Detroit's decline is a distinctively capitalist failure

I remember when Detroit was producing huge land yachts with a lower level of build quality, fit and finish and quality control.

I remember when the Germans, the Japanese and then the Koreans took advantage of our antiquated manufacturing processes and our complacent business attitudes to take market share from the Big Three. It was a tough lesson to see and for hundreds of thousands of Americans it spelled personal disaster. For an idea of what Detroit was like at the worst of that time and as a result of those poor management decisions, take a look at Michael Moore's first movie.

"Roger and Me."

[video=youtube;XDl6Bt6uO5c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDl6Bt6uO5c[/video]

BTW, the last time I watched this film I still thought I was a Liberal.

I wonder not how I will FEEL after watching it again, but what I will THINK upon watching it with my brain doing my thinking.

Hell, I might even find Moore was wrong in his assumptions and conclusions.

You never know what might happen when you stop FEELING and start THINKING.

Libs, I recommend the experiment.

 

I wasn't referring to Wolfe, the member. I was referring to Wolff, the professor.

"Workers co-operatives would also have searched and likely found alternatives to moving that might have saved Detroit. Workers co-operatives, for example, would likely have paid less in dividends to owners and salaries to managers than was typical at Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. Those savings, if passed on in lower automobile prices, would have enabled better completion with European and Japanese car makers than Detroit's Big Three managed.

We cannot know how much more Detroit's auto industry might have benefited from technical progress had it been organized as a workers' co-operative. We can guess that workers have greater incentives to improve technology in co-operatives they own and operate than as employees in capitalist enterprises. Finally, worker co-operatives would likely have switched to producing (and helped to promote) mass-transit vehicles or other alternatives to the automobile to retain jobs and well-being once they saw that continued automobile production could not secure those priorities for worker co-operatives."

 

Detroit is like 85% black.

Capitalism doesn't work for black people unless they're scoring points or rapping

 

So, are you willing to stop supporting Democrat pandering to Blacks and treating us like your pet lap dogs?

Never mind.

You might see the light, but lottsa luck getting your Representatives and Senators to abandon their hold on power made possible through the entitlements and other practices which pander to Blacks.

 

You place none of the blame on loans to unqualified, risky borrowers? Why would a bank give a home loan to an unqualified, risky buyer? You sound like you know government helped create the mess. Aren't you confusing corporatism with capitalism?

 

Yeah, sorry about that, I realized it after it was too late to edit my post. But, two Wolves, honest mistake!

 

Corporations will do what is necessary to grow their bottom lines. This should be no surprise to anyone who understands business and capitalism. GM will move operations to Mexico if it is more profitable to do so. Businesses will do this with monotonous predictability. Is this a black mark for GM? I don't think so. In fact, if it makes them a more profitable, healthier, more stable company, it is what they SHOULD do.

The question should be: "Why is it more profitable for them to move to Mexico than to build plants here in the USA?" and to solve that puzzle. The answer to jobs leaving the country is to make our country THE PLACE in the world to do business. How do we do this? Offset higher wages with cheaper energy, lower corporate taxes, etc. If we can do that, jobs will come back, and foreign companies will be coming to manufacture here.

The current 'big business is evil' sentiment so prevalent in our country these days is unsettling. How business reacts to rising cost is predictable, and for educated people to be outraged about it is incomprehensible to me.

 

No, Corporations do what their stock holders demand. In most cases, that is grow the bottom line, but in this case the US Government is the largest stock holder, and their investment will not yield more tax revenue, since those manufacturing plants dont reside in the USA.

The US government should be forcing GM to build plants in the USA, but nope.....

We gotta fund the Mexican government by investing US tax dollars, instead of our own....

 

There are multiple reasons Detroit has turned in the dump it is today, but pure capitalism isn't one them. Better to examine the mentality of management who allowed union thugs to blackmail them for years, creative bookkeeping and years of political corruption.

 

I think we're mostly on the same page, but for a corporations stockholders to demand that it operate at a loss for purposes of supplying jobs rather than turning profit is a recipe for ultimate failure, regardless of who the stockholders are.

 

What many of these dolts fail to understand is that THEY THEMSELVES are stockholders and driving these "evil corporations" themselves by contributing to their own 401K accounts. They are like little children blaming things they did on their imaginary brother!

 

Then perhaps GM should buy out the US government..... but then again, if they could do that they wouldnt have been bankrupt in the first place.

