If I had the floor at the auto rescue talks
BY MITCH ALBOM • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
• November 23, 2008
OK. It's a fantasy. But if I
had five minutes in front of Congress last week, here's what I would've
said:
Good morning. First of all, before you ask, I flew commercial. Northwest
Airlines. Had a bag of peanuts for breakfast. Of course, that's Northwest,
which just merged with Delta, a merger you, our government, approved --
and one which, inevitably, will lead to big bonuses for their executives
and higher costs for us. You seem to be OK with that kind of business.
Which makes me wonder why you're
so against our kind of business? The kind we do in Detroit. The kind that
gets your fingernails dirty. The kind where people use hammers and drills,
not keystrokes. The kind where you get paid for making something, not moving
money around a board and skimming a percentage.
You've already given hundreds of
billions to banking and finance companies -- and hardly demanded anything.
Yet you balk at the very idea of giving $25 billion to the Detroit
Three. Heck, you shoveled that exact amount to Citigroup -- $25 billion
-- just weeks ago, and that place is about to crumble anyhow.
Does the word "hypocrisy"
ring a bell?
Protecting the home turf?
Sen. Shelby. Yes. You. From Alabama.
You've been awfully vocal. You called the Detroit Three's leaders "failures."
You said loans to them would be "wasted money." You said they
should go bankrupt and "let the market work."
Why weren't you equally vocal when
your state handed out hundreds of millions in tax breaks to Mercedes-Benz,
Hyundai, Honda and others to open plants there? Why not "let the market
work"? Or is it better for Alabama if the Detroit Three fold so that
the foreign companies -- in your state -- can produce more?
Way to think of the nation first,
senator.
And you, Sen. Kyl of Arizona. You
told reporters: "There's no reason to throw money at a problem that's
not going to get solved."
That's funny, coming from such an
avid supporter of the Iraq war. You've been gung ho on that for years.
So how could you just sit there when, according to the New York Times,
an Iraqi former chief investigator told Congress that $13 billion in U.S.
reconstruction funds "had been lost to fraud, embezzlement, theft
and waste" by the Iraqi government?
That's 13 billion, senator.
More than half of what the auto industry is asking for. Thirteen billion?
Gone? Wasted?
Where was your "throwing money
at a problem that's not going to get solved" speech then?
Watching over the bankers?
And the rest of you lawmakers. The
ones who insist the auto companies show you a plan before you help them.
You've already handed over $150 billion of our tax money to AIG. How come
you never demanded a plan from it? How come when AIG blew through its first
$85 billion, you quickly gave it more? The car companies may be losing
money, but they can explain it: They're paying workers too much and selling
cars for too little.
AIG lost hundred of billions in
credit default swaps -- which no one can explain and which make nothing,
produce nothing, employ no one and are essentially bets on failure.
And you don't demand a paragraph
from it?
Look. Nobody is saying the auto
business is healthy. Its unions need to adjust more. Its models and dealerships
need to shrink. Its top executives have to downsize their own importance.
But this is a business that has
been around for more than a century. And some of its problems are because
of that, because people get used to certain wages, manufacturers get used
to certain business models. It's easy to point to foreign carmakers with
tax breaks, no union costs and a cleaner slate -- not to mention help from
their home countries -- and say "be more like them."
But if you let us die, you let our
national spine collapse. America can't be a country of lawyers and financial
analysts. We have to manufacture. We need that infrastructure. We need
those jobs. We need that security. Have you forgotten who built equipment
during the world wars?
Besides, let's be honest. When it
comes to blowing budgets, being grossly inefficient and wallowing in debt,
who's better than Congress?
So who are you to lecture anyone
on how to run a business?
Ask fair questions. Demand accountability.
But knock it off with the holier than thou crap, OK? You got us into this
mess with greed, a bad Fed policy and too little regulation. Don't kick
our tires to make yourselves look better.
