Patterico's Pontifications

9/8/2011

Beyond the Obama-Hoffa kerfuffle

Filed under: 2012 Election — Karl @ 4:00 pm



[Posted by Karl]

We all had fun skewering the progressive hypocrisy over Teamster honcho Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.’s thuggish speech, but we should keep in mind the bigger picture behind Pres. Obama’s Labor Day appearance in Detroit.

In the 2012 election and beyond, GOP insiders want to win the Great Lakes/Rust Belt region.  Obama has already made it clear he will use the auto industry bailout, begun under Pres. George W. Bush, as one of the central pillars of his reelection campaign, especially in these critical battleground states. 

The Dems are going to tout a Center for Automotive Research study claiming the bailout saved over a million jobs, even though that study should be titled, “The Parable of the Broken Car Windows.”  Commandeering the bankruptcy process for the benefit of the UAW was not the only hope for GM and Chrysler and the long-term costs of the bailouts will be enormous.  Indeed, as bailouts go, the auto bailout was less successful than the bank bailout (which tells you how much this is about politics).

Ford, which did not get a bailout, is easily outperforming GM and Chrysler.  Although the Obama administration wanted to turn these companies into flagships of its green jobs initiative, sales of the electric Chevy Volt are almost comically dismal; GM and Chrysler are making their money selling SUVs and pickup trucks.  Indeed, while Obama blames our lackluster economy in part on the Japanese tsunami, the fact is that disaster helped US automakers.

As for Detroit itself, the official unemployment rate  was 14.1 percent in July; the true unemployment figure in the city might be as high as an astounding 50 percent.  The Big 3 automakers were the city’s top employers as recently as 2007; as of November 2010, the city’s five top employers were the Detroit Public School system; the City of Detroit; the Detroit Medical Center; the Henry Ford Health System (a non-profit, managed care health care organization); and the US government.  It gets worse:

Though unemployment decreased in 2010, the share of people without work for 26 weeks or longer reached 50 percent — a greater proportion than during the recession of 1983. Among jobless adults aged 25-54, 55 percent were out of work at least 26 weeks.

And 26.6 percent of jobs people found last year didn’t pay enough to support a family, causing Michigan to drop from fourth best in the nation in 2006 to 36th place for the number of well-paying jobs.

Writers at the Detroit News have called Obama’s “victory” lap a “farce,” noting of his Labor Day jaunt:

He parachuted into this city’s sanitized, heavily-securitized downtown square-mile of corporate headquarters and Whole Foods markets – safe from the murderous streets of the city’s other 138 square miles that have claimed 250 lives already this year and put Detroit on path for a staggering 50 per 100,000 residents murder rate in 2011.

Hoffa’s vulgar rhetoric at the event — and the White House non-reaction to it — may expose the Democrats as gross hypocrites, but Obama’s appearance in Detroit raises more serious questions: Why should people vote to re-elect a man who is so plainly the political tool of the Big Labor goons who drove GM and Chrysler off the cliff in the first place?  And why should people in the Great Lakes/Rust Belt region vote to empower a lame duck Obama agenda on the environment and energy calculated to kill jobs there?

–Karl

24 Responses to “Beyond the Obama-Hoffa kerfuffle”

  1. I don’t have all the facts but hoffa acted stupidly.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  2. Karl – why do you insist on attacking Teh Narrative with links and fats?

    JD (318f81)

  3. If you want the whole country to look like Detroit, just past Card Check and we’ll be good-to-go

    They days of getting paid $50/hr for putting hubcaps on Cutlass Supremes are long, long gone

    Deal with it, palookas

    Reaganite Republican (c90bca)

  4. I wonder how many people in Detroit work at the piggy piggy union whore post office

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  5. Detroit, the first urban center being re-agriculturalized.
    http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/29/news/economy/farming_detroit.fortune/index.htm

    Perhaps Lincoln’s promise of “40-acres and a mule” will be realized.

    Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (eb769c)

  6. Whenever someone touts the joys of Labor Unions, Liberal Policies, and Government Intervention … snap a picture of Detroit, Michigan and send it to them. Hell snap a picture of Michigan.

    S. Carter aka J-Z (8d652e)

  7. Hell, they should hold the Democratic National Convention in Detroit. You broke it. You bought it.

    Walter Cronanty (22723d)

  8. Hoffa deserves to have be taken out.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  9. To be fair, inept management is partially to blame for the auto failures. Chrysler, in particular, was poorly served by the idiots who thought merging with being taken over by Daimler Benz would help them in global markets when all it got them was twice as much management and half as much maneuverability.

    Hadlowe (2a0728)

  10. Based on my own experience with the workers comp world, I would estimate the California unemployment rate at 40%. That. of course, includes illegals.

    Mike K (8f3f19)

  11. Yes, and we’d like to increase that by a minimum of 122 people.

    Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (eb769c)

  12. Scott, that’s a sad story. You’re right. It relates directly to Hoffa’s commentary. Aaron was right to note that this is actually something to be alarmed about.

    Unlike Palin’s crosshair map, there is ample reason to think those following Hoffa will get violent.

    2012 is going to be a hell of a ride.

    Dustin (b2fb78)

  13. Obots put the upid in stupid.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  14. The Marxist thugs from the ILWU are up to their old tricks again.

    Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (eb769c)

  15. Hey Karl,

    Detroit lost 237,000 people between 2000 and 2010, or roughly 25 percent of its population. I would hazard a guess that no-growth in employment coupled with a 0.6 percent drop in state population and a 25 percent drop in city population could prevent the unemployment rate from dropping.

    And I drew some pretty charts. For more charts and source material, I got that, too.

    John Hitchcock (7af282)

  16. Detroit lost 237,000 people between 2000 and 2010, or roughly 25 percent of its population.

    That’s one hell of a murder rate.

    /snark

    Hadlowe (2a0728)

  17. You think you’re joking, but Detroit is on pace to hit a 2011 murder rate of 50 per 100,000 people…

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  18. That means 0.00005.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  19. No, Doh, that means a prospective 350+ killings this year, since Detroits current population is just a tick over 700,000.

    AD (7d0394)

  20. Why should people vote to re-elect a man who is so plainly the political tool of the Big Labor goons who drove GM and Chrysler off the cliff in the first place?

    Response:

    “Clearly it wasn’t Big Labor, it was bad management on the part of GM and Chrysler”

    A failure to have any grasp on reality is not a problem for these people. It’s their natural state.

    IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (c9dcd8)

  21. That’s one hell of a murder rate.

    They’re just union members… Haven’t you ever heard of a “murder of ho’s”?

    Smock Puppet, Shadenfreude Expert To The Stars (c9dcd8)

  22. Hell snap a picture of Michigan.

    Tried that, the overpowering smell of BS kept me away. Same thing with Wisconsin, NY, and Cali.

    Smock Puppet, Shadenfreude Expert To The Stars (c9dcd8)

  23. John Hitchcock,

    Nice charts. I considered using the interactive migration map posted at Forbes, but ultimately decided agaist expanding the time window to the entire decade.

    Karl (37b303)


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