Big Auto (in the US, at least) is finding itself in ever more precarious positions, with regards to its employees, both past and present. I’ve heard tell that benefits such as health-care and pensions currently add about $600-700 to the price of every new GM vehicle, and with an aging baby boom population, I wouldn’t look for that number to decrease any time soon. In fact, GM might be bought out.

Talking to my brother today, I decided to read the Detroit Free Press article about General Motors’ latest woes. I particularly like the quote at the end:

“Yet we have only experienced the first waves of the approaching economic tsunami,” he added. “Today’s global phenomena such as outsourcing and off-shoring have destroyed the viability of low-skill, high-wage manufacturing jobs … as a source of prosperity and social well-being.”

‘

The miraculous thing is that “low-skill, high-wage” jobs were ever viable.

But the socialists or nationalists among us will ask that we stop buying imported vehicles, support the low-skill, high-wage jobs that millions of uneducated and/or unmotivated people have grown fat on and accustomed to. “But, don’t they deserve a decent wage?” they’ll ask. Respond: Why does the 50 year old, pot-smoker who works on the line for Chrysler deserve to earn more money than a Detroit policeman? And the answer is not: “The policeman should earn more.” Which requires increased taxes, and further exacerbates the following problem: These suggestions require that every American become further impoverished in real terms, i.e. spending power.

Here’s the kicker, and the anti-capitalists will love it: As our real spending power decreases, more and more people will come to depend on “evil capitalist corporations” like Wal*Mart.