Category: Another Viewpoint, Commentary/Editorial || By

I'm a little bit behind in my reading. This interesting rant about the auto industry bailouts was published back in February at Allpar.com.

Allpar is a website for Chrysler and Jeep enthusiasts, and asking a motorhead whether we "need" an auto industry is like asking a kid if he "needs" a cookie.

But I thought this was worth reprinting at length, because you're not likely to see it anywhere else, and because it will ring true for people in the Mon Valley.

Remember, we didn't need a steel industry, either. And if you think that the high-tech, medical, educational and financial jobs that are currently underpinning the local economy can't be sent overseas, I have some beachfront property in Wilmerding to sell you.

Incidentally, the writer --- in addition to being a car buff --- is an industrial consultant with a PhD in organizational psychology from Columbia University, according his bio on the Allpar website. To me, that gives him a certain amount of credibility.

. . .

'We Don't Need a Car Industry' by David Zatz
(Excerpted from Allpar.com, copyright 2009 Allpar LLC, all rights reserved. These excerpts have been edited slightly for flow and context. Click the link to see the original piece.)

We don't need a car industry.

That's a direct quote from a letter to the editor of Automotive News, and it should give you pause.

Let's think about the industries this country does not need and, indeed, chose (for the most part) not to have: Radios, televisions, cellular phones, toys, computers (actually making them, not assembling them), bicycles, shoes, watches, clothing.

Now, let's look at some of the industries that are in a transitional state, slowly or rapidly moving offshore: software, lumber (you may not have known that), furniture, tools, plumbing parts, hardware, car batteries, car parts.

Some of you may remember what a colony was defined as ... (A) colony exists to serve the interests of (a) ruling nation. It provides raw materials and consumes finished goods. Like we do. We are rapidly (becoming) a colony, shared by Japan, China, and Germany.

One by one, industries are leaving, because you can't compete with slave labor or company towns lacking key protections. Economically, democracies are no match for the ruthless efficiencies of dictatorships, at least when it comes to manufacturing.

(But) if you complain about the way the government seems to encourage us to buy imports, you're called a protectionist.

If you note that China doesn't let anyone own companies within China, but that we let China buy whatever they want here, you're called a protectionist.

If you suggest that maybe we should change our trade policy to prevent competition with slave labor, countries that let people duplicate our factories and produce exact counterfeits, and to equalize the field with health care or environmental controls or what-have-you, you're called a socialist and a protectionist ...

Some say we'll survive on our brains. That'll be hard, with software moving to India, China, and Russia, with South America moving forward and possibly becoming the next unexpected "tiger," and with so many citizens.

Face it, we have too many people for that. Not everyone can work with their mind; there just isn't enough of a demand ...

Are we going to become a nation of programmers, competing with $5 per hour programmers in other continents? A nation of inventors?

China also has a lot of people, remember, and they're just as smart as we are; they've just been stuck in a bureaucratic system without the kind of educational opportunities we have ...

We have natural resources --- we can grow food. (Maybe someday) farmers working for great Asian industrial combines, many owned by Chinese governments, will drive their Komatsu and Mahindra tractors up and down and we'll export the food they grow, under unfavorable conditions, to service the massive debt that has been growing at insane rates since 1980, and which shows no sign of diminishing.

We'll pump oil out of the ground, dig more mines, and maybe chop down the national forests to pay off our debts and our trade deficits.

But without industry, a sensible trade policy, and a serious change in our national priorities, both at the government and the individual level, most of us will end up dead poor --- and when we're too old to work, since so many people hate pensions so much, an overloaded Social Security will do what it can to provide us with food or shelter. Perhaps, if we're lucky, even both.

Or we can turn around and say that we do need domestic industry, preferably diverse ones, and that we need to go back to a neutral or positive trade balance.

It's our choice, but the time to act is now. Rescuing the domestic automakers is the first step; keeping them alive by buying their products --- and buying American-made clothing, and whatever else we can get, while lobbying Congress to replace this insane vision of free trade with a more balanced form --- is the next step.

If we race to the bottom, we will get there.

(Excerpted from "We Don't Need a Car Industry" by David Zatz, copyright 2009 Allpar LLC, all rights reserved.)