Car Wars - again

I recently received a broadcast forward of an e-mail forwarded to me. It was a great, old and sentimental advertisement for the Ford Mustang. But the feel good message was obscured by the original senders words "THANK GOD WE HAVE ONE AMERICAN CAR COMPANY LEFT. THE OTHER 2 ARE RUN BY OBAMA HENCHMEN. Yes, all caps and big, bright blue letters shouting a political message. Of course this is "Car Wars as proxy for politics, a subject we have discussed before.  Yes, many people blame unions for the troubles of the domestic automakers, and blame President Obama for anything union. But that is a simplistic blame.  The auto bailout saved the American auto industry (yes, Ford too) and resulted in restructured companies and saved jobs. I fail to see how that is a bad result, even if a collateral benefit favors the United Auto Workers or any other union.

Car proxy wars

We have previously posted here and here about the silly attempt to make car manufacturers proxies in the union/anti-union wars and in the red blue game. Bob Herbert's NYT opinion piece provides fuel and a black hat portrait of Toyota and its decision to close NUMMI and the impact of job losses in California.

Car Wars 2011

Ford and General Motors are expected to distribute sizable profit sharing checks to workers, a sure sign of the rebound of these two domestic automobile companies. Also of note, is the labor cost reductions which have contributed to the recovery. Money quote:

The gap in labor costs between Detroit and the foreign-owned factories in the United States has narrowed considerably. Ford’s total labor cost for a worker — a combination of wages, benefits and pensions — has been reduced more than 20 percent and is now about $59 an hour, compared to $56 at Toyota, according to the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

This, of course, goes a long way towards explaining the UAW's promised effort to organize the domestic plants of foreign automakers.

Carmakers comeback

We have previously discussed the sillyness of the politicization of the GM and Chrysler bailouts. These car proxy wars were approached by anti-union bloggers as serious life or death struggles in the war against advancing socialism. Ridiculous! More after the jump