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To once again paraphrase an old Soviet joke, there are two ways Detroit can be turned around: the natural and the miraculous. The natural way is that the Archangel Michael and his bands of angels descend to earth and work 24 hours a day to save the city’s economy. The miraculous way is that the automakers do it themselves.
21 Comments on “The New, New, New, Viability Plan: Prayer...”
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Don’t you remember in, oh, October or so of 2007 that Atlanta was going to run out of water in six months?
So what did Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue do? He had a big prayer meeting.
Last I heard, they still have water. Hey, if it worked for Atlanta, maybe it’ll work for Detroit.
GM had a long history of innovation, research and development and quality, until the Roger Smith era ushered in a long, precipitous decline. My dad was a Fisher Body exec for 35 years and I’m a former GMAD employee myself, so I know a little bit about this company.
One good thing that could come out of this…the land that the GM Tech Center in Warren sits on could make a great golf course.
(sarcasm) If there’s anything Jesus can do, I know he’ll save a horribly mis-managed US auto industry that was screwed before the economy took a giant dump. Hallelujah! (end sarcasm)
As Lou Reed sang about twenty years ago, “It’ll take a busload of faith to get by”
Does God really care which football team wins? Same holds true here.
Just for insurance it would probably be a good idea to have a candlelight vigil as well.
A bonfire that included a few senior auto executives and the UAW contracts could be a fall back if the candlelight vigil fails.
Divine or not, what saved Atlanta was rain. And cutting off river flow to Alabama and Florida, which is still being battled over.
I don’t think sales will miraculously start to happen for Detroit.
I’m a lifelong atheist, but it probably makes them feel better, and I’m all for that
Prayer, for whatever reason, but especially for and by people who are facing tough times should not be “WTF”. Poor taste.
I feel a genuine level of sorrow for the people who are facing extreme hardship from the mismanagement of both the auto industry and the UAW.
Prayer will not mitigate thirty years of mismanagement and poor corporate choices. More often than not, they will reap what they sow.
Peace.
The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t actually Do Anything to solve the Problem! The entire senior management class should be working for a $1 a year until they figure out a viable strategy. The “worker bees” should take an immediate 20% pay cut, and UAW retirees should get the same benefits as the salaried retirees.
Then they can pray that they don’t bleed to death before things improve.
Its possibly out of Jesus’s hands by this point.
I would suggest appealing the Mayan god of the dead, Yum Cimil, (because these companies are dead already)
It may well sharpen the minds of current Execs and high ranking union officials to see a couple of them selected at random and their still beating hearts removed from their chests and then their corpses rolled of the steps of the Renaissance Center.
Pathetic. Did “god” tell them to make shitty cars?
This is by far THE most PRODUCTIVE thing GM and Chrysler have done for YEARS!
What a sad, sad (albeit interesting) video.
These people are not (definitely) the masters of their destiny. They believe that their destiny is in invisible hands.
They may also pray for the resurrection of AMC, Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Cord, Jordan, Hupmobile, Checkers or Duesenberg. It would be just the same.
The fact that there is a mass prayer gathering is indicative of the sense of hopelessness that is reflective of the sad state of the domestic auto industry. Perhaps the folks are praying for the strength to manage through the pending unemployment, the hunt for non-existent jobs, and for divine intervention to let the buy-out money stretch long enough for the hand of providence to do its work. It’s a natural reflex in times of distress. I’m guessing that somewhere, there’s a group of people praying the rosary using the Serenity Prayer in place of Hail Mary….Having been a casualty of this implosion, and unemployed for 5 months while the money runs out, prayer sometimes seems as reasonable a strategy as any. Of course, after the head is bowed and the closet is exited, it’s back to the internet jobsites to try to help myself!
The first thing that popped into my head was that old Cromarty and Rush song —
“I don’t care if it rains or freezes
‘Long as I got my plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Through my trials and tribulations
And my travels through the nations
With my plastic Jesus I’ll go far”
Then I was ashamed of myself.
Those folks praying for Detroit’s recovery are decent individuals who have been hit by forces beyond their control. Even if their specific requests for job preservation and such are not–maybe cannot be–met, they can get some comfort by placing their trust in the Almighty.
Down here in the southwest we too have known bad times. Dust bowl. Depression. Three decades of outmigration. In the 80’s the oil boom turned to bust, and took down with it a lot of businesses and people. Hundreds of banks failed. Real estate prices collapsed. Drilling equipment sold for pennies on the dollar when a buyer could be found. A hundred petroleum engineers and geologists seeking every job opening. Sound kinda familiar?
Bad times don’t last forever. But they can last a long time. And in the meantime, there will be wrenching changes for a lot of good people. We should be praying for them.
MikeyDee: “My dad was a Fisher Body exec for 35 years and I’m a former GMAD employee myself, so I know a little bit about this company.”
Would you please give some insights about the what, how and why of blunders GM made on the road to perdition?
Not to worry.
The head secular Messiah is here.
Praise Obama but pass the ammunition.
@ RogerB34
Okay I’ll bite on the “secular Messiah” comment. I actually agree that Obama is positioned as a Messiah of sorts.
He has all the attributes of a Messiah.. Perfect for the role. He could sell a freezer to an eskimo without electricity and then convince the guy that it was his fault that it doesn’t work.
None of the other presidential candidates could have come close to pulling off the Messiah act.
Lately I’ve come to believe that this country will fall deeper into the abyss until the majority of American’s decide that government is not the answer and in fact government is the very thing that is screwing us over.
We blew/popped the tech bubble, then the housing bubble, and now we have the last/biggest bubble to pop – Belief in the government’s ability to produce value.
Approval ratings for the government are already in the toilet, but the general population has decided that government must solve the economic crisis. Once Obama’s spending has decimated any chance for a US recovery and the rest of the world is recovering nicely we will get a NASTY dose of inflation that should pop the last/biggest bubble.
Obama’s entire strategy is based on a perpetual motion/free energy scheme. Magically the government can take a unit of production (via taxes) and spin it into 2 units.
Today’s job report was a perfect example…
A net 539,000 jobs lost… but you should add all the government jobs created to that figure, since every government employee is one less person that can produce something. Government is pure overhead, like an accounting department for a manufacturer. Critical, but overhead nonetheless so you keep it as small as possible.
Are you pissed about the government spending/growing? Then you figured out the con… Once a majority figure it out, then we can make progress.
Prayer: How to do nothing and still think you’re helping.
De-motivational poster: http://www.pleaselink.me/_/myconfinedspace/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/prayer.jpg