The Native American Tear Commercial

Years ago there was an anti littering commercial where a car throws a bag of garbage out of the car window at the foot of a Native American. He looks at the camera as a single tear rolls down his cheek. The Movie Kingpin recreated the commercial with Randy Quaid as the Native American.

I had my own "Native American Tear" moment on the way home from dialysis. There are 2 GM plants and a supplier building between my house and the dialysis facility. All three of the buildings are HUGE. If you have never seen an automotive assembly plant it is hard to understand how massive they are. They occupy acres of land and are surrounded by huge parking lots to accommodate the 3-5 thousand workers cars. When the plants are running these parking lots are jammed with cars and there is the perceptible hum of activity, like a beehive when you get close. The amount of activity with people coming and going (especially during shift change when as many as 6-10 thousand workers are either coming or going) is awe inspiring. Chevy used to run commercials calling Chevy "the Heartbeat of America". When you see a plant in action, you can tell it is literally the heartbeat of this country

Automotive manufacturing created the middle class in America. Union wages and good high paying manufacturing jobs, both salaried and hourly, were a HUGE part of the development of our country as a world power. Were it not for the "Arsenal of Democracy", converted automotive factories cranking out tanks and planes at a pace Germany could not hope to match, WWII most like goes to the Nazi's. 6.6 million jobs (down from 13 million YIKES) in America are directly auto related. The auto companies purchase aluminum, copper, iron, lead, plastics, rubber, textiles, vinyl, steel, computer chips, and a lot of things you never think of like post it's, software, pens, envelopes, paper clips, staplers, television, radio, and print ad's. Every car also needs insurance, car care products, service and repair, this list could go on for pages. Auto sales account for 20 percent of U.S. retail sales and generate tax revenues of more than $10 billion.
Those 6.6 million U.S. workers represent a total greater than the populations of 38 states according to a new University of Michigan study. Overall, the number of jobs associated with total automotive industry activity (direct, indirect and induced) represent 5 percent of the private-sector jobs in the United States, accounting for $243 billion in employee compensation (5.6 percent of compensation in the U.S. economy).

The plants I passed are idle. The parking lots are overgrown with weeds. It looks like a "Wild West Ghost Town". I think I even saw some Tumbleweeds and sagebrush. As I thought about the impact of these shuttered plants, the single tear almost rolled down cheek. Then I got angry. I understand the "free trade" issue, but I am far more interested in "fair trade". We allow access to our markets to countries who through a multitude of rules and reg's prevent our access. As a result, we have been exporting our jobs to countries around the world. We can not continue to allow this to happen.

What really got me mad was the recent purchase of GM and Chrysler by our government. They should not be buying them, they should be protecting them. The jobs they create are too important to the country to allow them to be outsourced. I'm not talking about creating impenetrable walls around the industry, but how about some incentives to help them out?

The recent "Cash for Clunkers" is a great example, but as I said in an earlier blog, why give the incentive to foreign autos? There are a host of things our government could do to encourage people to buy American. How about making interest on American auto loans tax deductible, or eliminating the sales tax on American autos. Do what other countries do, make it smarter to buy American than Foreign. The resulting job creations will far outweigh the loss in tax revenue. Every out of work American not only does not pay income tax, they draw money from the system. Some small changes would make a huge difference

I wish I had a picture to post. I'm sure it would bring a tear to your eyes as well. Michael Moore did a film about the economic impact on Flint when the auto companies pulled out. The problem with the movie was he got the wrong villain! It was not GM, it was the government with all its free trade rhetoric. Although I am a Reagan fan, he got that part wrong. We don't need free trade, we need fair trade. If you are not willing to do that, then you need incentives to encourage people to buy American. This is true of all American products from cars to computers, from fruits and veggies to software and soda pop. We have all the reason we need to buy American, but people make decisions with their wallets. 2 products of equal or near equal quality one American one Mexican, we are going to buy the best value (usually the cheapest). Lets give Americans an even better reason to buy American.

As I understand the role of our Government, it is primarily to protect us from all enemies foreign and domestic. While it is difficult to justify labeling other countries enemies, some are certainly enemies of our economies. How about a little protection?

Just my opinion