GWS's annual trip to his birth lands---the frozen tundra of Minneapolis and St. Paul---has flown by. Along with the vicious return of his native Minnesotan accent, GWS was struck dumb by the sheer niceness of Minnesotans.
Following the Minnesota Vikings' playoff-clinching victory over the New York Giants' JV squad, GWS and a long-time friend found themselves on a quick run to pick up buffalo wings. The manager asked if he'd gotten our order right: 30 wings, three sides of bleu cheese and two of ranch. Friend-of-GWS replied that, yes, that sounded about right. The manager asks, "That gonna be enough bleu cheese and ranch for ya?"
Har har har, wise guy, shaddup and put the wings in the bag, thought GWS. But the manager was serious. As if to assuage any fears about his meaning, the manager then offered the following: "Hey, you guys want any pizza? I've gotta throw these three out every half-hour, and I hate doin' it, so you guys can just have 'em if ya want." Seriously? Seriously??? Free pizza and guileless concern for one's fellow man? Perhaps GWS has spent too much time on the jaded East Coast, but this sort of generosity came as a pleasant and delicious surprise.
Ah, Minnesota: where the temperatures are sub-zero everywhere except in our Scandinavian hearts.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Why do we blame unions for the current auto crisis?
GWS loves 10am because it means he gets to see his boyfriend, Tom Ashbrook. On Point is a beautiful thing for the reasons as most NPR shows: intelligent discussion, hard news, and an articulate host who rarely parrots interested parties' sound bites. But GWS is curious about part of the lead-in to today's show. Discussing the auto bailout bill's Senate failure, the script read, "Senate Republicans wouldn't budge, unions wouldn't budge," and GWS couldn't hide his surprise about NPR buying into the unions-are-killing-Detroit meme.
Of the players in this mess---automakers, consumers, regulators, unions---the unions were the only ones who acted in the long-term best interest of their constituents. The unions, in particular the UAW, have been getting a bad rap about their inflexibility and their exorbitant compensation. The Times's David Leonhardt blew this argument out of the water three days ago, but the myth of the greedy or stubborn unions persists.
The UAW has already made major concessions this year and in previous years. GWS has a hard time believing that union auto workers are rich or greedy or so stupid that they can't see what's in their own best interest. Yes, if the unions would just take another one for the team, we might be able to keep the Big Three going. But as Leonhardt points out in his Times piece, Detroit's problems really don't have much to do with the need for cost reductions. GM, Chrysler, and Ford's biggest problems are that no one wants to buy their cars anymore. And there's another, better reason why the UAW was right to stand firm.
The largest cost-reduction option available to the UAW---that is, the biggest favor the unions could do the automakers out of the goodness of their collective hearts---is obvious: abandon claims on retirees' health benefits. The cost of those benefits to automakers is astronomical, in part because they created so many retirees and in part because healthcare costs have skyrocketed. But the UAW gained those long-term health benefits for their employees by compromising on salaries for decades, in turn giving management what it wanted in the form of higher short-term profits. For decades, the UAW came to the bargaining table knowing that it would have to concede on either retiree benefits or current employee benefits in the form of salaries, and the UAW chose wisely. They refused to sell out their constituents long-term interests and faced up to painful economic realities. Fine, the unions said, we understand the Japanese and Europeans are beating us up and down the field, you can pay us less if you need to, but we're only willing to take that pay cut in exchange for long-term health benefits. Detroit was given the option of paying its workers now or later, and the management of GM, Ford, and Chrysler chose to pay later. Those long-term benefits have sheltered UAW's retirees in what would have otherwise been a devastating storm. If the Big Three's aging retirees were to suddenly lose their private health insurance, we would see increases in the Medicare or uninsured rolls; if events reach that point, this crisis will have morphed from an economic meltdown to a serious public health issue. Why is the only actor in this tragedy who thought and acted strategically in its constituents' best interest being punished for its foresight? If capitalism requires failure for poor decisions, isn't it also supposed to reward wise decisions?
Then again, maybe those workers should have gone to the Honda plant down the road...
Of the players in this mess---automakers, consumers, regulators, unions---the unions were the only ones who acted in the long-term best interest of their constituents. The unions, in particular the UAW, have been getting a bad rap about their inflexibility and their exorbitant compensation. The Times's David Leonhardt blew this argument out of the water three days ago, but the myth of the greedy or stubborn unions persists.
