Friday Films & Weekend Warriors - Link to Audio
Psych/Folk Songwriter Alan Sherman with Craig
We’ll kick off the show with open lines Friday. Are you still reeling from Obama’s victory on Tuesday? Worried about GM? Give us a call (313-577-1019) or leave us a comment on the blog.
While some of Michigan’s most storied college sports teams are having a disastrous fall season, the Wayne State Warriors are on track for their best season in recent history. We’ll catch up with a Warriors head coach Paul Winters as the squad gets ready for their biggest game of the season against Grand Valley State.
It's the Post-Election Hangover Edition of the First Friday Film Forum with WDET reporter Rob St. Mary. He'll chat with Metro Times film critics Corey Hall and Jeff Meyers about some of the new political biographies hitting the big screen.
Local psych-folk rocker Alan Sheurman may be forever plagued by ‘hello mudda hello fadda’ jokes, but his delicate, hypnotic music is nothing to laugh at. His new album "Old patterns" was produced and engineered by Warren DeFever of His Name is Alive at the UFO Factory in Detroit. It will be available as a free download on his website on December 2nd. He’ll be performing live in Studio A.
All that, and the weekly events calendar with Detroit Today’s Amanda le Claire.
Listener Comments
Recently I have been hearing from the national media, including NPR, that the auto industry is having its current problems because it refused to “go green.,” or does not produce quality cars. This view is totally myopic.
It is not the auto industry’s fault the speculators falsely drove the price of oil to $144 per barrel using leveraged deals…
It is not the auto industry’s fault that the banking and insurance industry destroyed the credit market with criminal loans and credit default swaps….
It is not the Auto industries fault because it wants its employees to have health care …
It is not the auto industry’s fault the price of health care shot through the roof...
The media may not realize it, but QUALITY cost money…and the $1800 in per vehicle health care costs put the US auto industry at a disadvantage.
I have worked for a long time with the UAW. While in years past, the attitude of the UAW workers has been terrible- these problems have quickly evaporated. Everyone seems to be working together now …
Hopefully, people will realize that America can not survive selling by each other insurance on lawsuits and large cups of coffee… We need manufacturing.
Without inexpensive energy we will have no manufacturing in Michigan…It takes energy to make steel from dirt – it takes energy to make plastic from oil – it takes energy to make cars from steel -
If we tax carbon too high – the production jobs will go to where the carbon is cheap …. China
As much as it might not be politically correct to say … the laws of physics do not allow the use of alternative energy for car production. It is simply impossible to run an auto plant on solar or wind – can’t be done- the energy density simply is not there.
Face it, without the big short-term problems, the auto industry would still be on a slow decline due to bad decision making, lack of foresight, and continual failures on the part of the unions to realize they are part of the problem by demanding so much. Im sorry, but someone with less than a high-school education working on the factory floor does not need a $75,000 salary.
Wall Street and their credit rating drove the short term profit scenario. Look, it's come down to a capital management company, Cerberus, owning an auto company.
Overall the government has inacted policies that has driven manufacturing off shore, increasing regulations and not doing anything about the rising health care costs. The next nail in the coffin for American manufacturing will be the passage of the Employee Free Choice act which will take away the secert ballot election for union approval. Everyone should have a choice if they want to join a union and if the answer is no then the organizers should face retaliation from the company.
When Chrysler got bailed out back then, Iacocca took a one dollar salary until the company was turned around.
Blue collar productivity has grown every year for years, yet white collar productivity has been negative, at best. Meanwhile blue collar wages have not kept pace with cost of living, and white collar wages have been borderline-criminal. There's no way that working people, who have been told the free market must be preserved at the expense of them, are going to agree to corporate welfare for incompetent rich people. We should be getting controlling stock in return for any sizable bail-out. That should control the insane salaries, at least.
