Sunday, December 07, 2008

Debate to save Detroit

Michigan Gov. Granholm / Woodruff - A News Program
I hope there is an alternative view expressed on Bloomberg. This interview was a platform to save the Unions and not much else even though the word "Union" was carefully avoided from what I could hear.

Both the high tax governor's preference of a federal bailout and the unstated conservative's preference for chapter 11 roceedings are legitimate approaches to saving American car industry. In BOTH cases many jobs will be lost. However, many who watched the corrupt unions kill their own industry over the years - are eager to see their hold broken and the companies to flourish with a fresh approach to management and labor. Chapter 11 will allow that.

This "news piece" by Woodruff is a "Save the Union" plea and not much else. In my view - high taxes by the State of Michigan and union abuses in the old manufacturing belt around the Great Lakes have driven new industry elsewhere and kept the union buggy whip makers fully employed in a world where buggy whips are gone. Woodruff and the governor are pleading in this puff piece to save the unions because they were solid behind Obama. Where is the other side of this discussion?

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