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What killed Detroit was multi-generations of people who thought all they needed to know was how to turn a wrench on an automobile assembly line. The people should have diversified their skills and learned other jobs.
Detroit is now becoming a muslim enclave. They are buying up the city for pennies on the dollar. When they become the majority, get ready for THEIR elected officals to demand Sharia Law to be imposed.
Oh really. Maybe a guy like you could explain why GMAC, which was the financing arm of GM and no one there turned a wrench or were in a union, went bankrupt? And maybe you can explain how the "wrench turners" at Ford were able to get a billion dollar profit when GM went bankrupt?
As goes Detroit so goes the nation. Look at Detroit now and that's what the entire country will loook like in a few short years the way our economy is headed.
50 years of collusion between the Democrats, and some Republicans, for politicians to extract votes from the Unions and Auto Management for their political support of those corrupt politicians is what has ruined the city. The Unions support the election of the politician and the politican does their political work in the government. The result is Detroit because all the money circulated between the Unions and the crooked politicians and no money was ever used for the benefit of the city. They stole it all and left the government of Detriot penniless.
It is a perfect example of the political corruption that is now ruining this country. The only bright side to this type of corruption is that some people are beginning to wake up to this scam and are putting and end to it as Gov Walker did with the government Unions in Wi. What is more corrupt than the government union workers negotiating compensation with other government workers? Put the negotiations to a popular vote, ie the people who pay them, and see how long that corruption lasts.
Executive Compensation is 40% of revenue and worker compensation 11% of revenue in the Big Three and a lot of the Fortune 500. Executive Compensation is hardly "a drop in the bucket"...
The REAL lesson? Don't put all your eggs in one basket, especially in Michigan. Oh yea, and don't continue to put out a crappy product for 2 decades while your competition takes over.
There in plain sight in the problem with these union requesting more and more pay. The averages are $73/hour and $140,000/year – which means plenty of workers were making even more than that.
We are now seeing the same problem play out with unions and city, state, and federal governments – and the governments are out of money, and the unions still want more and more.
Are you some kind of stalinist who would rather have everyone slaving at 1.25$ a day?
Good on them if they managed to get that salary. If it forces the business to relocate, it'll be their problem utlimately, not yours.
If you're so worried about the auto industry and Detroit, nothing stops you to move there and become a subcontractor (there are thousands of them in that sector) and work for peanuts.
Are you jealous that low skilled people could land high paying jobs? Nothing stops you from picking up a wrench and apply at GM, Ford or Chrysler.
The REAL lesson? Don't put all your eggs in one basket, especially in Michigan. Oh yea, and don't continue to put out a crappy product for 2 decades while your competition takes over.
That's pretty much all there is to it.
Ford is doing very well because they increased quality.
GM and Chrysler thought they could sell crap and get away with it. The problem isn't it's employee. It's poor vision by GM and Chrysler's leadership.
It's a lot easier to blame unions instead of admitting that most american care are complete crap.
As goes Detroit so goes the nation. Look at Detroit now and that's what the entire country will loook like in a few short years the way our economy is headed.
The Obama administration seems to be following what might be called "the Detroit pattern"-- increasing taxes, harassing businesses, and pandering to unions. In the short run, it got mayors re-elected. In the long-run, it reduced Detroit from a thriving city to an economic disaster area, whose population was cut in half, as its most productive citizens fled.
Detroit was a city heavily invested in one industry. Due to a combination of corporate greed and irresponsible management, Detroit's automobile industry fell into decline. It's not the fault of auto workers that the Japanese auto industry began to build vehicles of superior design, or that the Japanese companies responded more quickly to a changing world.
The decline of Detroit's auto industry began a domino effect which soon toppled ancillary industries. The massive loss of industry had a two-fold effect on the city.
Firstly, it caused horrendous levels of unemployment...not just of entry-level jobs, but of skilled middle-class jobs which had allowed people to establish the roots which led to the formation of one of America's great cities. Without jobs, people couldn't pay their mortgages or effectively participate as consumers of goods and services. This spread the decline into service sector jobs such as food service and retail.
Secondly, the departure of the city's robust manufacturing industry led to a monumental loss in Detroit's industrial tax base. This shifted the tax burden to the already stressed commercial and residential tax bases. Which, in turn, led to a decline in the public service infrastructure: everything from police and fire departments, to public schools and housing inspection, to garbage collection. The people who could afford to leave, did.
Those who remained were the poorest of the poor. They were largely unskilled in a city with few jobs of any kind. They were relatively uneducated in a city without enough money to invest in public education. The downward-spiral continued as all of these factors fed into one another.
When you combine an emphasis on corporate "health" over the needs of human beings, with our apathetic view towards the nation's urban areas, this is the result.
In spite of all this, Detroit remains a great city. Not just because of its past, but because of the people who stay there and work against all odds to keep it that way.
I had a post challenging the right wingers on their crocodile tears when they were claiming... private unions good, public unions bad, that they will be targeting private unions later. So, the time has come, I guess?
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What to Learn from Detroit's Decline
