While Detroit's Big Three are laying off thousands of workers, Toyota is hiring thousands of workers right here in America, where a substantial share of all our Toyotas are manufactured.
Will this save Detroit or Michigan? No.
Detroit and Michigan have followed classic liberal policies of treating businesses as prey, rather than as assets. They have helped kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. So have the unions. So have managements that have gone along to get along.
Toyota, Honda and other foreign automakers are not heading for Detroit, even though there are lots of experienced automobile workers there. They are avoiding the rust belts and the policies that have made those places rust belts.
A bailout of Detroit's Big Three would be only the latest in the postponements of reality.
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Saturday, December 27, 2008
No accountability, no responsibility
Thomas Sowell ties together modern trends in education to resist the idea of accountability for failures to the attitude that those in business and government who make mistakes should be protected from the results of their mistakes. He notes how we postpone reality by passing along students who can't measure up in school and now we're attempting to do the same for the automakers.
Labels:
Auto Industry,
Economics
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9 comments:
I wonder what Sowell means by this:
"Detroit and Michigan have followed classic liberal policies of treating businesses as prey, rather than as assets."
He never explains. I wonder if he understands it himself, or even means anything at all, or if it's just the reactionary bile of the day.
Eventually, if not immediately, GM especially will be used as a great example of how not to design/run a profit-driven organization. Of course, the UAW will have to have its own subsection.
I see. If Biddle doesn't understand what a conservative writer is saying, then the fault is with the writer. Couldn't possibly be an inadequacy on Biddle's behalf. Inconceivable.
I get what Sowell is saying (He is one of the most insightful commentators of our day.). Betsy obviously gets it too. Anyone who doesn't recognize the propensity for big-government to tax and regulate free enterprise out of existence will never get it.
To understand what Sowell meant then it might have been wise to include a paraphrase of the next sentence where the two government bodies, instead of feeding and nurturing the goose that laid the golden eggs, merely extracted a few eggs then served up the goose for dinner.
But maybe Bill B will be happy with the new line of cars currently being designed by Henry Waxman, instead of design school graduates in Dearborn, that bear a strange and startling resemblence to that other well regarded and economical car of the DDR, the Trabant.
Our political, educational, and industrial motivations are all converging on the Utopian ideal of a world without consequence.
They are all heading for collapse.
In other words, none of the ninnies here can give examples to illustrate Sowell's claims either.
So what are the "liberal policies" Sowell is referring to?
All the figures I have seen show that the economy grows significantly better under democratic presidents than under repub presidents.
Ignoring facts you don't like, isn't a very good case.
Hey Bill, here's and idea. Consider the cases of Detroit and Michigan the last 40 years. Nice case studies.
Oh, and how about the EU? Compare their growth rate over the last 20 years to that of the US.
Let me know what you discover.
What are you trying to argue, Equitus? There are 27 (currently) independent nations that comprise the EU. Their governments and economic results are all across the spectrum
What aspects of which nations are you trying to compare to the US? Betsy's rabbits are so funny when they pretend to knowledge of international matters.
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