Michigan Unemployment at 9.3%
It just hit 9.3%.
That’s not counting the people who dropped off the rolls.
Lazy bastards. Those Michigan people just don’t want to have a job!
*Update*: In the comments it’s being suggested that what I said in sarcasm was the truth, that everyone in Michigan is out of work because they’re fat and lazy and don’t want to work. For the record, I was saying that out of sarcasm but it’s a relief to see that my sarcasm is based on how some people actually think. Meanwhile, unemployment is at record highs across the nation. I guess they’re all fat and lazy and non-competitive too. Work harder, thralls!
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Michigan doesn’t have a shortage of people who want to work. Michigan has a shortage of those evil capitalist pigs who want to create jobs.
The Rich Wasp’s last blog post..A Question For My Hoosier Readers
Or maybe a surplus of evil capitalists who’d rather pay someone in Mexico a dollar an hour with no benefits?
The capitalists only do that because it’s what consumers want. But then, they only want that because they’re poor. Because they can’t find work.
Henry Ford, capitalist extraordinaire, went out of his way to pay his workers an unprecedentedly high wage well before there was any Union pressure for him to do so. Why? He wanted people who worked for him to be reliable and to be able to afford t9 buy his cars.
He was, in short, a capitalist who succeded in large part by treating his employees right, and not as disposable commodities.
Dean and everyone,
I feel like EVERYONE in the auto industry is being un-realistic. It has nothing to do with rich exec’s wanting to pay $1/hr in Mexico.
The idiot exec’s fly to DC in private jets to beg for taxpayer dollars. The union workers are receiving the equivalent of $78 per hour pay including benefits.
I just read that GM has offered a retirement buyout of $70,000 to $140,000 for the hourly employees. Seems pretty decent to me.
I will be honest, I have no warm fuzzy feelings for unions today. But, as a taxpayer, I do not feel it is my responsibility to bailout the sinking auto industry.
Henry Ford could afford to do that because his assembly line allowed him to produce cars at far lower cost than his competitors. He could pay a high wage and still undercut the competition at retail. That situation does not exist today. If GM tried it they would go bankrupt…..
If we are going to have (and keep) a higher standard of living than that Mexican, we have to figure out how to work harder or smarter than that Mexican. In other words, ultimately one’s standard of living is a function of productivity, not wages.
The Rich Wasp’s last blog post..A Question For My Hoosier Readers
Combining my comment with Choey and Rich Wasp,
Back when Henry Ford reduced the work week from 6 days to 5 days and the work day from 10 hours to 8 hours (both unheard of at the time) and increased wages it was because he did in fact, increase productivity. He was able to pay workers more because the assembly line increased worker productivity. The end product cost far less to produce.
The big three automakers are fat and lazy at all employee levels, from the bottom to the top.
So, as I said, we have unemployment because those people are fat and lazy and deserve to be out of work. Got it. [/sarcasm]
"Historic highs" is a little overwrought, I think. Highest in 26 years (although the article doesn’t say whether that is absolute numbers or a percentage.) That makes it 1982.
So what they are really saying is "highest unemployment since Carter."
Actually, I went and looked it up at bls.gov. In absolute numbers unemployment hasn’t been this high since 1982. As a percentage of the workforce, we were .4% higher in 1993. (6.5% now, 6.9% then.) As a percentage it was 9.2% in 1982, so time and half worse than now. (And that bad now in Michigan.)
“So, as I said, we have unemployment because those people are fat and lazy and deserve to be out of work. Got it. [/sarcasm]”
Yep you’ve got it. You could also add greed to the sentence.
Michigan will have lower unemployment when it gets rid of taxes and silly laws that make it uncompetitive for starting new businesses. There is no reason to locate a business start-up in Michigan if it can be somewhere else, and only start-ups and growing companies create new jobs.
My state of California isn’t any better government-wise, but at least has decent weather and good shipping links overseas which at least somewhat make up for it. Michigan has no such luxury.
As for the "race to the bottom", it’s all about productivity. There are many factories that beat the world in the US - and even ones that export American goods to China - but they aren’t organized by the UAW.
foobarista’s last blog post..Political discussions, trust, and logical argument
Oh my lord. The states with the lowest unemployment and highest standards of living often have the highest taxes–and Michigan’s taxes aren’t particularly high. Michigan’s also got the Great Lakes which are huge in shipping, and is a great mid-point for those travelling between the coasts.
It’s ridiculous to suggest that if they just slash taxes they’ll magically get more jobs here. Whenever I try to remember why I’m not a libertarian anymore, I just remember the people who tell me that if we just cut taxes we’ll all get rich.
So, Dean, what would you do to revive Michigan?
foobarista’s last blog post..Political discussions, trust, and logical argument
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
As I’ve been writing over at my place I don’t believe that the automobile industry’s problems are due to lazy workers or rapacious unions or even to over-reaching government but to incompetent management. It is the job of the union to get the best possible deal for its members. When it succeeds at that it’s doing its job.
Management’s job is to maximize shareholder value. Check the stock price for GM and Ford to see if management has been doing its job.
Nobody forced management to take the deals it negotiated with the unions or to squander the hundreds of billions of dollars in capital it’s frittered away over the last 25 years. Every step I see that the auto companies’ managements have taken reek of incompetence.
