Dad - Being his typical silly self...

Dad - Being his typical silly self...
We miss you dad!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Auto Industry Dilemma

What happens to Jane and/or John Doe when they make a colossal mistake or take a giant risk that flops and they hit financial desperation? Folks that maybe have a college education, but probably not... Spent too much on fancy cell phones, plasma TV's, celebrity gym shoes and status symbol cars instead of being conservative and planning for future changes in the market? Have a health problem or major family crisis, loss of job, etc.

BAM!!

Low life no good for nothing scum bags trying to take advantage of "the system" is how they are branded. Unworthy. To be shunned. Eyed with suspicion. Shrouded in shame. Failure. Total personal failure. Deadbeats.

A team of highly educated, ivy league, business PROFESSIONALS making millions per year for their expertise screw up, and the consequences? Their compensation packages are barely compromised, if at all, they get to reorganize or shut down, off-load their debt and smile all the way into their next big RISK and their fat incomes and golden parachutes.

Let them make totally negligent decisions completely disregarding a known situation and well, how could they predict that we would need things like fuel efficient cars and gosh, it would be such an expensive endeavor... hmmm hello anybody got a memory cell at GM - the EV1 electric car from 1996 - a handsdown winner of an auto that would have made the gas dependent Prius a joke... ohhh gotta scrap that plan, let's build Yukon's instead and big big trucks. Hey, it doesn't matter we get government subsidies.

Yes, colossal irresponsibility and now, they want taxpayer money to bail them out of their failure to manage the business responsibly. Highly skilled professionals driving a company and national economy into the ground.

Yet, poor Chet, father of 3, files bankruptcy after losing his job where he worked 15 years at a factory straight outta high school, making good money, with good benefits in a solid blue chip company and the bastard is a low life irresponsible scum.

Yes, I am a bit pissed about the discourse of personal bankruptcy and corporate bankruptcy. It is INVERTED people. Ivy league professionals are paid handsomely for their business acumen. Yet they fuck up, making loads of income in the process, and ooops...

So, I sit, once again in a conundrum.

Chimp boy has left this country in an absolute shambles. I mean, we are in really fucking bad shape people. Even without the failure of the Big 3, things are bleak. Especially here in the rust belt.

Good luck "Rocker Bama" as my dad used to call him.

So, the Big 3 tank and 1 million more are added to the unemployment rates. 1 million MORE people who do not have enough income to meet their basic expenses, much less keep the consumer based economy functioning.

The massive size of the combined pensioners, my mom included, will likely send the PBGC into spasms and potential collapse. I know the reports are saying it won't be a problem. People lie, folks... Enron anyone????????????????

Perhaps the American economy as a whole is being downsized, er that is old skewl, excuse me "right sized" ???

Is this that juncture where we are no longer the dominant force on the globe? No longer the 20% consuming 80% of the world's resources?

It is a cliff that, on one hand, I want to take the paraglider and sail off of, and on the other hand, it is a scary proposition.

The next county over from me, Preble County, is facing big financial problems not unlike that of the rest of Ohio... this is a rural county folks. According to the 2006 Census figures, population of 42,500 in 18,000 houses, in an area with 100 people per square mile... rural people, I mean "country roads take me home" kinda rural.

Skinny farm roads. No salt for those roads this winter, not in Preble County. Ok, the bridges and curves will get some and the biggest arteries, like the state routes, but secondary roads, which are most of them. No salt.

I wonder how this will play out in the cost of emergency services for people attempting to drive on ice to jobs they are desperate not to lose because they probably and realistically won't find another.

Damn glad I live in Montgomery County and on a major state route...

apparently the cost of rock salt used to melt/prevent ice has more than doubled since last year. Add that to significant budget cuts at every level of government around here and whamo.

So, things here are sorta bleak, unless you are in the medical field, an engineer, an IT whiz or are highly skilled in computerized manufacturing. And this does not describe the majority of the 70% of the county's work age population who have an associates degree or less (54% high school or less).

However, in 2 plus years when they finally complete that 2 year technical skills program for healthcare, the area will be in such a shambles that there will not be enough people with jobs or health insurance who still live here, to provide adequate jobs in the healthcare sector to employ the career transitioners and the kids maturing into this bleak economy...

so goes the pains of an area struggling with economic earthquakes. SF has nothing on the economic quaking here in the rust belt.

Alrighty then, should we bail out the auto industry with requirements for substantial changes in operating procedures (and executive compensation) and keep some of those folks employed, or do we let them implode and continue on the slide into a depression?

Is it really reasonable to bail out the financial industry, participants in that industry made handsome profits engaging in business practices they had to be smart enough to know were not sustainable or responsible, yet they made a tidy sum in the process, and were bailed out on our dime, for our benefit. How is the auto industry significantly different?

How long before Americans are the "illegals" scrambling for jobs in other more prosperous countries???