Is the south is doing just fine? Aren't half the condos in Miami sitting empty? How about Chicago, NY, and Boston which are largely UNION? How are those areas doing? Are there entire developements sitting empty like in Miami and Mexifornia?

Isn't it a statistical fact that the sales of Toyota and Nissan dropped just like the Big 3's sales dropped?

You do get to choose which you will be though. I know too many first generation Americans who came here without a dime to their name from places like Vietnam and Iran who worked 2-3 jobs until they could run their own businesses and are quite well off today. If those people can be bosses, so can anyone else. It just takes hard and smart work. If you refuse to do that kind of stuff, yes, you will get to be a peon, but it's your choice.

I'm not even anti-union. I think some unions do a hell of a job advocating for their members without tanking the industry. A good example of that would be the plumbers and pipe fitters union. They really do a great job and I know the companies (because I've seen their books) which have these folks working for them can still do very, very well.

Blame your parents and their parents for this phenomenon. This is a direct result of racism, the subsequent reverse-racism and white flight. Again, this is an issue entirely of the making of the folks which, as you say, "work in Detroit."

To be fair, just about every major metropolitan area sports its own 'Mecca' of biomedical research. We even have such an animal in OKC. Unfortunately, it just won't do to have an economy which is based and depends entirely on private and public grants to stay afloat.

As I said before, I don't think that's a phenomenon which only occurs in Detroit. There are plenty of places around where folks can't scrape together $600+ for a cremation (although that seems rather steep, I think it's only around $450 here).

Everyone's sales dropped. Not everyone had to file for bankruptcy.

How do you compete with $1/day labor?

Everyone's sales dropped? Both non-union and union sales dropped? Why did the non-union sales drop? Didn't you say it was the unions fault?


PS. Why did a great non union company like Yugo go out of business?

Is that what they're paying in Indiana?

You really don't know anything about plumbers or pipe fitters.

The reason union plumbers, pipe fitters or any trade are able to survive is because it is pretty much impossible to outsource a job that has to be done locally to non union labor in China. If an owner needs plumbing done they can't send their building to China to have a Chinese plumber lay the pipe.

Are you kidding? Nothing I said was political in the slightest - I don't even know how you can construe that as a political post.

Indeed, I did address the "humanistic" part - I really do feel for the people of Detroit, as I noted when I said (paraphrase) that it sucks for the worker bees to pay for the shitty reasoning and greedy short-sightedness of the queen bees running Detroit. And it does suck - PM_Mama's post is a great example of the laws of unintended consequences, and how the disastrous moves of a few can affect the many.

But that doesn't change the fact that Detroit didn't just happen - this isn't the dinosaurs disappearing in a giant fireball with little or no evidence of why. We know why. It's plain as day - and it's not political, it's economic, it's intellectual, it's even humanistic. But pardon me for looking at this pragmatically: Detroit got fucked because the Big Auto manufacturers built a house of cards. Everyone living in Detroit is dealing with the fallout, which sucks, but it doesn't mean Kevin is explicitly wrong, even if you think he's being an asshole. Both can be true, in fact.

So Imus, what are you driving at here? That the unions played no role in the collapse of two of the Big 3? That paying out insane wages and benefits for essentially unskilled labor is a good business strategy? What exactly?

A Honda plant was just opened up in Indiana just this year. How long has it been since Michigan opened a new auto plant? Early 90's maybe? Why do yo think that is?

Not all plumbers are union though. And in states like Oklahoma, union membership can't be a prerequisite for employment anywhere, so the unions in most cases offer value for both the employee and the employer.

Imus/Madmax is intensely pro-union, so I think that's exactly the point he/she is driving at in his/her posts.

It is not just Detroit that has suffered. Ask people from Akron/Canton OH, Gary IN, Pittsburgh PA, Toledo OH, Baltimore MD- those areas were once filled with manufacturers- some for the auto industry, some not, a lot union, some not. The domestic steel industry has been decimated in no small part due to manufacturing overseas where they can pay workers a pittance, and have minimal health, safety and ecologic consequences, and then ship here. The textile industry (which is almost exclusively southern) has been clobbered since the mid 1990's-they have lost over one million jobs, mainly to other countries. This is larger than the idiot mayor of Detroit, the bad decisions made by the bosses at the Big Three, and adversarial union/management relationships. The ripple efect of it all has negatively impacted the communities that have grown up around these manufacturing areas. So Kevin, would you have these people move because they did not see the future because obviously they had their eggs in one basket also?

Moving is an option. I'd suggest, if nothing else, that they break out of this 'woe is me' B.S. and do something to improve their own situation. Moving might be the best thing for some people as clearly there are more economic opportunities elsewhere, but that clearly isn't the best for everyone.

I imagine in the near future, in places like Detroit where the population is plummeted, the city or some governmental entity will start condemning entire blighted neighborhoods, giving owners the financial opportunity to relocate elsewhere in the city or to another metropolitan area. This is almost a certainty because current city services simply cannot service the population as spread out as it is and continued urban decay is a substantial certainty.

If there was one whit of leadership at the top, this'd already be going on.

Did I miss the memo? Is it False Dilemma Friday?

People only have control over their own situation - it's probably unlikely that a given individual can resurrect the American steel industry, for instance. If jobs suck in City X and there is simply nothing for them there, then the options are simple: stay there and deal with that situation, or move to a different situation. Obviously it's an imperfect solution, but what other options exist?

The solution to American manufacturers' comparative inefficiency probably isn't "stay in your city and hope things get better through an act of God or Government".