[BRIGADE] PJB: Who Killed Detroit?
Published: Fri, 11/21/08
By Patrick J. Buchanan
November 21, 2008
Who killed the U.S. auto industry?
To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to
foresee the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made
gas-guzzling road-hog SUVs no one wanted, while the clever,
far-sighted Japanese, Germans and Koreans prepared and built for
the future.
I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of
the United States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have
long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that
ran the smokestack industries that won World War II.
As far back as the 1950s, an intellectual elite that produces
mostly methane had its knives out for the auto industry of which
Ike's treasury secretary, ex-GM chief Charles Wilson, had boasted,
"What's good for America is good for General Motors, and vice versa."
"Engine Charlie" was relentlessly mocked, even in Al Capp's L'il
Abner cartoon strip, where a bloviating "General Bullmoose" had as
his motto, "What's good for Bullmoose is good for America!"
How did Big Government do in the U.S. auto industry?
Washington imposed a minimum wage higher than the average wage in
war-devastated Germany and Japan. The Feds ordered that U.S. plants
be made the healthiest and safest worksites in the world, creating
OSHA to see to it. It enacted civil rights laws to ensure the labor
force reflected our diversity. Environmental laws came next, to
ensure U.S. factories became the most pollution-free on earth.
It then clamped fuel efficiency standards on the entire U.S. car
fleet.
Next, Washington imposed a corporate tax rate of 35 percent, raking
off another 15 percent of autoworkers' wages in Social Security
payroll taxes
State governments imposed income and sales taxes, and local
governments property taxes to subsidize services and schools.
The United Auto Workers struck repeatedly to win the highest wages
and most generous benefits on earth -- vacations, holidays, work
breaks, health care, pensions -- for workers and their families,
and retirees.
Now there is nothing wrong with making U.S. plants the cleanest and
safest on earth or having U.S. autoworkers the highest-paid wage
earners.
That is the dream, what we all wanted for America.
And under the 14th Amendment, GM, Ford and Chrysler had to obey the
same U.S. laws and pay at the same tax rates. Outside the United
States, however, there was and is no equality of standards or taxes.
Thus when America was thrust into the Global Economy, GM and Ford
had to compete with cars made overseas in factories in postwar
Japan and Germany, then Korea, where health and safety standards
were much lower, wages were a fraction of those paid U.S. workers,
and taxes were and are often forgiven on exports to the United
States.
All three nations built "export-driven" economies.
The Beetle and early Japanese imports were made in factories where
wages were far beneath U.S. wages and working conditions would have
gotten U.S. auto executives sent to prison.
The competition was manifestly unfair, like forcing Secretariat to
carry 100 pounds in his saddlebags in the Derby.
Japan, China and South Korea do not believe in free trade as we
understand it. To us, they are our "trading partners." To them, the
relationship is not like that of Evans & Novak or Fred Astaire and
Ginger Rogers. It is not even like the Redskins and Cowboys. For
the Cowboys only want to defeat the Redskins. They do not want to
put their franchise out of business and end the competition -- as
the Japanese did to our TV industry by dumping Sonys here until
they killed it.
While we think the Global Economy is about what is best for the
consumer, they think about what is best for the nation.
Like Alexander Hamilton, they understand that manufacturing is the
key to national power. And they manipulate currencies, grant tax
rebates to their exporters and thieve our technology to win. Last
year, as trade expert Bill Hawkins writes, South Korea exported
700,000 cars to us, while importing 5,000 cars from us.
That's Asia's idea of free trade.
How has this Global Economy profited or prospered America?
In the 1950s, we made all our own toys, clothes, shoes, bikes,
furniture, motorcycles, cars, cameras, telephones, TVs, etc. You
name it. We made it.
Are we better off now that these things are made by foreigners? Are
we better off now that we have ceased to be self-sufficient? Are we
better off now that the real wages of our workers and median income
of our families no longer grow as they once did? Are we better off
now that manufacturing, for the first time in U.S. history, employs
fewer workers than government?
We no longer build commercial ships. We have but one airplane
company, and it outsources. China produces our computers. And if GM
goes Chapter 11, America will soon be out of the auto business.
Our politicians and pundits may not understand what is going on.
Historians will have no problem explaining the decline and fall of
the Americans.
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/11/pjb-who-killed-detroit/