Save the Jeep; Save the Nation

In 1941, car manufacturer Willys-Overland demonstrated the strength and sturdiness of its new Army scout vehicle -- the Jeep -- to Congress by driving it up the U.S. Capitol steps.

Invented and manufactured in the USA, the Jeep would become an icon of American ingenuity, durability and mechanical ability. Soldiers loved the lithe little vehicle for its uncanny capacity to go anywhere. New York's Museum of Modern Art would exhibit it in 2002 and describe it as a masterpiece of functional design. Now it's 68 and constructed by United Auto Workers for Chrysler in Toledo, Ohio.

Disregarding Jeep's help in securing this country against fascists, conservatives like former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are calling for its execution. Romney and his conservative compatriots want Congress to deny Chrysler, GM and Ford federal loans so that the Big Three go bankrupt. Using false wage information, these conservatives have persuaded the public that auto workers are overpaid. That has resulted in polls showing 61 percent of Americans oppose aid to the Big Three. And now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reed is saying he fears he can't muster the votes necessary for a loan.

Congress cannot let the Jeep die in bankruptcy. Congress must not fail the U.S. auto industry. Doing so would be abandoning the core of the American economy - manufacturing. America is not built on Wall Street's credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations. Its wealth and culture are built on and built by middle class workers who construct actual products like steel beams, tires and Jeeps, who operate and repair machines that pull oil and coal out of the ground, who log trees and man the mills that convert them into paper.

Just after the end of World War II, when the Jeep first became a civilian vehicle, 35 percent of workers belonged to labor unions. That's significant because union members earn 30 percent higher wages than non-union workers and are 59 percent more likely to have health insurance. Those better wages and benefits helped create the great middle class in America. Workers earned enough money to buy refrigerators and homes and cars and, later, college educations for their children. The money they earned and spent churned through the economy and kept it humming.

But over the next half century, union membership declined. So it is only about 12 percent now. Business and industry groups intent on the extinction of unions can claim credit for a good part of that. These are the same organizations that are today misleading the public about auto worker wages, claiming they make $70 an hour when it's really $28. They're the same ones advocating auto company bankruptcy because it would allow the Big Three to renege on their contractual promises to workers and to retirees. They criticize auto workers for making a decent living, $28 an hour plus health benefits and a pension. And they denigrate the companies for being decent corporate citizens and fulfilling their health care and pension promises to retirees.

Over the past half century, multinational corporations have shipped a significant number of those good-paying union jobs overseas. With the help of wrong-headed federal policy that encouraged it, the U.S. lost an average of 12,000 manufacturing jobs per month since 1980. Since May this year, the average has been nearly 60,000. Multinational corporations sought cheap labor and lax environmental regulations in places like China and Indonesia, in what has become an international wage race to the bottom. Americans supposedly benefit from the import of cheap goods. But unemployed workers can't afford to buy them.

Along with the decline in jobs and union membership came a reduction in the rate of personal savings and an increase in household debt. The financial situation of the typical American family became increasingly precarious even as, over the past 25 years, the very richest one tenth of one percent accrued more and more wealth. These were the kind of guys involved in short-selling - a practice through which a person owns nothing but makes money by betting that a stock will lose value - and by selling sub-prime mortgage-backed securities. These were the kind of know-it-all Wall Street risk takers who gave themselves $30 billion in bonuses last Christmas.

You know what happened next. Three months after those bonuses the initial investment bank fell. Bear Stearns got the first big federal bailout in March. Then other financial institutions and a gigantic insurance company involved in the subprime speculation toppled: AIG, Washington Mutual, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers. Congress quickly offered up $700 billion to save financial institutions, and giant Citigroup took $25 billion of that in October and another $20 billion in November trying to stave off bankruptcy.

Congress used taxpayer dollars -- working people's money -- to save those year-end-bonus awardees on Wall Street. Then it stiffed the working stiff. So far, there's been talk, but no actual help for millions facing foreclosure. And while unemployment is rising, Congress is dithering over the Big Three's request for a loan that could save millions of auto worker and support industry jobs.

Unemployment increased to 6.7 percent in November, after 533,000 people got thrown out of work in just those 30 days. Over the past 12 months, 2.7 million people lost their jobs. And finally, what every one of them already knew was officially declared earlier this week - the country has been in a recession for a year.

