Our friend Roger Simmermaker, author of the book, How Americans Can Buy American was on the Fox Business Network (FBN) recently discussing the un-equal treatment of the insurance conglomerate AIG and the U.S. Auto industry with regards to the federal bailout efforts.
Roger, who writes "Buy American Mention of the Week" articles for WorldNetDaily.com and his website HowToBuyAmerican.com, is a member of the Machinists Union and National Writers Union, and no stranger to TV news.
Roger does a great job pointing out some of the decades-old underlying problems that U.S. manufacturers have to face...and the staggering toll that the loss of U.S. manufacturing capability would mean to this country.
Here's a transcript of his interview with David Asman and Liz Clayman on FBN's "Bulls & Bears" segment, aired March 18, 2009.
Note: Any errors in the transcript are mine (Brian Fallon).
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David Asman: What with all the talk of AIG and it's bonus contract obligation, we can look at the auto makers example, who were pressured to renegotiate union contracts in order to survive.
Liz Clayman: So I'm sorry, but why couldn't AIG executives do the same? Re-negotiate their bogus contracts before they paid out these large sums? Let's bring in Roger Simmermaker, author of How Americans Can Buy American. Roger, from the start, we have seen the US auto worker eviscerated for making seventy grand - if that's what it even is - and here these guys are getting millions in bonus payments and everybody's taking it to Congress, but how is it that they were able to force auto workers and frankly white collar workers in the auto industry to take all kinds of changes in their worker contracts, yet this involves so much push-back?
Roger Simmermaker: Well this is indicative of the treatment that we, uh, the way that we treat the U.S. auto makers compared to somebody like AIG, and it's the same kind of unequal treatment the US auto makers get with the foreign automakers. I mean, we allow South Korea and Japan to import unlimited cars into the US; we're locked out of their market. GM and Ford routinely have to pay billions of dollars in health care for their workers and retirees, whereas the Japanese [government] pick that up for their auto makers, so it's unequal treatment, and this is just another example where we rake the US auto makers over the coals for every penny we propose to give to them, but we treat AIG - as everybody has seen - quite differently.
David Asman: Why? Why do you think that is?
Roger Simmermaker: I don't know why it is. It seems like we have this disdain for manufacturing in this country, and if it's...if there's any term that the American public has become very familiar with lately, it's the Ripple Effect...
David Asman: But Roger, let me just... let me just press you on that for a second. Roger, do you think that there might be...I mean, we know that, uh, you know, Wall Street was well represented in the last treasury, it's well represented in this treasury. Do you think there's some kind of conspiracy among bankers here to...to help out each other and...and ignore the car companies?
Roger Simmermaker: I don't know if it's a conspiracy, but I...I just think we've turned to a more service oriented economy. We've turn our backs on manufacturing, and the fact is for every manufacturing job we have, it supports four other jobs. In the service industry you only have a ripple effect between one and two jobs. You know, we have to have a US auto industry in this...in this country. We have to have an American company in every category of industry in the United States. If GM, Ford and Chrysler fail, we don't have an auto industry anymore. But if AIG fails, we will still have a US based insurance industry...
Liz Clayman: You're right!
Roger Simmermaker: ...because there are a lot of other insurance companies out there."
Liz Clayman: You're right! I'm just wondering, you know, we keep hearing, Roger, we keep hearing, "Oh, unskilled auto workers." You know, last I checked, they actually can make hybrid complicated engines that are worth something, versus these credit default swaps. How much anger is out there, on behalf of the auto workers right now, that they're looking at this?
Roger Simmermaker: Well, I'm sure there's a lot of anger, because there's a lot of instability about their jobs. They don't know what's gonna happen. There...they've seen their reduced, uh, seen their pay cut. I mean, Sully, the pilot who landed his airplane on the Hudson, you know, he said, 'Look, my pay has been cut 40% my pension's been eliminated,' and we look at pensions for stability, but yet we're willing to cut them and throw them into an unstable stock market...
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