September 21, 2009--Stopping the Line

I’ve been fighting around recently with conservative friends about some of the causes of our economic troubles. They are especially worried about government spending—pretty much all of it but more than anything else bout taxpayer money being used to bail out and, to them, take over major industries. The banks and other financial institutions and the Big Two of the Big Three American auto companies. They worry that this is not just adding immeasurably to our national debt but they also see Barack Obama’s alleged socialistic inclinations lurking in the background. And then, they ask with some credibility, when did government ever do anything right?

At heart, less for ideological reasons that they, I do not much like this either. More because we find ourselves held virtually hostage to these corporate miscreants and that, since these companies are “too big to fail,” there was little choice that makes sense to me between letting them collapse, a là Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, and attempting to pull them and us back from the brink.

And, like Frank Rich in yesterday’s New York Times (linked below), I too more and more am feeling the populist rage he is seeing sweeping the country. Rage against feeling impotent in the face of all we face and a sense that government, including the Obama administration’s, which we both supported and continue to more or less support (note the slipping in of these equivocating verb tenses and phrases), seeming inclination to care more, based on their appointments and policy decisions, about Wall Street and the auto assembly line than Main Street or retail workers.

As one put it in an email to me last week, “Did you listen to his kiss-ass speech to the United Auto Workers?”

Forget that I attempted to parry this jibe by trying to get him to agree that the mess we’re in in regard to cars and more generally manufacturing is at least the result of corporate, free market, ineptitude and arrogant decision-making than caused by sweetheart contracts with the UAW. He was not convinced. And to tell the truth, I could barely convince myself that I was making sense.

The frustration and anger at our general circumstances is so pervasive and deep that more Americans of all persuasions are turning, as Rich points out, to the populist ranting of Glen Beck. He’s beginning to give even Rush Limbaugh a run for his money.

Which brings me to our search for a new car. We do not own one but with it likely that we will be spending more time in Florida and Maine, and less in New York City, we feel the need for one. So this weekend we went car shopping. On the extreme Westside of Manhattan where one can casually wander within half a mile or so among Chevy and Chrysler and Ford and Audi and BMW and, in our case, Volvo and Toyota dealers.

At the moment we have narrowed our search to these. We plan to keep the car for at least 10 years and from our research the Camry and V50 small Volvo station wagon seem both appropriate for our emerging lifestyle and budget. There’s nothing sexy about either of these but they are built to last and we think we will be able to depend on them to start right up what it’s 100 degrees out or 10 below.

Both salesmen were informative and persuasive. Very proud of what they are selling, not just hustling to make a sale in a down market. Among the features they pointed out—beyond all the cup holders and heated seats and fancy speaker systems—was the fit-and-finish. “Look,” the Toyota salesman said, “Look at how these parts fit together.” He was running his finger along the narrow seam between the front fender and the driver-side door. “Toyota requires that it be consistent to only a few thousands of an inch.”

I bent over to take a closer look. I had never thought much about these kinds of structural seams; but if we wanted a car not to fall apart on Maine’s deeply rutted roads, I intuited that this feature might be significant. “Very impressive,” I said. Not quite knowing what I was being impressed by.

“And you know why Toyota can do this?”

“I haven’t a clue,” I confessed.

He leaned closer so as not to be overheard. “Look, you can see I’m an American and proud to be one. I’m originally from Buffalo and you can’t get more American than that. But with Toyota you don’t have unions.”

“What?” I said. Liberal that I am. “I’m not sure that . . .” I was already feeling guilty that our car search had narrowed to foreign cars and now to be contemplating buying a car made in a non-union shop, well that was feeling a bit too much.

“They don’t have unions. Which means that anyone on the assembly line can stop it whenever they see something they don’t like. Like a fit that isn’t up to Toyota standards. They’re actually encouraged to do it. Stop the line, I mean. You think UAW workers in Detroit do that? You think they care enough about their work?”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I muttered. “Where, by the way, are these Camrys made?”

“Let me look at the sticker. It looks like in Kentucky. There are no unions there,” he smiled up at me.

So, not feeling entirely good about the political correctness of this, we made our way up to Volvo to look at cars, which, though not made by an American company, would at least be manufactured by socialists.

And there we heard pretty much the same story—the fit-and-finish are up to “world-class standards” and one of the main reasons for this, the low-key salesman said, also whispering (did they both get trained in the same car-salesman school?), is because Volvos are not made by union workers.

“But I thought Sweden was sort of a socialist country. Wouldn’t that mean that everyone there is a member of one union or another?”

“Look at this label,” he said, with that familiar showroom conspiratorial smile. Which I stooped over to do. He was pointing out where it was assembled.

“You mean it’s made in Hungry?” I was incredulous. He was still smiling and now also nodding his head.

I did note, though, that the engine, at least, was assembled in Sweden from parts made in . . . Japan.

When I pointed this out to Rona, she moaned, “Talk about your globalization.”

So we are faced with a conundrum.

We want to buy American, but we also want a car that will last. And we want to act like liberals. So what would my Republican friends advise? What would Glen Beck recommend? I bet I know the answers to this. And what kind of car does Frank Rich drive? I think I’ll send him an email. I’m sure he did the right thing.