I’ve already written about how I grew up in
I grew up right in the middle of square miles of working class families and we were solidly middle class. One of my friends’ father worked in mid-management for Chrysler, and another friend’s father sold Chevys. My uncle Eddie worked forty-five years for Ford. He retired with a good pension and lived a long life. Sometime around World War II my mother worked for Fisher Body. Later she worked for the National Bank of
In ’69 I worked for Ford for a couple of months in the summer. I worked at the Rouge Complex at the stamping plant. We put together all the sheet metal that went into cars, operating huge machines that shaped and cut the steel or spot welders that put pieces together. I had to join the UAW and they took forty dollars out of my first check for union dues. I was paid 3.47 an hour – that would be seventeen something today. The next year I worked at a machine shop five minutes from my home that made parts for Chrysler, the quintessential small business interface to the auto industry. It was non-union and I got 2.50 an hour – or about twelve something now. Notice that jobs were available and they paid rather decently.
My brother worked for Ford after he got out of the Navy while he went to college and law school. He worked testing electronic components. Did you ever see the movie Class Action? It stars Gene Hackman. Fred Thompson makes a cameo, kind of like he did in Hunt for Red October. He explains how a company knew about a problem but that the beancounters, the company accountants, ran the numbers and saw that it would be cheaper to settle lawsuits later then have a recall to make the cars safe. My brother worked for the unit that informed Ford of the problem that the movie references.
This is what has gone wrong with American business over my lifetime. The beancounters got control and dictate to the rest of us. The executives have the power and they wield it ruthlessly. Heartless, they care nothing for the pain they cause thousands and thousands of families. They have made millions and millions off the blood, sweat, and tears of the workers, the ones that actually do the work of designing and building cars. Scumbags like Roger Moore (Roger of Michael Moore’s Roger and Me), Henry Ford III, and Lee Iacocca literally destroyed
I left
2 comments:
Interesting. I look forward to part two.
I'm hoping to pick your brain when we come up about the topic of Obama and all the talk I hear about him being the Antichrist. I don't understand it, and was curious what you'd have to say on the matter.
Not much to say about it, Clare.
You hear a lot of talk about Obama being the Antichrist? Anyone who thinks that Obama is the Antichrist
1) does not know much about Obama, and
2) does not know much about the Antichrist.
That's about all there is to say.
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