The NYT’s Friedman’s Flat Propagandistic Thinking on Auto Bailouts: Ignore Unions and Blame Management.

The New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers [1]  culminates its first century of unerring propaganda secretion with an unblemished  record of apologizing for Communism, propping up losers and dope addicts, celebrating dictators and despots in their opinion columns, pushing unionism and scrounging for new ways to reinvent Marxism.  They did blunder with the endorsement of Dewey in 1948, but recovered from that mistake and have mindless endorsed any far left political candidates ever since as a penance. Specializing in propaganda and chauvinistic adherence to unionism, socialism and other proven failed themes they recruit and culture  resident journalists writers who masquerade as ‘analysts’ or ‘experts’ and who share their quasi-Marxian delusions with the diminishing list of readers of this morally and intellectually and finically bankrupt rag. Today we are educated on the proper management of the auto industry and how the Times knew the best path forward to business glory from the birth of Henry Ford.

In an article entitled: How to Fix a Flat by Thomas L. Friedman we are given lessons in elementary business acumen:

“[Our Hero Friedman was listening to]… Bob Nardelli, the C.E.O. of Chrysler… explaining why the auto industry, at that time, needed $25 billion in loan guarantees. It wasn’t a bailout, he said. It was a way to enable the car companies to retool for innovation. ”[2]-- How to Fix a Flat By Thomas L. Friedman Op-Ed Columnist  November 11, 2008

Our hero explodes with:

“How could these companies be so bad for so long? Clearly the combination of a very un-innovative business culture, visionless management and overly generous labor contracts explains a lot of it. It led to a situation whereby General Motors could make money only by selling big, gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s and trucks. Therefore, instead of focusing on making money by innovating around fuel efficiency, productivity and design, G.M. threw way too much energy into lobbying and maneuvering to protect its gas guzzlers.” [All quotes references this link in this blog unless otherwise noted. [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

I wonder if our business expert at the Times is aware that Toyota and certain German and other Japanese and automakers make SUVs that only get 20 mpg in the US and they make good profits selling them.

Here, Friedman casually guides us past by a key point in his propaganda piece as he seems to blame the automakers for offering “overly generous labor contracts.” This is part of the propagandist’s art [of which the New York Times is a Grand Master[3]]: the distortion of the facts and shifting blame to the political target.  If this was a mistake then perhaps they ought to offer lower wages to their union employees. They might want to remain silent as the United Auto Workers continue on with their lobbying and study how to do business the Friedman Way.

Here the work of a competitor is thrown into the discussion:

“Nothing typified this more than statements like those of Bob Lutz, G.M.’s vice chairman. He has been quoted as saying that hybrids like the Toyota Prius “make no economic sense.” And, in February, D Magazine of Dallas quoted him as saying that global warming “is a total crock of [expletive].”-- Friedman

Do we hear that [1] the Toyota Prius is very expensive and that extra cost must be compared with the so-called gas mileage of this non-union manufactured car. Owners cannot seem to even approach the advertised gas mileage claim of 60 miles per gallon on the highway and 51 in the city.[4] Many owners only get half of that. See Sandra C.’s case in the footnotes.

The economics of this works out to the notion that if you expect 60 mpg and get only 34 then you have lost 34/60 x 100,000 miles at $4 per gallon or a loss by the customer of about $5100 dollars. Cost of the car is about $24,000.

Customers were offered very high savings on fuel by purchasing this car that was more expensive and harder to get than comparable cars that also got 28-30 mpg from Detroit.

“And please, spare me the alligator tears about G.M.’s health care costs. Sure, they are outrageous. “But then why did G.M. refuse to lift a finger to support a national health care program when Hillary Clinton was pushing for it?” asks Dan Becker, a top environmental lobbyist.”

Was there an option to shift these HC costs to the government without penalty? I don’t think so.

It is customary in the construction of propaganda pieces  to highlight some improper action by the opposition to make a point but to cover that blunder with a need to overlook the error for the ‘common good’ or ‘jobs’ or other excuse:

“The blame for this travesty not only belongs to the auto executives, but must be shared equally with the entire Michigan delegation in the House and Senate, virtually all of whom, year after year, voted however the Detroit automakers and unions instructed them to vote. That shielded General Motors, Ford and Chrysler from environmental concerns, mileage concerns and the full impact of global competition that could have forced Detroit to adapt long ago.”-- Friedman

The advice of experts is now solicited:

“O.K., now that I have all that off my chest, what do we do? I am as terrified as anyone of the domino effect [Cliché alert see below, ed] on industry and workers if G.M. were to collapse. But if we are going to use taxpayer money to rescue Detroit, then it should be done along the lines proposed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday by Paul Ingrassia, a former Detroit bureau chief for that paper.”—Friedman

“Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.”-- U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Viet Nam 1954.[5]

Which includes a lot of hatchet work:

““In return for any direct government aid,” he wrote, “the board and the management [of G.M.] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company ... Giving G.M. a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake.”

Our hero closes with this:

“Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar.”

Perhaps California[6] should tax the electrons on Apple computers with, say, $500 in taxes, on all machines sold in that state or exported to the Real World. Would Steve move his business to Michigan or Taiwan or Dubai? We need to save the planet. Raise taxes!

Our hero strays too far from the nourishment of the Kool-Aid reservoirs as he merely offers a license for any good business person to get in and whack the unions, dump the excessive bennies and come up with a viable business plan. This last tidbit spells doom for the unions and their wages and benefits for retirees.  The UAW knows this and went to court to lower benefits and such was roundly criticized by the socialists.[7] The union workers saw this coming.[8]

The ugly facts are that foreign [read non union auto makers] seem to thrive in the US and have not asked for bailouts. Isn’t that strange? Do we see a pattern here? We need to compare this union-political cohabitation exercise in the case of cars with what the unions and their paid stooges did to the rail industry, airline industry[9] and elsewhere. Can we see a pattern here?

Friedman blunders here as he unwittingly  supports a business-oriented reorganization and cost-cutting scenario that will elimate the unions and their benefits altogether and one that would  force Detroit to mimic existing automakers that are already successful. That means we use government money to duplicate existing success and that is inefficient. We reinvent the wheel at government expense. That is liberalism. That is not a business plan—that is tax whoring. The best business plan is to let GM, Ford and Chrysler to go bankrupt and allow the non union automakers enjoy the marginal business and make more profits. That, alone, makes business sense. Friedman has boogered this one. He needs to be reeducated in the following socialist theme:

The typical socialist government [France, Italy, Spain] would merely give the automakers some generous subsidy for every hour worked [say $30 dollars per hour], put up tariffs, severely tax non union auto plants and then also subsidize healthcare benefits [how about $10,000 per worker] and finally guarantee the retirement benefits of 750,000 loyal Democrats who voted for all those wonderful politicos in Michigan all these years.  We need to recruit some veterans from the allies and friends of the former Mayor Coleman A. Young Administration (1974-1993). They know how to handle this. They might push for a subsidy of $60 dollars per hour and bring economic justice to Detroit.

Socialism and high taxes are the New Obama Way.  Join a union!

"I know that General Motors received some bad news yesterday," Obama said. "I also know how much progress you've made, how many hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles you're churning out. And I believe that if our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to retool and make this transition, that[sic] this plant will be here for another hundred years."[10]—O’Bozo

100 more years of unionism! We can all celebrate.

rycK

Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com