In addition, it cannot be argued that the companies have done nothing to help their own plight. Chrysler, for example, is the leanest of the three, with each employee performing the jobs of approximately 5 employees of days gone by. If I remember correctly, at least 20,000 jobs have been cut in the last 1-2 years.
Gov. Granholm is participating "with" economic experts, not as one of Obama's economic experts. She is qualified to report on the effect on Michigan's economy as it relates to the auto industry crisis and the effect of the last administration's (lack of) relationship with the industrial and manufacturing sectors.
Capitalism is the system we have and in it, some people & companies will flurish while others will fail. Seems to me, by some companies failing, it makes room for others to enter the competition. Who's to say if one or more of the big three colapse, former employees couldn't combine their assets (intelectual & capital) and use their expertise to form a new, smaller, profitable car company?
Hopefully the credit markets will come back on line and gas prices STAY low, otherwise I think one or more Detroit auto companies are doomed and we would be throwing good money after bad by bailing them out too. One thing for sure, they should be made to replace most of their management, if they take taxpayer money.
The government has proven they are failures at business and have driven the country into eleven trillion dollars of debt. The heads of the big three are also business failures and are the last guys I want my tax dollars going to.
The government bailout is clearly a case of the blind leading the blind.
It is almost as if we are living a real life version of Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged.
In that novel the government nationalizes private industries and the result is a total collapse of the entire country.
Both the government and auto companies need to focus on cutting cost and operating on a balanced budget not driving the country farther into debt.
Keep in mind the only reason we have economic problems is due to debt. It is the cause of the economic problems we have not the solution that business leaders and government officials are proposing.
For anyone looking to gain knowledge into the government actions that have brought us to the economic conditions that we or now facing, I recommend reading the works of writer and former presidential candidate Harry Browne.
Imo, regarding the domestic auto industry... I don't believe that our government and Wall Street were anti-industry & manufacturing so much as they were not inclined to jeopardize relations those who held the purse strings, that is Japan and, more recently, China.
Ask anyone the runs a secure and profitable business.
The only business leaders that want government intervention are the failures and they are the minority.
In addition, it cannot be argued that the companies have done nothing to help their own plight. Chrysler, for example, is the leanest of the three, with each employee performing the jobs of approximately 5 employees of days gone by. If I remember correctly, at least 20,000 jobs have been cut in the last 1-2 years.
The myth of 'unfettered capitalism' as the ideal to which all others should aspire, has been finally shattered by reality (regardless of whoever is most responsible). The lack of adequate checks and balances was ultimately to blame. It proved that, people allowed to pursue purely selfish interests, will do just that. It is precisely for this reason that the role of government is to ensure that the society, as a whole, progresses and that prosperity not only, occasionally, 'trickles down' to others, but generously 'flows down' to all its participants. That is the major philosophical failing of the Republican party and what probably cost them the election. Our having to bail out major corporations (and their greedy executives and investors, i.e. 'us' ) shows, beyond any doubt, that following the 'every man/women for themselves' model of behavior, doesn't turn out very well for society. Thank goodness, that we are finally going back to thinking about the 'collective good' and 'collective happiness' of people, rather than just the happiness of those who make it to the top (a lot of whom did so despite incompetence - i.e. Bush and many bank, housing, healthcare and auto executives). Now we are going to let them off the hook and in some cases even reward them.
I am all in favor of adopting some ideas from Europe, Canada and elsewhere. But if the government helps to underwrite or subsidize private companies, then it should be able to have a significant say (and responsibility) in how they operate. I only wish we already had a single payer or, at least, universal-coverage type of healthcare system - we'd cut our costs by half and people would be living longer.
I have to wonder if Ayn Rand didn't roll over in her grave upon hearing her disciple, Alan Greenspan, reluctantly acknowledge his crucial role in the credit crisis and admit that he “found a flaw” in his philosophy, “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,...”.
I love the show and feel sort of relieved to have shared my opinion on the automotive industry today.
I was so nervous to talk on the air though.