This nation clearly can't survive on what is produced by Wall Street - reckless speculation. That took America down.

This country should not be spending all of its financial resources salvaging those who destroyed the economy. America needs to invest in what works - its people. Congress must provide mortgage relief. But, most urgently, it's crucial that we re-invigorate our manufacturing base. America must be able to actually produce products. Swapping paper is not enough to sustain a strong and stable middle class that will save money and buy cars and homes.

The Jeep helped us win World War II. What has Wall Street actually done for you? Saving the Jeep -- and Chrysler, GM and Ford - would be a symbol that America understands manufacturing is key to a strong economy and financially brawny workers.

Jeep owners should let Congress know they're prepared to drive up the Capitol steps to support loans for the Big Three and investment in American manufacturing.

Should the Government Bail Out the Big Three U.S. Automakers? HuffPost Bloggers Weigh In

Comments

[Emlyn]

Why the jeep? I can remember the Edsel and the Stubaker and the Rambler. They are all gone.

[Chris Weigant - Huffpost Blogger]

You choose an interesting example. The Jeep's manufacture was taken over in the late 60s or early 70s by American Motor Corporation. AMC built Jeep into a consumer brand and arguably was on the forefront of the whole SUV craze. But unfortunately for them, they didn't survive. There used to be a "Big 4" in Detroit, but AMC was allowed to go under and be absorbed by Chrysler. Also, since you brought up Romney, you might have mentioned his dad, George, who chaired AMC for a while before he became governor of Michigan, and then ran for President on the Republican ticket (as an anti-Vietnam-war Republican, no less).

I don't dispute your main argument, I'm just saying that talking about the Jeep's history in relation to car companies going under -- and not mentioning AMC -- seems rather a large omission.

-CW

[Repub4Obama]

This would be much easier if the "Jeep" didn't suck so much. Most cars build by the big 3 really suck. I would much rather drive a Toyota, Honda, BMW, or Nissan. The bulwark of the big 3 was the truck market, and now Japan has schooled them on how it should be done: the Nissan Titan and the Toyota Tundra are far superior, and have actual innovations in each new model, unlike the geriatric F150, which is the same boring vehicle that it has been for 20 years that starts creaking like grandma's knees in about 3 months.

I'll take my Titan, thank you, if only for its spot- and line-welded seams so it doesn't creak after 4 years.

Make a good car or fade away like AMC, Nash, Eagle, etc., etc., etc.

[stack]

Really? American cars suck? Where have you been?

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Ford vehicles have been rated some of the safest around. In the IIHS's "Top Safety Picks" and for 2009, the domestic automaker has the most winning models -- 16. Honda was ranked second with 13 and General Motors and Toyota tied for third with 8 each.

Ford has also won praise from Consumer Reports, which states that the quality of Ford cars were even with that of Toyota and Honda.

[muffler]

Does anyone remember the Tucker and how GM, Ford and Chrysler beat it to the dust pan of history. Well these three have been choking innovation for 50 years and they have the nerve to wonder how they are going bankrupt! Capitalism works if well regulated and not controlled.

This works BOTH ways. You need rules and penalties to keep greed in check, but the corporations and government have strangled innovation to keep the status quo. The have used copy write and patent extensions which aid the industry leaders by protecting them from having to find new ideas. This has stalled and crippled our ability to innovate.

Examples: RIAA, GM, Ford, Chrysler, US Steel, etc.

[sposton]

I don't care about Jeep but I do care about manufacturing jobs. One of he major reasons for the current financial meltdown were the structural trade imbalances. As a country we have been paying for foreign made products by printing money and by foreigners recycling their dollars in the US. The reserve currency status of the our dollar allowed this reckless behavior but this era is coming to an end. That means that as a nation we will need to produce more of what we consume. This would be exactly the wrong time to get rid of a major manufacturing capacity within the US.

The time is coming when the majority of Americans will finally understand that the process of deindustrialization of America (undertaken by American business, supported by our government and driven by a profit motive) was one of the greatest blunders any country has ever committed.

[CaveatMagnusFrater]

We are riding our Grandfather's coattails. Unions didn't show up one day and create a middle-class. Brave workers stood thier ground in unity against the mercerary thugs employed by corporations and private business to beat them into submission. Many died before collectiove bargaining made its way into law. Today, workers fail to stand up for themselves and they accept corporate domination.

