing and carpet to the Big 3 + AMC and he cycled through cars from each company. The Javelin w/ the 390 was the best. You support the people with whom you do business. When I worked at DuPont we had to set up a joint venture with Kansai paint so that Toyota would buy paint from us geijin. When I noted to one of our managers that the Kansai guys were driving Chevys the manager got very concerned.
Predictible. Criticism = “Hate.” By that standard we are all beyond criticism.
Considering that in this very thread I’ve mentioned specific criticisms of the Detroit automakers, your response is illogical. I made it clear that there’s a difference between constructive criticism and personal attacks. By your standard it’s impossible to go over the line from legitimate criticism to hate. Your statement is like those who quite wrongly say they can’t criticize Israel legitimately without being called anti-semites. It’s a preemptive deflection.
Like the old saw goes, even paranoids can have real enemies.
Ronnie, what’s with the Ed Cole revisionist history love fest?
Don’t blame me, I got the info from Keith Crain. If you note, I said “if I’m not mistaken”. So I was mistaken.
They must hate America.
Love fests: Bataan Death March, Malmedy, Andersonville.
Hoping like hell they don’t get pulled over, as they’re still buzzed. While on their way to their NA meeting.
There’s more groupthink at NA meetings than on the GM BOD.
No problem, just curious.
If you’re referencing Keith Crain as in ‘communications’, I bet he’d tell you Marconi invented radio.
We all get bad data sometimes.
Ronnie,
I have decided that much of the world’s ills today are based on the fact that we are supposed keep our disagreements with a people to their government. IOW, we are supposed to hate the leaders of Iran, but not Iran itself. We are supposed to automatically NOT have any sort of animosity, even approaching hate for the people of Iran. This seems great on the surface, but after decades of going along with this scheme, it is showing it’s bad side as well.
The people of Iran, as well as the people of Michigan, are complicit in their government’s malfeasance. While the Michiganders should not be ready to start an armed revolt, they should be doing more than they are. If you can’t stand the heat, emmigrate.
Who’s going to buy their house?
Great post…
Landcrusher :
December 16th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
besides…
…that would, if you think further, ultimately also include to hold all the people of America responsible for electing the Bush & Cheney junta as their beloved leader not one but two times with the (after the first term easy to expect) evident result…
Den Hague is not big enough to complement 400 million…
…but for a few selected one it could be quite cosy thought.
and to see them in the slammer would be (not only) for many taxpayers, who linger for justice, a truly price-worthy, christmas gift. A steal, compared to the crater “the boys” left behind,
Did anyone really think that ‘non domestic wrath’
wouldn’t happen?
In DETROIT!!!!
when I was in school there years ago..the thought of NOT buying a domestic was insane.
The whole Detroit area was domestic cars..but for a few Bugs and Mercedes(and no-one was fond of them)
The world outside Detroit may have changed.but when you LIVE THERE and see the damage done to everyone’s lives due to a loss of their lively hood…
as Chris Rock said about O.J killing his wife and lover..”I understand”
Anyone owning a foreign make in Detroit should have known this could happen.
oldyak,
Guess that means the Ford family better be careful.
Not sure what their current personal collection looks like, but Bill’s daily driver used to be a BMW 635.
I’d betcha Mullaly still owns his Lexus – but may not drive it every day.
I used to live in Grand Rapids (early 70s), and used to own a house in Coldwater(early 2K). I also lived in Silicon Valley through the boom and the bust. I’ve seen this before.
Industries change and collapse all the time. It’s the American capitalism way. Being a sore loser and expecting a handout is not the America that ever works out to anyone’s long-term benefit.
Nobody’s vandalized my Toyota yet. I’ve owned foreign cars off and on since the 1970s. British, German, Swedish and Japanese. Plus some Detroit models as well. My brother bought one of the first Accords in 1976 or 1977. My dad liked it so much he bought an ’84 Accord. After my dad, o’b’m’, died, it was my daily driver. I drove Volvos and my VW bus to my job at a tier 1 vendor.
At the Woodward Dream Cruise, nobody boos foreign cars.
Are there some idiots that might be obnoxious around here? Sure. Are they a significant number of the people around here? No more than there are in NY or LA.
While there are businesses and others with a “I buy what I build” attitude, there is no shortage of dealers for import brands in the Metro Detroit area and nobody is vandalizing their sales lots. It’s probably safer to be a Toyota dealer in Detroit than a Hummer dealer in Berkeley.
If people in the Detroit area prefer buying American cars, it’s not because of social stigma but rather the various employee purchase plans. After GM bought Saab you started seeing lots of Saabs around here. Same with Ford and Jaguar. I’m pretty sure that the Jag dealer in Troy is the biggest volume Jaguar dealer in the country.
No, I’m not saying that Detroiters only buy American products because they’re cheaper, I’m saying that Detroiters are just like everyone else, their purchasing decisions are based on family needs and budgets just like everyone else.
