NYT: Not Everyone In Michigan Is Pro-Bailout

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

As the battle over bailout bucks rages, it’s easy to get the impression that Fortress Detroit is unanimous in its support for the home team. As usual though, there’s more to the story than just the loudest voices. The New York Times conducted interviews across the state over the last two weeks, and found that opposition to the bailout, if only in private. “There are plenty of people who are rolling their eyes,” said Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics newsletter. “You keep your head down if you’re one of them, but they’re out there.” And much of the opposition seems to come from Michigan residents who lost their jobs before the automakers even came begging for a bailout. “How many other, small companies would like a bailout?” asks Heather Davison, an unemployed graphic designer who lost her job at a real estate publication a year ago. “It seems to me that the car companies saw the banks getting a bailout and said, ‘Oh, let’s go!’”

Even those who work within the orbit of the once-big three have their reasons for opposing a bailout, even if it comes at the expense of their jobs. “I remember when G.M. shut down 11 plants, some of which were in the Great Lakes region,” says John Raterink, who works at a small machine shop that supplies the auto industry. “They said, ‘We can’t afford to keep doing business like this.’ But do you know what happened at the upper echelon of G.M.? They got six-figure bonuses at the end of the year. If we look at thousands of workers in counties around here, they got no sympathy. We got hurt, and we got hurt badly. As a result of their practices, I haven’t seen a raise in six years, and I’ve seen my health benefits decline.” And Raterink acknowledges that things will get worse than they already are if there’s no bailout. “But bear in mind that we’ve already been dealing with this since the last quarter of ’99,” he says. “If I have to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, I hope G.M. faces that same reality of pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.”

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Boofie59 Boofie59 on Dec 03, 2008
    I did expect some lecture from Thomas Friedman on how to construct smart government managed company (still may come, since Mr. Friedman has no education or experience in either government or management or auto industry). Autonut, you just learned the definition of a pundit.
  • Runfromcheney Runfromcheney on Dec 03, 2008

    Well, I am sure you guys at TTAC knew about this for a while. I am from DETROIT and I am against the bailout. I want GM and Chrysler to go down, as opposed to just propping them up when they are dead just to "save jobs!!"

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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