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Dec

12

New Yorker posts entire complaint against PD by Don Rosenberg

Filed Under Business, Law, Media, Music, Ohio, Writing | 6 Comments

Wow.  Forget about women’s wrath.  How about a critic’s wrath?  Many thanks to the New Yorker for posting a pdf of the complaint.

Keep an eye here for more analysis of what this lawsuit means (CWRU law prof Peter Friedman can be found blogging there now and hopefully will weigh in).  Good luck to Mr. Rosenberg - and the Plain Dealer.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:47 pm December 12th, 2008 in Business, Law, Media, Music, Ohio, Writing | 6 Comments 

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Dec

12

Busting myths so auto industry doesn’t go bust

Filed Under Business, Economy, Politics | 4 Comments

There’s no easy answer, there just isn’t.  If you vote for the bailout, it feels, superficially, like you’re sanctioning the bad corporate behavior.  If you don’t vote for the bailout, it feels like you’re condemning people who’ve relied on an industry they grew up believing could be relied upon.  It’s just a lose-lose. 

Except from a mitzvah perspective.  We’re not a socialist country, folks – no matter how generous we get with our money and our neighbor’s money.  You want to read about what governments of socialist economies do when they have trouble? Read about what Great Britain has done. What we’re doing here, what’s on the table here, isn’t remotely as sweeping, in part because of the difference in the size of the economies and the packages, relative to each other.

I have a few things everyone who is grumbling and slapping foreheads over the situation should read:

First, from the Detroit Free Press, 7 Myths About Detroit Automakers. Here’s a preview:

Myth No. 1: Nobody buys their vehicles
Myth No. 2: They build unreliable junk
Myth No. 3: They build gas-guzzlers
Myth No. 4: They already got a $25-billion bailout
Myth No. 5: GM, Ford and Chrysler are idiots for investing in pickups and SUVs
Myth No. 6: They don’t build hybrids
Myth No. 7: Their union workers are lazy and overpaid

Now, go read the reality or risk sounding uninformed.

Then, read these three posts, including one by Michagander, Julielynn Gibbons:

Why are U.S. Senate Republicans allowing Michigan to go bankrupt?

This Bailout is about saving an entire state from bankruptcy, not to mention the 49 other states that are home to auto plants and suppliers. It’s not about “greedy labor unions,” which have made unprecedented concessions before and are continuing to do so to keep the Big Three afloat.

It’s about people, while our leaders are fighting tooth and nail for it, God help us that it should finally sink through the thick skulls of those who sit on high in DC. This isn’t about Allan Mullaly’s salary, or how stupid Rick Wagoner and the other Auto Executives were by flying down to beg for money in corporate jets.

This is about real people, who are in real danger, and the very real possibility that an entire state could literally go broke, should our federal government leave us hanging out to dry in these cold winter months. 

Simply put, Michigan, all of her residents and auto workers everywhere deserve better than the U.S. Senate Republicans.

With No Love from Detroit: A Response to the Failure of the Auto Bailout:

I’m sure very few Republicans read this blog.  But for those that do–please remember this:  your elected officials have not only voted against Detroit, they have voted against every working woman and man in America.  They have played games with workers that they’d never play with corporations.  They have let their idealized notion of free enterprise work when convinient and hide when necessary.  They are not your friend, they are your foe.  And any true conservative would know that.  Hell, this liberal knows that.

There is some hope that the White House (yes, George W. Bush of all people) is willing to step in and take money from the bank bailout to ensure that the automakers don’t fail.  GEORGE W. BUSH.  Step aside folks, I may have a stroke.

So thanks, southern Senators.  I really appreciate it.  We all really appreciate it.  While you’re living the high life over the holidays, remember those for whom this may be their last enjoyable Christmas. The Recession just got a big nudge towards a depression.

We Hate Unions, Screw the U.S. Economy:

I don’t know why people keep electing these morons, but seriously, now is not the time to use labor unions as a bargaining chip in a deal to prevent an economic hit the current economy may not be able to handle. Its f****** irrational and selfish and unconscionable and disgusting behavior. They are in it for themselves, oh, and the foreign car makers who have factories and headquarters in their states. Americans are sick and tired of ideology ruining their future–that’s why they elected a post-partisan president.

And the huge hit on minority populations:

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal both featured a prominent photo on their front pages today. It was an image of Rev. Charles Ellis’s Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit, Michigan and it may quickly come to symbolize a new face of the auto crisis.

Last Friday’s unemployment numbers showed black unemployment at 11.2 percent, nearly double the white unemployment rate of 6.1 percent. And many blacks in majority-black Detroit are concerned about the impact on the economy if the city’s automakers file bankruptcy.

While much of the attention in recent weeks has focused on the wealthy and ill-prepared ”Big Three” CEOs – Rick Wagoner of GM, Robert Nardelli of Chrysler and Alan Mulally of Ford — less attention has been paid to the impact of an auto industry collapse on Black America.

Is the refusal to support the auto industry the Southern senators’ backlash attempt to put people who speak out and stand up and move forward back in their place?  If not intentionally, symbolically? It sure fits the description.

Shame on all those politicians who claim to be for “country first” only to play nothing but politics.  What a horrendous example of leadership.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:20 pm December 12th, 2008 in Business, Economy, Politics | 4 Comments 

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