I think this is a problem inherent in big, old companies that used to be cocks of the walk. Management just doesn’t have zeal that the guys who started these companies did. And B schools have cultivated the notion that there is such a thing as management in the abstract so today’s managers frequently don’t care much about the auto industry per se.
I wish I knew what to do about Michigan’s problems. It’s like a company town when the company closes its doors.
If the unions negotiate a compensation level that leaves the company uncompetetive, both the unions and the management have failed in their jobs. Management for obvious reasons, and the unions because its not in the members’ interest to drive their employer out of business.
In the long term, the best thing for Michigan would probably be to let the auto manufactures go bankrupt so their assets can be taken over by different management that hopefully won’t make the same mistakes, but will instead keep costs to a competetive level and design cars that people actually want to buy.
I think Michigan needs to look at doing whatever it can to keep auto manufacturing here, BUT, needs to be thinking longer term because manufacturing just about anything is a less and less viable business. The cost of commodities like this goes down with time, relentlessly so. It’s pretty clear service and information technology are where all jobs worldwide will eventually go, so they need to be anticipating that.
And, in large part, they are, by doing a lot to aggressively push education and training and certification programs. They could be doing more of that, and should.
In the meantime, there’s some things they need help from the Feds for. I actually favor a bailout of the Big 3, but with certain strings attached, one of which is that union contracts all get immediate renegoation, another of which is that pretty much everybody in management at Director level or above gets a small golden parachute and otherwise shoved out the door for good. Whether they were competent or incompetent, visionary or not, directly responsible or not, they all go. All of them.
There’s more, but those are good starting points.
Another extension of unemployment benefits for states hardest hit by the current crisis would be wise too. Anything to help make education and training programs more affordable would be wise.
Eric, that’s an odd view of a sales transaction (which is what a union negotiation is). Does that responsibility extend to corporate management as well?
My understanding is that standard negotiation theory dictates that when negotiating as part of a long-term business relationship, you take into account the effect of the immediate deal on your negotiation partner’s ability and willingness to deal with you in the future.
To reverse the situation and exaggerate for illustritive purposes, suppose management demanded that their employees work 18-hour days seven days a week, and suppose the union for some reason agreed to this. It’s a terrible deal for the union, and the union negotiators deserve censure for agreeing to such a bad deal. But it’s also a terrible deal for management, since their employees are likely to burn out very quickly and look for another employer or another line of work. And even if they don’t leave, their productivity and quality of output will suffer badly from fatigue.
I voted the straight Republican ticket for the sole reason that I think they’re right on foreign policy.
If "unemployed people are all a bunch of lazy greedy bums who deserve to be out of work, the bastards" is the real mentality of "the right" or the libertarians, I wish I’d voted the straight Democratic ticket. Because you guys are a bunch of assholes.
Dean, I’m not seeing anyone in the thread saying the unemployed workers are lazy. I’m seeing people blaming:
1. The state government, for taxing and regulating the economy to death.
2. The management of the auto manufactures, for running the state’s major industry into the ground.
3. The UAW, for pressing policies onto the aforementioned management that contributed to the demise of the Detroit auto industry.
Point three is the closest to calling workers lazy, but a more accurate summation would that it’s describing the UAW’s leadership as tragically shortsighted.
My own view is primarily point 2, with contributory negligance from points 1 and 3.
OK, I shouldn’t have lost my temper, but what am I supposed to make of this?
"So, as I said, we have unemployment because those people are fat and lazy and deserve to be out of work. Got it. [/sarcasm]"
Yep you’ve got it. You could also add <b>greed</b> to the sentence. "
Apparently SOME folks think that, and others let it pass without objection.
These people are hurting because they negotiated hard for a deal management promised them and now has to reneg on? And THEY’RE the lazy greedy slobs?
I missed that comment when reading through. I apologize; one person is making the lazy argument. I don’t know why people other than you and Dave let it pass without objection, but I let it pass because I missed it.
Um, Dean, seems to me that that could be read as being snarky to your snark.
Yeah, probably.
Hey, I never said I was perfect. It’s just a weird headspace out here in cyberspace sometimes. Sorry Robert.
Dean, no offence taken. You Dean, made the original comment about fat and lazy with the [/sarcasm]. I simply agreed and added greed.
Let me explain what I am thinking.
I took what you said to mean what will happen to the big 3 auto workers if this situation can’t be fixed.
My comment was directed at all the people currently employed at the big 3 auto makers in Michigan. From the private jet flying CEO with no plan to the high wage earning union member on the line. The industry is in trouble and no one seems to want to compromise. They all want their high paying jobs and benefits and at this moment the industry can’t support this. This is what I am talking about.
If they (all the people at the big 3) aren’t willing to tighten their collective belts and suck it up, well then, I don’t feel sorry for them if they loose their jobs. They all have been paid very well while times have been good. Now times are bad and they need to adjust.
I’ve lived through good times and hard times. When times are tough you do whatever it takes.
I think it is really unfair to ask the single mom working for $12 per hour to support her kids, to pony up and help the guy making many times this amount when he won’t compromise and give up a little.
I too am sorry if I offended anyone. Really, I am a decent guy.
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