Hypocritical Law makers and Auto makers
A co-worker of mine and I were talking about a “bailout” for the Big Three American auto makers. His stance was similar to the senator from Alabama, Richard Shelby. Shelby asked the Big Three CEOs, “Why should we believe your firms are capable of restructuring now when you weren’t able to do it under more begin conditions?” Now, I am not sure if CNN Money got the quote wrong or if the senator from Alabama continues to be as inarticulate and embarrassing as usual. My friend was also embarrassed. I admit I had been prepared for his right-wing stance. However, after reflection, we quickly determined three members of his immediate family could lose their jobs if the American automakers failed. The problem my friend didn’t understand was that Shelby and the state government had been doling out money to the auto industry for years. But the money was for foreign car makers.
I tried to find a quick and dirty amount of money we had spent attracting foreign carmakers to the United States. If you consider Industry Week’s average incentive of about $100,000.00 per job and multiply it by the Federal Trade Commission’s estimate of 35,000 jobs, you quickly get to about three and a half billion dollars. As an engineer, I usually have to give you a statistically based analysis on how confident I am about the three and a half billion dollars. I won’t do that. However, I bet you a nice bottle of single malt I didn’t include a third of the money we have spent on incentives for foreign car makers.
So, Senator Shelby, if you want use rhetoric to make points with your right-wing free market worshiping constituents, go ahead and be a hypocrite. Remember you helped spend 300 million on one foreign plant in Alabama at a cost of $150,000.00 per job. Spending 35 billion on 240,000 American auto maker jobs totals about $145,000 per job. After all, even my right-wing buddy at the water cooler has decided to give it another look.
POST SCRIPT:
It has been pointed out that the incentive money most of the foreign car manufacturers receive is not a loan. Those monies are grants or gifts. The American carmakers are asking for loans.