Auto Industry Blamed For Rise In Unemployment
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released its unemployment numbers for August, revealing that joblessness has hit a five-year high at 6.1 percent. And rather than raising some of the many legitimate concerns over the accuracy of BLS statistics, the Detroit Free Press jumped right in to throwing fuel on the presidential campaign fire. Noting that automakers and parts suppliers shed 38,000 jobs in the past 30 days, and that the industry has lost 127,800 jobs over the past year, the Freep frames these losses in the context of Detroit’s proposed $50b bailout. The industry job losses combined with 14,000 jobs cut from car dealers and auto parts vendors “could add pressure” for Congress to back the Detroit bailout, reckons the Freep, and with swing-state Michigan’s unemployment levels topping out at 8.5 percent, the news is certainly putting pressure on the presidential candidates. And as McCain and Obama trade jabs on the economy, momentum simply builds for the government to do something. Since the only proposal on the table amounts to a blank-check bailout for three firms which have conclusively proven their lack of competitiveness, isn’t it time for one of our would-be leaders to show some y’know, leadership, and propose a different option? Otherwise, the bad news will keep coming, and Washington (and its aspirants) will have no choice but to offer more bailout money than the next guy.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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Mark Levinson Automotive line does not seem to exist anywhere... (I already know the answers on this, just had to make the statement)
So who engineers those speakers?What country origin is it? Doesn`t it belong to Recoton Audio? Anyway they are a simplistic manufacturing practice,far from complex mechanisms.
Jurisb, you are talking nonsense because you don't understand musical technology. Speakers seem relatively simple. But if so why haven't the Japanese been able to built any top-of-the line speakers or any top hi-fi componentry for that matter, cds, dvds, amplifiers? You can have speakers that cost more than a top-of-the-line Lexus. Good set of speakers, not extravagant, just good costs more then a midsize top-of-line Japanese full home theater including 50 inch plasma/LCD TV and top of the line sound system. All top electronic components are build primarily in England, US, Canada and a few other European countries. Japanese electronics don't go higher than excellent mediocrity; that's BTW their industrial modus operandi in my mind.