Herbert of the New York Times Reinvents Manufacturing for our Amusement. Detroit can be Saved.

Abstract: Herbert of the NYT offers us maudlin theatre with the stage adrift in tears while avoiding any contact with reality, modern economics, world trade or the crushing effects of unionism upon US manufacturing as he pines away for the Lost Detroit. This is what Herbert does best. The catastrophe that Herbert moans about is the confluence of unionism, violent crime, drug addiction and political corruption inter alia. He tours the slums with Professor Harley Shaiken of Cal Berkeley, a native of Detroit, and they commiserate and cobble together leftist scenarios that will revitalize this dump. This wasteland is the ‘reward’ for crooked government allied with the far left and the politically brainwashed workforce. Crime, corrupt elected officials and crooked unions are not mentioned in this carefully scripted propaganda piece.  Every big city that is failing like Detroit share the same problems: government by Democrats. This is a progressive process that will continue downward in social terms until the politics change drastically.

“In many ways, it’s [Detroit ed.] like a ghost town.”[1]--An American Catastrophe By Bob Herbert Op-Ed Columnist November 20, 2009 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

“What you’ll see are endless acres of urban ruin, block after block and mile after mile of empty and rotting office buildings, storefronts, hotels, apartment buildings and private homes. It’s a scene of devastation and disintegration that stuns the mind, a major American city that still is home to 900,0000 people but which looks at times like a cross between postwar Berlin and the ruin of an ancient civilization.”-- An American Catastrophe

Detroit is not really all that different from Oakland, St Louis, Chicago, Brooklyn, Queens, Philly, Atlanta and other cities where criminals and the incompetent achieved total control of city government, wrecked the business atmosphere, hiked taxes so as to drive out many companies and signaled a hostile business environment, sold drugs and used the greedy unions to squeeze as much money out of corporations as was humanly possible. Now, anybody who even thinks about starting a business other than prostitution, smuggling weapons or peddling drugs in one of these graveyards is a compleat fool or worse.

The city was destroyed and rendered an inhospitable location for whites to live by 5-time mayor Coleman Alexander Young.[2] He was a mover and shaker in such organizations as Progressive Party, the AFL-CIO, and the National N*g*o Labor Council.  He made racism the very basis, excuse and conclusion of nearly everything he accomplished. The NNLC was a Marxist front organization[3]--“a creature of the communists”—and supported by numerous far left wing groups and investigated by our government. He was mostly responsible for the white flight who escaped from his particular form of reverse-racist tyranny. The process continued with luminaries like Kwame Malik Kilpatrick[4] who was convicted of several felonies and forced to resign.  The corruption continues forward to this day. [5][6] This process continues today in this vein.

“I was in Detroit with Harley Shaiken[7], a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in labor issues. He grew up in Detroit and his love for the city and its people are palpable, as is his grief for the horrors the city has endured.”-- An American Catastrophe

Shaiken is very pro union and disputes that excessive union costs brought down General Motors.[8] He is a typical big government liberal.

““We’ve been living with the illusion that manufacturing — making things — is so 20th century,” said Mr. Shaiken, “and that we could succeed by concentrating, for example, on complex financial instruments while abandoning the industrial base that sustained so many American families.”” Shaiken quote in An American Catastrophe

“Americans, whether they live in big cities, suburban towns or rural areas, need jobs, and when those jobs are eliminated (for whatever reasons — technological advances, globalization) without being replaced, the national economy is guaranteed at some point to hit a wall.”-- An American Catastrophe

Off topic and irrelevant. This is the scripted response of a typical ideologue. The denial that high labor costs did not affect GM’s profitability is utter nonsense. More importantly and even more political, we have to look at manufacturing costs around the world and note, taking an example Professor Shaiken chose: Nike making sneakers in Viet Nam with 35 cent per hour labor costs. Can we compete with Nike using union wages and make sneakers in Detroit? No. This is a reflexive response to differential labor costs, profits and such and is an authorized liberal attack on capitalism. While criticizing the choice to manufacturing costs in third world, a US option to make those same products is not offered by Professor Shaiken. What would we do? How about a tariff on Nike products? Just raise prices? Shall we launch international trade wars with tariffs on thousands or hundred thousands of products? US exports are already expensive because of our high labor costs so that would suffer. By the way, the debasing of the dollar[9] is also not mentioned as this seems to be the ultimate Obama plan to stimulate the economy and make our stuff cheaper overseas. That is a recipe for disaster although Paul Krugman thinks this is a ‘good idea.’[10]

This op-ed piece is stilted and avoids the industry crushing costs from the unions that include legacy costs, feather bedding, pay for not working, and work rules and other matters like cradle-to-grave healthcare. The most important missing element here is that foreign automakers can make profits here and do much better than union-dominated automakers. Ford survives only on their F-150 truck sales and government-mandated electric cars and other rules just might terminate these sales and sink Ford too. These offerings in the NYT from this article are just lies by omission as GM and Chrysler have no hope to recover with the union pox infecting their every maneuver. The obvious problem of the decline in auto purchases world wide is not even included here nor are the massive subsidies to local automakers in Japan, Germany, France and England considered. The markets are down world wide and somehow Professor Shaiken convinces himself that high labor costs are not a major factor in pricing and profits and business success. This view is expected from the far left that would rather have some government bureaucracy run industry like they did so well in the old USSR.

Ancient history

“Professor Shaiken’s grandfather, Philip Chapman, took a job at the Highland Park plant in 1914, earning five dollars a day, and worked on production at Ford until his retirement in the mid-1950s.

We’re at a period no less significant to the U.S. than Mr. Chapman’s early years at Ford. We need a revitalized industrial policy, including the creation of whole new industries, if American families are to prosper in the coming decades. If there is any sense of urgency about this in the hearts and minds of our corporate and government leaders, I’ve missed it.”-- An American Catastrophe

The implementation of the curious and masked phrase “...need a revitalized industrial policy…” may be translated as government subsidies. Shoveling more money in the form of welfare, drug rehab and other avenues is the only way to keep the lights on in that place.

Detroit is no longer a suitable place to either live or work. There is nothing left but misery and crime and corruption. The murder rate in Detroit[11] signals a general trend toward third world murder statistics. “Contrary to FBI statistics, more than 100 Detroit homicides were left off the books last year, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Wednesday.”[12]

If we look at the metrics of crime, education, drug addiction and other factors we find Detroit and several other cities are led by criminals thus we must find that the situation is hopeless.[13] Broadcasting the delusion that unions can ‘save’ the city or the state is pure politics. Detroit is finished as a functional city and can best be used as a landfill.

We can also use the politically sensitive process of profiling to look at the negative progress of Detroit and other cites and collate the metrics and produce an analysis how they are similar to Zimbabwe or Beirut of Mexico City. Here we can show that cities like Detroit and New Orleans and Baltimore and others are following the social path downward using racism, tribalism and Marxism to ultimate destruction. Thus our society is being compartmentalized with concentrated Marxist and Jihadist enclaves in many cities and we must be careful to avoid these places. And, I thought Oakland was bad in the 50s!

rycK

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