Posted on 10/3/2007, 2:00:29 PM by reaganaut1
What is it about Michigan that seems to encourage assisted suicide?
That is all I can think watching Michigan congressmen and senators, led by Representative John Dingell, doing their best imitations of Jack Kevorkian and once again trying to water down efforts by Congress to legislate improved mileage standards for Detroit in the latest draft energy bill.
Look, I get pork-barrel politics. I understand senators from oil states protecting the windfall profits of oil companies. Ditto for farm subsidies. It’s an old story: Protect my winnings, and I’ll reward you with campaign contributions. I get it. I get it.
What I don’t get is empty-barrel politics — Michigan lawmakers year after year shielding Detroit from pressure to innovate on higher mileage standards, even though Detroit’s failure to sell more energy-efficient vehicles has clearly contributed to its brush with bankruptcy, its loss of market share to Toyota and Honda — whose fleets beat all U.S. automakers in fuel economy in 2007 — and its loss of jobs. G.M. today has 73,000 working U.A.W. members, compared with 225,000 a decade ago. Last year, Toyota overtook G.M. as the world’s biggest automaker.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Protect my winnings?...........Liberals just don’t get “earnings” as a form of reward for hard work.......
I think Friedman’s entire salary should be considered winnings.
I stopped reading at “windfall profits”.
After that, everything else lacks credibility.
This is an idiotic article even by NYT’s standards. Some of the statements border on libel.
This is a guy that MediaMatters listed as a “centrist” so that their recent “study” of conservative bias in newspaper columnists would break in their favor. Please note that he considers the loss of union jobs a bad thing and then blames it on the government lackeys from Michigan not passing cafe standards.
He doesn’t mention that these gubmint types are all Dims, that it is the unions that have caused the lack of profitability of the “Big Three” and thus the loss of union jobs, and doesn’t even mention the HUGE tax increases just passed in Michigan that will drive even more business from the state.
The solution to the Big Three’s problems are free market reforms, right to work legislation, and tax cuts.
Automakers indeed built vehicles with better fuel economy, and consumers bought them. The increase in mpg from 1974 to 1983 was essentially double. This meant that the cost per mile driven WENT DOWN; the exodus from cities to suburbs was accelerated, and consumers had yet another reason to choose the automobile over mass transit.
Today, people drive some 35% more per year than they did in '74, meaning that the net effect of CAFE has been to increase our dependency on foreign oil.
In which alternative universe can the conservation of a commodity be INCREASED by MAKING IT CHEAPER TO USE?
I clicked on this article thinking that it would be about the suicidal tax increase which the Michigan State Legislature approved just a few days ago. [Me: "Huh, Thomas Friedman is a supply-sider?"]
Instead I get an even more assinine, tyrannical, suicidal prescription: Force Detroit to build the kinds of cars which they aren't any good at building, and which their customers do NOT want to purchase, in lieu of the kinds of cars [really light trucks] which they are good at building, and which their customers DO want to purchase.
Michael Savage is right about one thing - The Left is insane.
Toyota knows what the domestic manufacturers know: north Americans (at least a lot of them, anyway) want big vehicles that it’s very unlikely will ever make the new CAFE standards, and the automakers don’t want to be forced to build and sell a lot of (mostly fairly small) cars that Americans don’t really want.
I got this in my email tonight and thought you might appreciate it. :)
A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company(General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River .. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.
Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.
Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.
They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the Rowing Team Quality First Program, with meetings, dinners and free pens and a certificate of completion for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles.
Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower (a reduction in workforce) for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was “out-sourced” to India .
Sadly, the End.
However, sad, but oh so true! Here’s something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can’t make money paying American wages. Toyota has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US.
The last quarter’s results:
Toyota makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses.
Ford folks are still scratching their heads.
IF THIS WASN’T SO SAD IT MIGHT BE FUNNY
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