Obama - Auto - Care

I had a good friend in junior high when I first moved to Bay City.  Cindy sat across the aisle from me - next desk to the right - and befriended me early on.  She and her parents were German immigrants from the war and her father had set up a small machining shop that I visited now and then.  He made bolts. Cindy made bolts. Her mom made bolts as did an older brother. You see, they had bid on a job to supply bolts to Saginaw Steering Gear, a huge manufacturing plant up the river from Bay City that made, well, steering assemblies for the auto industry, GM in particular.  They had their little shop all set up and each assembly got something like 5 bolts and they worked 52 weeks a year.

They weren't the only bolt supplier who made that one bolt because no shop - particularly a mom and pop shop - could make 20 million bolts - I think they could only make something like a million.  What I am suggesting is that there were probably 20-30 people employed in the area in little machine shops in 1959 who made one particular bolt, five at a time, for Steering Gear.  Of course when Steering Gear closed years back Cindy's family closed their doors and then what.  They weren't autoworkers with unions and pensions and clout at the unemployment office. In likelihood they lost everything.  If you make bolts, only bolts, for 20-30 years and your only buyer closes up, well then what?

President Obama is taking a victory lap of sorts in the auto manufacturing region because the car companies are probably going to make it.  This has the conservatives - both in congress and in the press - all crazy because the government stepped in, forced the companies to reorganize under bankruptcy control, put in some temporary leadership into a pretty dumb management culture and, saved perhaps 200,000 direct jobs and another million "Cindy's family" jobs. This is about jobs you know. And I like to point out that in the 5 months of control of the House of Representatives there have been 5 abortion related bills introduced and debated and NOT ONE JOB BILL. Hmmm.

I also would like to point out that when Paulsen started tossing money at the banks - who make NOTHING - and in particular at AIG to the tune of four times the amount spent on cars and into a black hole that shows no prospect of every ever being repaid, Goldman Sachs sucked away 10-15 billion of it.  Instead of taking their lumps in the free market like Cindy's family no doubt did, Goldman just weaseled a way to actually make a profit and pay bonuses like nobody's business.

It would be nice if there was some consistency here and that the conservatives would gain some perspective other than the reactionary "Obama did something right - let's get him"   I will wager dollars to doughnuts that more bolt makers lost their jobs and homes in Michigan when the auto industry went south than Goldman Sachs lost employees when they made money from a bailout.