It would be nice if people could separate Detroit – the Automotive/Big 3, from DETROIT – the entire metropolitan area and the people who live, work (for companies that are not all automotive in nature, but are nonetheless affected by them), and raise their families here! What if it were your home/state/metropolitan area that everyone just said – let it die, because the major industry in that area (and also part of the whole nation’s economy) is stumbling!! I do not support a free ride bailout – but by God, I support the people who live and work HERE in Detroit, stop judging the whole for a fraction!!
Oh come now, where’s the sport in that?
It’s probably safer to be a Toyota dealer in Detroit than a Hummer dealer in Berkeley.
Now that’s a QOTD.
“Oh come now, where’s the sport in that?”
It’s probably safer to be a Toyota dealer in Detroit than a Hummer dealer in Berkeley.
“Now that’s a QOTD.”
I second the motion…
BTW, folks. Only four cars were vandalized in suburban Detroit, but out in Concord, California about 80% of the entire inventory of an Audi dealership plus cars that customers had dropped off for service, 98 cars in all, had every body panel keyed by some teenagers. Since all the cars will need complete resprays, the damage could run as high as $1 million.
Somehow I don’t think that this will get passed around the net as much as those 4 cars damaged by bubbas in Woodhaven. Will people call the folks in Contra Costa troglodytes? I doubt it. Though I suspect that someone will suggest that the teens are somehow tied to the UAW or domestic automakers.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_11240247?nclick_check=1
via Jalopnik
“I first noticed (a scratch) on one of our high-performance vehicles,”
Sounds like an R8 or two got damaged.
C’mon now. Apples and coconuts.
Random acts of vandalism by some f’d up little punks who need a good (fill in the blank).
v.
Not at all random acts, by some punks who are not so little.
Hey, I hate H1s as much as anybody else who’s actually ridden in/ driven/ worst of all, off-roaded one of those turds.
But most of us don’t support vandalizing Hummers or fur coats. Hummers just fall apart anyway.
You are not Jedi. You must believe in the force.
Namely, 88 Accord will outlast it all: neighbors who won’t let their kids’ friends park their FOREIGN cars in their driveway, bad winters, and oldyak-mentality that enables UAW thuggery.
You must have faith in the 88 Accord that my father once owned. Luke, 88 Accord is your father.
In other news, not related to salvation-by-flip-up headlights-and-taut-driving-dynamics, there was a news idem about Japanese fish markets in Tokyo banning foreigners. Foreigners make it difficult to sell fish apparently. I’ll have to ask my girlfriend about it. Or, have Bertel translate from Mainichi.
As for me, don’t park your POS Chrysler in my driveway. It makes me ashamed to be a ‘typical white person.’ Or, an atypical one. That’s not Allstate’s stand – just mine. >:)
Oldyak at 6:27
Maybe people in Detroit have to buy American but the rest of the country is not so likely to.
Don’t know if you’re really old, but I’m getting there, and have owned the following American made cars: 68 Chev Belair (mediocre); 73 Vega (piece of junk); 75 Ford LTD (a larger piece of junk); 75 Plymouth Cricket (also mediocre); 81 Mercury Zephyr (again, mediocre); 88 AMC/Chrysler Eagle (Oy! Just as bad as the Vega if not worse). Guess I made poor choices and should have done my homework better, but it eventually dawned on me that Detroit cannot seem to make a decent car. Since then I’ve bought 2 Asian made cars and they’re both good to excellent vehicles.
By the way, OJ didn’t kill his wife and lover – he killed his ex-wife who had divorced him for his habit of beating on her. He had another woman living with him but that didn’t keep him from stalking and killing his ex-wife. Quite a guy! Unlike Chris Rock, I don’t understand.
Interestingly, I would bet most of the world does hold us all responsible for our President.
Landcrusher :
December 17th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Interestingly, I would bet most of the world does hold us all responsible for our President.
Correct. (The US does in reality the same from the Indians, WWII to Iran.)
Not only for the US president as person but by his deeds
and that nobody stopped him by democratic means, held his hand even when wrangling the US constitution your hold responible.
The us folks nodded, remained mum, was obviously happy and reelected W. While enriching themselves, polluting water, air & soil lecturing, & finger-wagging to other societies, claiming higher moral ground, creating artificial and real enemies as fast as possible and not do anything constructive.
Now the results are poring in.
When your hit (yes there is a world outside the US – and its rather big) by the collateral outfall, may it be commercially poisoned by venom-sucked financial products bruising worldwide good & honest folks or having the family killed for no good reasons in their own beds & county, one is not asking every individual us citizen if it where exactly his $ 321.30 tax dollars hiring Blackwater mercenaries who extinguished his family and burned his tend.
Its simply a hard way to make good friends that way.
Chickens coming home to roost.
Dont whine – be a men