32 Comments

Perhaps George will volunteer.

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God, I hate Ronald Reagan.

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I would happily "be standing with Wendy", even though I knew it was only political.

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But enough about George Will.

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While I can't fault the irritation, I'm a little baffled that the first two states they bitch at are Cali and NY, who I suspect are among the folks who are most sympathetic to Detroit.

It actually makes me wonder who did the video.

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I worked in the semiconductor industry. Even back in the 70s, the auto industry was an important customer base for us. During the 70s, both the Japanese auto industry and the Japanese semiconductor industry upset the world balance by making higher quality products. The US semiconductor manufacturers tried to respond, with varying degrees of success, but at least they tried. The US auto manufacturers (and this was the executive suite, not the nasty unions) pretty much decided to ignore it.

Fifteen years later (late 80s), things had happened in the chip biz -- the Taiwanese, and to a lesser degree the Koreans, had specialized in chip manufacturing to the point that most US firms (except Intel), and many Japanese firms subcontracted their wafer fab. [Note: this is actually a good example of "outsourcing" -- let people who are good at a particular type of work do that work].

At about the same time the US auto manufacturers realized that they had to do something about improving the quality of their products versus the Japanese (and Koreans). And since then, they've made decent progress. But they fucked around with the status quo for fifteen to twenty years before they got on with it.

THAT's what killed Detroit. Management fuckup. In the ensuing thirty years, there has also been plenty of local government fuckup, but it all stems from the inability of the mid-70s to mid-80s executive management of the Big Three to catch a fucking clue. Those of us who were suppliers knew they were fucking up (we also supplied their Asian competitors).

I don't think they should be shot. It was a big fucking mistake, but in some ways understandable. What pisses me off is when modern assholes try to blame the fall of Detroit on other people. It wasn't the unions. It wasn't the single mothers fuck you George Will. It was a vague array of middle-to-upper-to-top management incompetents during the 70's and 80s, most of whom are now very comfortably retired, even though they destroyed the US auto industry by neglect.

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To which I repeat, Fuck you, Zombie Ronald Reagan.

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I noticed that one too

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See, THIS is where you say it increased the average IQ in both places.

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Hint: George Will is an asshole.

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Actually, he said "herds of feral dogs", which is just stupid.

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The difference is, you can bet on Nate's snoozeworthy shit.

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this is EXACTLY what i meant. my consulting firm worked with detroit (a little after your time and a little before mine). the stories of detroit mgt arrogance are legendary.

mgt fuck up indeed.

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and as it was one of america's biggest / most important industries, the collapse was all that much worse.

and we don't say 'fuck auto industry executives' enough. they willfully and arrogantly watched the growth of strong competition (japan, europe) and ignored it. never thought they could be unseated.

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AMC had some tattoos when she was with the Wonket.

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Detroit needs RoboCop, but Will wants to send them ED-209 and hand them all guns.

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