Damn Pencil Pushers … they caused us to fail.

This is great video and in a nutshell explains why GM and Chrysler are doomed. Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero makes it very clear it doesn’t matter if Detroit can’t make cars profitably. The UAW deserves these wages.

And then proceeds to blame all of Detroit’s problems on Alan Greenspan and Wall Street workers or something, I couldn’t follow the logic. In the process and Martha McCallum mix it up over auto bailout.

And here Bernero mixes it up with Martha and Trace Gallagher, and then calls for what I think was socializing the auto industry because, unlike Wall Street pencil pushers … UAW workers are worth it.

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Jim Vicevich

Jim is a veteran broadcaster and conservative/libertarian blogger with more than 25 years experience in TV and radio. Jim's was the long-term host of The Jim Vicevich Show on WTIC 1080 in Hartford from 2004 through 2019. Prior to radio, Jim worked as a business and financial reporter for NBC30 - the NBC owned TV station in Hartford - and as business editor at WFSB-TV in Hartford for 14 years while earning six Emmy nominations and three Telly Awards.

5 Comments

  1. David in EH on December 4, 2008 at 4:11 pm

    Jim: "This is great video and in a nutshell explains why GM and Chrysler are doomed. Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero makes it very clear it doesn’t matter if Detroit can’t make cars profitably. The UAW deserves these wages."

    The UAW are part of the problem — "suspending" the job's bank is about the most they are willing to concede to help their own survival. These are still the same collection of yahoos who built my Dodge Stratus that leaked like a sieve. The mayor of Lansing is just a ham-handed class warrior trying to patch over his lack of a coherent argument with plain,old-fashioned class envy.



  2. Dimsdale on December 4, 2008 at 6:59 pm

    On one hand, I agree with him: fiddling and mucking around by the gov't, particularly the EPA and the CARB people in Cali, have really taken their toll on the auto industry, and contributed in the ten fold increase in the average price of cars in this country.

    On the other hand, the deals cut by the UAW are just as egregious, as is the lack of foresight or planning by the auto industry execs, who let the bean counters usurp the engineers in the building of autos.

    Maybe we can make a trade: the automakers promise to renegotiate the UAW contracts (just like we are supposedly renegotiating mortgages in this country) and in return, the gov't takes a five or ten year hiatus on implementing any more CAFE or emission standards. Simply trashing the part for regionally reformulated gasoline alone will cut the cost of fuel, and lessen the danger of shortages.



  3. David in EH on December 4, 2008 at 7:47 pm

    The irony that the Government, well-spring for most of the industry's woes, is the entity the industry turns to for aid. Between CAFE standards, safety standards, the need to design engines capable of burning the various and sundry fuel formulations, etc., the process of designing a car is almost Kafka-esque.

    I wonder what the government is going to do when the next generation of gov-spec green machine automobiles fails to sell.



  4. Troy on December 5, 2008 at 4:57 pm

    What gets me is he's saying about how great the cars are, but ignores the fact that JP Power are the only ones buying it.

    Unions were a good idea. Too bad the greedy power mongers that current RUN the unions are as bad as the guys they were created to be a buffer against.

    "The great mistake is that they're the last, great patriotic businesses in the country, and didn't outsource overseas. But the other companies need to stop doing that." Did I translate that right?



  5. scott on December 6, 2008 at 8:26 am

    The Mayor says we or the government ought to run the auto industry more like the Chinese and Koreans. wanna bet their is no union like the UAW dictating to the Chinese govt. ' If he really wants to help his people he ought to grow a set and tell the unions to hit the road . I believe there is no union in those southern plants run by Honda and Toyota and they are doing great . I guess the thought of people making less and lowering his tax base is a good reason for him to fight for it . The only thing I agree with him on is we have to stop paying farmers to not grow food and get rid if these cafe rules and environmental B/S.



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