Bailout food for thought...Part 1

[Uncle Bill]

An abridged letter from Troy Clarke, President of General Motors
- followed by a response from Gregory Knox, President of Knox Machinery, a
manufacturer of precision machine tools which supplies the auto industry.


Dear Employee,
Next week, Congress and the current Administration will
determine whether to provide immediate support to the domestic auto
industry to help it through one of the most difficult economic times in
our nation's history.

Your elected officials must hear from all of us now on why
this support is critical to our continuing the progress we began prior to
the global financial crisis......................As an employee, you have
a lot at stake and continue to be one of our most effective and
passionate voices. I know GM can count on you to have your voice
heard.


Thank you for your urgent action and ongoing support.


Troy Clarke
President
General Motors North America


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RESPONSE:

From Gregory Knox,

In response to your request to call legislators and ask
for a bailout for the United States automakers please consider the
following, and please also pass this onto Troy Clark, the president of
General Motors North America for me.


You are both infected with the same entitlement mentality that has
bred like cancerous germs in UAW halls for the last countless
decades, and whose plague is now sweeping the nation, awaiting our new
"messiah" to wave his magical wand and make all our problems go away,
while at the same time allowing our once great nation to keep "living the
dream"...

The dream is over!

The dream that we can ignore the consumer for years
while management myopically focuses on its personal rewards packages
at the same time that our factories have been filled with the world's
most overpaid, arrogant, ignorant and laziest entitlement-minded
"laborers", without paying the price for these atrocities...and that still
the masses will line up to buy our products.

Don't tell me I'm wrong. Don't accuse me of not knowing of what I
speak. I have called on Ford,GM ,Chrysler,TRW, Delphi ,Kelsey
Hayes, American Axle and countless other automotive OEM's and Tier
ones for 3 decades now throughout the Midwest and what I've seen, over the
years in these union shops, can only be described as disgusting.

Mr. Clark, the president of General Motors, states: "There is
widespread sentiment in this country, our government and
especially in the media that the current crisis is completely the result of
bad management. It is not..."

You're right - it's not JUST management...how about the
electricians who walk around the plants like lords in feudal times, making
people wait on them for countless hours while they drag ass...so they can
come in on the weekend and make double and triple time...for a job they
easily could have done within their normal 40 hour week.

How about the line workers who threaten newbies with all kinds of
scare tactics...for putting out too many parts on a shift...and
for being too productive (mustn't expose the lazy bums who have been
getting overpaid for decades for their horrific underproduction, must we?!?)

Do you really not know about this stuff?!? How about this great sentiment
abridged from Mr. Clarke's sad plea: "over the last few years ...we have
closed the quality and efficiency gaps with our competitors."

[Uncle Bill]

What the hell has Detroit been doing for the last 40 years? Did we really
JUST wake up to the gaps in quality and efficiency between us and them?

The K car vs. the Accord?

The Pinto vs. the Civic?!?

Do I need to go on? We are living through the inevitable outcome of the
actions of the United States auto industry for decades. Time to pay for
your sins, Detroit .

I attended an economic summit last week where a brilliant economist, Alan
Beaulieu surprised the crowd when he said he would not have given the
banks a penny of "bailout money". Yes, he said, this would cause short term
problems, but despite what people like George Bush and Troy Clark would
have us believe, the sun would, in fact, rise the next day... and something
else would happen...where there had been greedy and sloppy banks, new
efficient ones would pop up...that is how a free market system works.
It does work...if we would let it work!

But for some reason we are now deciding that the rest of the world
is right and that capitalism doesn't work - that we need the government
to step in and "save us"! Save us, hell! We're nationalizing...and
unfortunately too many of this once fine nation's citizens don't even have
a clue that this is what's really happening...but they sure can tell you
the stats on their favorite sports teams...yeah - THAT'S important...

Does it occur to ANYONE that the "competition" has been producing vehicles,
EXTREMELY PROFITABLY, for decades now in this country?

How can that be? Let's see... Fuel efficient... Listening to customers...
Investing in the proper tooling and automation for the long haul...

Not being too complacent or arrogant to listen to Dr. W. Edwards Deming
4 decades ago. Ever increased productivity through quality, lean and six
sigma plans... Treating vendors like strategic partners, rather than like
"the enemy"... Efficient front and back offices... Non union environment...

Again, I could go on and on, but I really wouldn't be telling anyone
anything they really don't already know in their hearts.

I have six children, so I am not unfamiliar with the concept of wanting
someone to bail you out of a mess that you have gotten yourself into
- my children do this on a weekly, if not daily basis, as I did at their age.

I do for them what my parents did for me ( one of their greatest gifts, by
the way) - I make them stand on their own two feet and accept
the consequences of their actions and work them through.

Radical concept, huh? Am I there for them in the wings? Of course -
but only until such time as they need to be fully on their own as adults
I don't want to oversimplify a complex situation, but there certainly
are unmistakable parallels here between the proper role of parenting and
government.

Detroit and the United States need to pay for their sins. Bad news people.
It's coming whether we like it or not! The newly elected Messiah really
doesn't have a magic wand big enough to "make it all go away".
I laughed as I heard Obama "reeling it back in" almost immediately
after the vote count was tallied..."we might not do it in a year...
or in four..." where was that kind of talk when he was RUNNING for the
office?Stop trying to put off the inevitable. That house in Florida really isn't worth
$750,000. People who jump across a border really don't deserve free
health care benefits. That job driving that forklift for the big 3 really isn't
worth $85,000 a year.


That couple whose combined income is less than $50,000 really shouldn't
be living in that $485,000 home.

Let the market correct itself people. It will. Yes, it will be painful,
but it's gonna be painful either way, and the bright side of my proposal
is that on the other side of it is a nation that appreciates what it has,
and doesn't live beyond its means...and gets back to basics...and
redevelops the work ethic that made it the greatest nation in the history
of the world...and probably turns back to God.

Sorry - don't cut my head off, I'm just the messenger sharing
with you the "bad news"

Gregory J. Knox
President

Knox Machinery, Inc.
Franklin , Ohio 45005