Anybody who watched the Super Bowl would be familiar with Chrysler's new ad with Eminem trying to remake Detroit's image into the Motor City powerhouse it was decades ago.
It was a catchy ad, but it’s a lie. A big, flashy, expensive lie.
Unfortunately for Chrysler, you can't advertise a city back to life that has been carpet bombed by union greed for decades.
And you can’t advertise away the fact that you can’t run a proper business, so you have to beg Obama for a bailout.
Census numbers were just released showing a 25% drop in population in Detroit in the last decade, for a total loss of almost 250,000 residents. That's one person leaving every twenty-two minutes for the whole decade. Another way to look at it is that only 140,000 people fled New Orleans during Katrina.
Why did people flee Detroit like it was a burning house? Because there are no jobs and there are no jobs because union greed has destroyed the car companies who dominate the job market.
How can car companies in Detroit compete when studies show that the legacy costs of union workers tack on an additional $3000 per car?
Union contracts force the Big Three in Detroit to cover health care costs of retirees for LIFE. With a much smaller workforce these days (GM having 2.5 retirees for every worker) the companies are having a hard time covering retirees.
Detroit's destruction should serve as a warning sign to governments across the country. Union greed comes home to roost in the form of economic insolvency.
Obama bailed out the car companies already, but even he won't pretend there is money to bail out every government loaded with unfunded liabilities to unionized workers.
The sad truth for all the Lions and Tigers of Detroit, your city was killed by union greed. Not even a slick advertisement bolstered by an Eminem baseline can obscure this dark and tragic reality.
buying all these Japanese cars and instead support these American companies and producers, we wouldn’t have this problem.
It’s the unions that are the problem, not foreign cars. With a foreign car, you get more for your money, and the consumer knows it. All the tariffs and incentives in the world won’t change the fact that unions have completely bankrupted this industry in the US by raising the cost of production and lowering the quality. The unions should be ashamed of themselves for beating Detroit to pulp in a way that reminds me of scenarios painted in Atlas Shrugged. (Yes, I know, it’s a clichéd, overused example, but I think it actually fits here.)
That being said, I actually really liked this ad in the SuperBowl: it was one of the best. It didn’t whine and complain about how bad off they were; instead, it showed true American backbone and resilience. It accomplished its purpose in a very inspiring way.