RE: The live in another world the Bushies

TOM WALSH: Detroit, U.S. worlds apart
Snow says manufacturing workers so productive that fewer are needed
November 1, 2005
BY TOM WALSH FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow flew a mission on Monday to Planet Detroit, which mysteriously left the economic orbit of GalaxyUSA several years ago along with the rest of Michigan and a chunk of northern Ohio.
Snow assured the restless exiles out on Planet Detroit that all is swell back in GalaxyUSA, where the economies of the remaining 48.7 states are chugging merrily forward, growing at a nearly 4% annual clip despite shocks from Hurricane Katrina and high energy prices.
"A lot of things are going right," Snow said in an interview before his luncheon speech to the Planet Detroit Economic Club. "You can't have results like that unless the fundamentals are in pretty good shape. What's happened to the American economy over the last 30 years or so is that we have built in an adjustment process, a set of shock absorbers that allow our system to take blows and respond." Not many other places can say that, he added.
Well, whoop-de-do, Mr. Secretary.
If GalaxyUSA's shock absorbers are so good, how did Planet Detroit blow a rod and spin out of orbit into deep space, with companies like Delphi Corp., Collins & Aikman and Federal-Mogul in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and our primary economic engines -- General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. -- sputtering along with junk-rated debt?
And how do the big honchos from Washington, D.C., plan to rescue and retrieve Planet Detroit so its people can again enjoy the same level of prosperity as the rest of GalaxyUSA someday?
Snow's explanation for how Planet Detroit veered out of orbit was creative.
The manufacturing workers of Planet Detroit became so efficient that many of them were no longer needed.
"It doesn't take as many people any more ... The increase in productivity in the manufacturing sector has been astonishing," Snow said. Therefore, many jobs disappeared.
What's more, many of the jobs that remained -- thanks to longstanding union labor contracts -- were the high-paying kind with good benefits, like those at Delphi, GM and Ford. With today's space-age technology allowing work to be beamed cheaply from one galaxy to the next, pressure kept building to slash wages on Planet Detroit or ship the work to other states, planets or galaxies.
Isn't there something you can do in Washington, Snow was asked, to help Planet Detroit return to its home galaxy and share in the economic expansion?
Remember when President George W. Bush slapped tariffs on imported steel to help the steel mills of Planet Pennsylvania a few years ago? Can't he do something similar to help Planet Detroit?
"I think the best help is to do the things we're doing to improve the overall strength of the economy -- good tax policy, lifting regulatory burdens and continuing to push on reducing health care costs," Snow said. Oh yes, and lowering trade barriers to make it easier for Planet Detroit's manufacturers to sell to other worlds.
That all sounds good, Mr. Secretary, but a lot of the restless exiles out here on Planet Detroit believe that all this free trade and lowering barriers stuff is what caused the job losses and wage cuts in the first place. There are some loud and angry voices arguing to throw up more trade barriers, not knock 'em down.
Snow's retort: Forget about it. If you don't like our brave new universe, tough noogies.
"Globalization," he said, "is here and it's not going to stop. It's inevitable, like it or dislike it, love it or hate it."
And with that, Snow departed at warp speed, leaving the confounding questions of Planet Detroit behind as he returned to the friendlier confines of GalaxyUSA.
Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com.
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow speaks to reporters after addressing the Detroit Economic Club on Monday. -->
"It doesn't take as many people ... The increase in productivity in the manufacturing sector has been astonishing," Snow said. -->
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