[sposton]

You are correct. Too many Americans are completely ignorant of their history because they don't want you to learn this in your history books. Fortunately there is a good book that more Americans ought to read - Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".

[ErnestineBass]

Hear! Hear!

Zinn's book should be required reading in every high school history class in America.

[DumbDad]

So there was no way to reconcile these two ideals:
1) a decent, family-supporting wage and benefits for competent, skilled labor in manufacturing and
2) a decent, peace-promoting openness to the manufacturing capabilities of struggling workers in developing post-colonial nations of the third world

Is anybody on the planet paying workers a decent wage like our auto guys were getting in the l970's, and what are they making that we couldn't have produced?

[stack]

The two can be reconciled. But it is essential that multinational corporations operating in foreign countries be forced to respect at least the minumum wage laws of those nations and to comply with minimum environmental laws. Otherwise workers are abused in all nations and the environment is degraded everywhere in the name of profit for a few at the top.

[arvay]

Whatever the Jeep's historical role, the current Jeep is a gas-guzzler whose only advantage is that it's not a Hummer. It's not the small, easily overturned military vehicle of the 1940s.

We've seen some really absurd notions put forth by business "leaders," but the notion that we should save the Jeep because it fought fascism takes the cake. The atom bomb was also useful in ending fascism, does that mean we should continue building nukes?

This isn't an economic argument, it's nostagia we can ill-afford.

Detroit needs to start making fuel-efficient vehicles that can beat the competition: that's the real road to full employment. And a government-directed restructuring that, for one thing, mandates a voting "labor" seat on each company's board, German-style. I 'm sure we can also recruit better executive leadership for these vital companies, infamous for their bureaucratic, top-heavy, blinders-on leadership.

But we don't need the Jeep, or the Hummer or the monster SUVs.

[BuckeyeGal]

Use the googles, "NHTSA and automobile aggressivity."
People were buying these vehicles because they were safer in a collision with compact and subcompact cars.

[sailortitan]

Back in the proverbial "good old days," jeeps were a small call (read: a wrangler). It's true that their gas mileage was pretty bad, but I bet they could get to the point where they would be competitive with small fuel-efficient cars, since they don't weigh very much. (their shape will always work against them, alas; but then, Scion xBs get pretty good mileage and are also boxy. Of course, it's always possible they could be built to be more aerodynamic and just add a greater ground-clearance--they would look funny, but I bet the gas mileage would be better.)

I think if we get away from the idea that SUV = SAV (that is, Suburban Attack Vehicle) we could actually have the kind of car that SUVs were meant to be all along; something for people that enjoy the outdoors, not who spit on it. There is a place for a small, efficient, SUV--like there's always been in America. Unfortunately, that vehicle does not exist any more. Instead, we have huge, ridiculous SUVs like hummers, Escalades and Expeditions, most of which have inferior ground clearance to a wrangler!

My mum's old Cherokee gets 20-30 MPG. That's not super-great, but it approaches and matches many sedans. I'm sure we could boost that number with some R&D. Unfortunately, that R&D went to the next huge-ass SUV (with crappy ground clearance...) instead.

[jerrypenguin]

"......In 1941, car manufacturer Willys-Overl.......... Now it's 58 and constructed by ......"

It's my understanding that 1941 plus 58 equals 1999. This is not a matter of debate. Many people simply don't comprehend dull mathematics, charts, and graphs. If there is a lack of understanding of compounding, exponentiation, and the logarithmic function; How, will anyone comprehend the "financial crisis," resource depletion, global warming, trillion dollar bailout, executive compensation, wealth transfer, etc.?

[stack]

The Jeep was tested in 1941 but created in 1940.

[feo]

The article clearly says 68. Reread it and you'll see.

[customgreen]

I agree completely, and also think that the big three are working hard to change their lineups. All this talk about decades of bad management are stupid. The recent past has brought us SUV's, which were a want by the American consumer. No one forced them down anyones throats. If it wasn't a good seller it would have died quickly. So who is to blame? The auto industry that put thme out there in the first place, or the consumer who bought them like ice on a hot day? I have heard Senators and congressmen say that Detroit has turned out junk that was out of the mainstream for the past 30 years. Hmmmm, seems to me that one of the top 3 most important vehicles of all time was invented in the past 30 years. The mini van! Can anyone imagine the past 30 years (1984) without the mini van? Next to the Model T and the station wagon the mini van has done more to transform the family transportation in a positive way. Detroit (Chrysler) came up with that not Toyota, not Honda, not Nissan.