The UAW has already made major concessions this year and in previous years. GWS has a hard time believing that union auto workers are rich or greedy or so stupid that they can't see what's in their own best interest. Yes, if the unions would just take another one for the team, we might be able to keep the Big Three going. But as Leonhardt points out in his Times piece, Detroit's problems really don't have much to do with the need for cost reductions. GM, Chrysler, and Ford's biggest problems are that no one wants to buy their cars anymore. And there's another, better reason why the UAW was right to stand firm.
The largest cost-reduction option available to the UAW---that is, the biggest favor the unions could do the automakers out of the goodness of their collective hearts---is obvious: abandon claims on retirees' health benefits. The cost of those benefits to automakers is astronomical, in part because they created so many retirees and in part because healthcare costs have skyrocketed. But the UAW gained those long-term health benefits for their employees by compromising on salaries for decades, in turn giving management what it wanted in the form of higher short-term profits. For decades, the UAW came to the bargaining table knowing that it would have to concede on either retiree benefits or current employee benefits in the form of salaries, and the UAW chose wisely. They refused to sell out their constituents long-term interests and faced up to painful economic realities. Fine, the unions said, we understand the Japanese and Europeans are beating us up and down the field, you can pay us less if you need to, but we're only willing to take that pay cut in exchange for long-term health benefits. Detroit was given the option of paying its workers now or later, and the management of GM, Ford, and Chrysler chose to pay later. Those long-term benefits have sheltered UAW's retirees in what would have otherwise been a devastating storm. If the Big Three's aging retirees were to suddenly lose their private health insurance, we would see increases in the Medicare or uninsured rolls; if events reach that point, this crisis will have morphed from an economic meltdown to a serious public health issue. Why is the only actor in this tragedy who thought and acted strategically in its constituents' best interest being punished for its foresight? If capitalism requires failure for poor decisions, isn't it also supposed to reward wise decisions?
Then again, maybe those workers should have gone to the Honda plant down the road...
Monday, December 8, 2008
Bill Kristol Alzheimer's Update
Poor Bill...he's really starting to lose it. In today's NYT, Kristol is just following his knee as it jerks him along. Four paragraphs in, he drops this little gem:
"Five Republicans have won the presidency since 1932: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. Only Reagan was even close to being a small-government conservative."
Remember when Kristol used to adore Reagan? He doesn't even remember The Gipper anymore... Later in the same piece:
"Now it’s true that the size of the government and the modern liberal agenda are connected."
Really! "THE" modern liberal agenda? I had no idea such a document existed. This qualifies less as memory loss and more as delusion. Finally:
"You might then suggest spending a good chunk of the stimulus on national security — directing dollars to much-needed and underfunded defense procurement rather than to fanciful green technologies, making sure funds are available for the needed expansion of the Army and Marines before rushing to create make-work civilian jobs."
"Underfunded defense procurment." It's so sad---when the higher functions go, they go fast. You'll note that Bill doesn't name any program that's receiving insufficient funds, but GWS isn't sure if Bill has forgotten how much money we've spent as a result of Don Rumsfeld's "Revolution in Military Affairs" or if he really believes this. Either way...so very sad...
EconoSpeak notes Kristol's blatant war-mongering, which may be another effect of Alzheimer's, but one thing's for sure: he's just not the Bill we once knew. So sad that he thinks Reagan qualified as anything approaching a "small-government conservative." And I'm sure he didn't mean to channel Montgomery Burns by mocking "make-work civilian jobs" alongside building new schools...though his belief that the military can pull us back into economic growth is positively Prussian, and old Monty would certainly support that ("[Oskar] Schindler and I are like peas in a pod. We're both industrialists. We both made shells for the Nazis. But mine worked, dammit!"). But oh, Bill, we're so sorry that this has to be so public for you. You're so brave, writing and speaking in public despite this awful disease, this terrible existential joke that no just god could ever create.
As always, GWS should point out that he has no formal medical training. GWS arrives at his diagnosis of Mr. Kristol's condition via GWS's steadfast belief that no human being of sound mind and body could ever possibly be such a dick as Kristol's writing might otherwise suggest. Please, in this season of giving, let's all chip in and put Bill in a nice home, someplace upstate where he can run free...
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