Tonight I had planned a fire and brimstone diary about the impending bankruptcy of General Motors, likely to be announced tomorrow. Obama will make a public announcement about it at 11:30 EST.
Then I deleted the original diary and started on a weepy one. Something lugubrious and hopeless, full of defeat and abandonment. It was great, but I deleted than one, too, then started on something snarky and biting. Something that drove a rusty screwdriver into the necks of economists and politicians.
They were all incredibly brilliant.
You would have liked them.
Just imagine something brilliant and moving and pretend I wrote it.
The truth is...the truth has always been, I don't know exactly how I feel.
Concerning GM's impending bankruptcy, probably to be announced tomorrow, The Center for Automotive Research predicts "the loss of 242,600 total jobs over the period, including 56,864 in durable-goods manufacturing" and the loss of 23,383 total jobs in Ohio, trailing only Michigan's 48,731 and Tennessee's 31,069."
I know how I feel about that.
I know even if it's a fifth of what the Center for Automotive Research's worst case scenario is, it's going to hurt.
...it's going to set back Michigan's economic recovery another year or two and propel the state's unemployment rates near Depression era levels.
...it's going to create a leaner, more competitive GM in the long run. Or so they say. But when "the long is" is anybody's guess.
It may, in the long run, strengthen the Union's position, as significant shareholders of GM and Chrysler.
It may, in the short term, weaken the Unions and roll back some of their ability to set fair wage rates nationally for even non-union workers.
I know Ford, which took no bailout money and is the only one of the big three not to go into bankruptcy, will probably emerge as the dominant domestic brand.
Part of me feels an odd sense of relief...we can see the bottom. I hope. No more wondering how much worse it's going to get. I hope.
...no more worrying that the dominant industry in the Midwest is going to collapse.
...no more impassioned arguments against mis-information, or people who think they're so comfortably far from the domestic auto industry.
I know relatives and friends will lose their jobs and move away.
I still and will always feel springs of anger when I think of bankers with their tax funded bonuses, while tens of thousands of people, even at best case scenario estimates, lost their jobs to a bankrupt, downsized GM.
And while I also harbor some of the similar sentiments, I will always, always bristle and fight over the suggestion that GM "had it comin'" if only because those saying it more often than not say it about the wrong reasons.
...part of me is happy to know Michigan will slowly stop being coupled in peoples' minds with GM...
...that this state I love will no longer be synonymous with and defined by a handful of companies who happen to be located here. Who happened to provide jobs and for nearly a century, an incredible standard of living to normal, hardworking men and women.
That people associated Michigan with the company always irritated me, when the people who fought so hard and so tirelessly against a world kowtowing to big business over individuals, who fought to be treated with decency should have been the ones who defined this state. The stout hearted, industrious people should be the ones who define who we are...not some silly, market driven logo.
GM will survive.
Michigan will survive.
The "rust belt" will survive.
We will survive.
We have a long road ahead of us. Even as the rest of the nation emerges from this economic crisis, Michigan and other Great Lakes States will still be reeling and hurting from the blows of the past decade. All I ask is for people around America to keep the pressure on for social programs that ease the burden of those impacted by a "free market": Health care, extended unemployment benefits, a livable national minimum wage.
Are our representatives doing the right thing letting this company go into bankruptcy? Letting tens of thousands of jobs in related businesses and dealerships evaporate?
Part of me is angry. Part of me is accepting. Part of me hopes it's for the best.
This is it. It's not all bad. It's not all good. And it's going to hurt a lot. At least in the short term.