[Repub4Obama]

Minivans were invented by the big three. Whoopee. And then they stopped making them. But Japan still makes them. The big three are like the Panda, which can't be bothered to have sex in order to save it's own species. And even when it does hit a ball out of the park, the management get confused right around 2nd base and sit down for a decade, telling everybody how great it was when they hit that ball (even though they never brought the run in).

You point just compounds the force of my argument: EVEN WHEN the big three have a good idea (the minivan), they stop innovating, sit around like bored sheep, and let someone else take over the idea (Japan). The management needs to go, or be slaughtered.

I'd rather fire everybody above vice-president, and hire the graduating class of Harvard Biz and MIT instead. It would probably save money...

[R2D2-51]

NAILED IT!!
I have been making similar remarks on many other blogs about what caused this financial meltdown to begin with.

Its quite simple. As my Father an aerospace executive during the 50"s and 60's told me that the middle class worker who is the backbone of our nations economy will experience a major decline in their standard of living over times as a result of stagnant COLAS chasing inflationary dollars against cheap foreign labor in third world countries.

This would eventually result in less disposable income where household credit will get maxed out. their purchasing power will shrink and thus something eventually does not get paid, like mortgages.
You can barely qualify to buy a house on $28 dollars an hour.

if you can't see the forest through the trees, then wake up and smell the coffee. This is just the beginning, and you can thank American corporate greed to satisfy shareholders which can buy political capital n the name of NAFTA & GATT as this evil house of Capitalist greed will finally crash and burn as it reaps what it sows.

[BuckeyeGal]

Your father is a very smart man, and I mean that in all sincerity.
Care to share any of his other pearls of wisdom with us?

[KillTheMessenger]

Please remind us which vehicle that is currently sold under the name "Jeep" gets 48mpg under real world conditions?

I am planning to go out tomorrow and buy one, with cash.

OK, I am just messing with you. In reality the little vehicle that could has morphed into one of the monsters that are responsible for Americans spending $500 billion this year on oil imports. And some of the more confused people even say that oil dependence drove us into the war in Iraq. And while I do not subscribe to that fancy, there is something of a truth to it... military vehicles that get to your mind lose their tactical value and become strategic liabilities... some people might just think that winning wars is just a matter of having the right equipment. And by "some" I mean on the order of 300 million.

[TokyoStormWarning]

Thank you for clearly and succinctly pointing out the importance to the economy of a strong manufacturing base and an affluent middle class. I've lived in Japan for the last 20 years and recently, when I come home for a visit, everyhting looks kind of tattered and worn in comparison to Tokyo; like a down on his luck businessman who wears a brave smile and the one nice suit he has left, even as it gets more threadbare each day.
Americans need to wake up and realize that the center of both economic and political power is shifting to the Far East. I hope it's not too late for America to save itself from becoming a second-rate power, like the U.K. did after World War II.

[HakimKutta]

Let them go the way of all poor quality. From the rice cooker to Toyota the Japanese are way ahead of the white eyed devil barbarians. We get what we deserve, aheeee! like the one eyed bastard son of a motherless baboon called Bush, we will survive him and the auto worker will survive like the typewriter workers and the Pony Express. Detroit lives in fantasy land, let the bubble burst!

[Plank]

Today is the sad anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor. People need to remember who built equipment during the world wars?

[R2D2-51]

I do, and there was not one documentary on that fact except the Military Channel.

My Father was a Navy carrier pilot in the Pacific then an aerospace exec with Douglas A/C in Long Beach, CA-F4 Phantoms.

It was that primarily middle-class working stiff who built from Depression#1 the worlds strongest economy and allowed for the greatest opportunities, that in the end would be inherited by greedy, evil men who have destroyed it.

History is replete with empires that crash and burn and we are one in a long line of them, all of which occur for essentially identical reasons since human nature does not change, only the names of the people, since we appear to operate on two simple tracts of fear and greed, and a shortage of humanity, since we still continue to keep killing each other off in large numbers.

To tell you the truth if you look at what our human species has to say for itself for the last 4,000 to 25,000 years depending on whose anthropology you subscribe to we have long since forfeited our right to exists on this planet since we do a better job than anyone in destroying not only all other life for our own self-interest, but the biosphere properties that sustain it as well.