 

The govt's role should be to get out of the way as much as possible and encourage businesses to hire people. THIS administration is far too ignorant to understand this!

 

The government should have let GM fail. GM failed because it was poorly run, and over-burdened with cost. One of the biggest victories a corporation can achieve is to put one of its biggest competitors out of business. This victory was taken from Ford and others. Had GM been allowed to fail, their best and brightest would have given infusions to smaller companies (like Tesla) that are up and coming in the marketplace, making better products and ultimately better jobs. Essentially, the only thing that bailing GM out did was buy votes with taxpayer dollars.

 

I have to chuckle at the liberal media's attempt to blame,
blame and blame republicans for all of society's ills. Here is the main reason articles like this get written:

Why are radical liberals not acknowledging the truth? Because it hurts their party's position. The truth is this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmarotta/2013/08/04/detroits-bankruptcy-doesnt-just-happen/

Yet the radical liberals refuse to take an unbiased and honest look at the problem. They would rather work to blame others. Problems will not get solved with this kind of buffoonery. Political posturing doesn't solve problems for people. And, yes, I know radical liberals only point to the other side when this is brought up but "the other side" doesn't have control of the White House and Senate these days.

For those who still think the housing crash was "all Bush's fault", read this:

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2008/02/clintons_drive.html

It was at minimum a bi-partisan effort. Wake up folks the government is not looking out for the average citizen.

 

the government take over of GM and Chrysler destroyed the UAW, too.

Ford didnt want GM and Chrysler outta business, because in many cases they shared the same suppliers, and that would have forced those suppliers outta business too.

My main issue is obama can force GM to build those plants in America, but he refuses.

New UAW workers make 15 bucks an hour, not the 35/hour they used to make.

 

This whole argument is dumb. Unions didn't fail Detroit, and neither did capitalism.

The arrogance of the big 3 doomed Detroit. That arrogance began with Henry Ford's famous "they can have it in any color they want, as long as it's black" statement right up until the 70s when Americans wanted smaller more fuel efficient vehicles that were better built and instead of getting them from the Big 3 , they got them from newcomers, Honda and Toyota. .

That is what doomed Detroit, at one time the domestic manufactures owned 90% of the demotic new car market. If you own 90% of a market, you can do nearly anything you want and still be successful. At one time, one of every 6 new cars sold in AMerica was a Chevy. Today that number is 1 in 22. Because the Big3 got complacent, and figured that it was THEY who would tell Americans what THEY would drive, and eventually Americans decided they wanted to drive cars that the Big 3 weren't building. That's the ONE thing a monopoly can't do, build a product no one wants .

Blaming either political party on the demise of Detroit is beyond stupid, and shows that the person doing it is only interested in smearing the "other guy" rather than assigning blame where it actually belongs.

- - - Updated - - -

Agree completely here, one of the conditions of the "bailout" definitely should have been no new plants built outside of the US.

 

nope, obama didnt do that..... In fact, he did much much worse....

[video=youtube;Y1iHkY4dWh0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1iHkY4dWh0[/video]

 

Unions are right wing capitalism? Since when?

Lol...total fail on trying to spin this.

 

LOL, ok then VW, BMW, etc etc... in fact all the US's european competitors invovle unions.

The problem isnt union involvement but short sighted management and lack of investment.

 

"Accurate"

It was capitalism that built Detroit into one of the best all around cities in America.

If what you, and this ridiculous article, are saying were true then America would have never even become a super power because "ohhh my stars capppiitaallliissmmmmm is just sooo ineffective".

Do you not see how completely backwards you have this? All the American greatness we have today exists BECAUSE of capitalism, BECAUSE of the free market, and BECAUSE of the determination of people refusing to live marginal lives. Three things liberals simply cannot stand for or allow because the stronger the nation and its people become the weaker the liberal party becomes.

Wise up.

 

I guess you could claim it was short sighted management, for accepting the demands of the UAW. In reality it was close the business when you knew you couldnt afford their demands or close the business after their demands actually bankrupted them.

 

Umm historical fact. The Big 3 thrived even with unions when they controlled the domestic auto market. It wasn't until poor decisions cost them that market and they weren't selling enough vehicles to support the unions that they got in trouble. If they would have kept their market share they would have been fine. Unions didn't kill Detroit. (*)(*)(*)(*) poor management decisions at the big 3 did.