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[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
Biden spent 12 minutes on the UAW picket line. “You guys, the UAW, you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before,” he told the striking automotive workers.
“Wall Street didn’t build the country. The middle class built the country.”
And then he flew off to San Francisco for a fundraiser at Atherton, California, the most expensive area in the Bay Area, for a fundraiser at the $33 million home of Mark Heising: a Democrat megadonor who is also the Chair of the Environmental Defense Fund. Heising’s Medley Partners manages funds for his father-in-law and Renaissance Technologies founder Jim Simmons who has been described as “the greatest modern day moneymaker on Wall Street.”. So much for the pretense of choosing the “middle class” over Wall Street.
Biden may spend 12 minutes and speak for 87 seconds at the UAW picket line, but he spent hours raising money in the Bay Area which is the force destroying the automobile industry. In Michigan, Biden pays tribute to the middle class, but elsewhere, he bows to Wall Street.
The UAW didn’t save the American automobile industry in 2008, it helped nationalize it. And the Obama and Biden administrations used that leverage over the automobile industry to promote the Silicon Valley and environmentalist agenda of eliminating cars and replacing them with EVs.
Electric vehicles mark the death knell of the middle class. For Wall Street, EV companies like Tesla, funded by government fines on ordinary car manufacturers and buyers, offer the promise of getting in on the ground floor of a booming stock. Tesla has been followed by a series of other tech EV firms like Rivian (heavily backed by George Soros) that are not financially viable. Rivian, at one point, was spending $220,000 to make cars that it sold for $81,000.
But environmentalists are in love with EVs because they will end mass ownership of automobiles. The Biden administration, following the lead of Democrat states, is moving to end most sales of real cars by the 2030s. By 2032, 67% of cars are meant to be electric. And since 53% of Americans can’t afford EVs, that means most of the country won’t be able to own cars.
That’s bad news for automobile owners, it’s also bad news for automobile workers.
The UAW strike is a direct response to the growing investments by Ford and GM in EVs. These investments are deeply misguided and a complete disaster for shareholders. Ford loses an estimated $32,000 on every EV it sells and lost $3 billion in total on EVs in 2023. But don’t get the idea that Ford is selling many EVs. It only sold 61,575 EVs in 2022 and yet its projections say that it will sell 2 million in 2025. This is implausible without a government car ban.
But if Ford were to sell 2 million EVs, who’s going to cover the $64 billion in losses?
At the heart of Ford’s strategy are the ‘joint venture’ battery plans that are also the cause of the EV strike. These include a joint venture with SK Innovation, a massive South Korean company, and China’s CATL. While Biden promised that his disastrous ‘Inflation Increase Act’ would lead to the manufacturing of EV batteries in the United States, it has actually led to American automakers cashing in on subsidies through joint ventures with foreign companies. What domestic manufacturing means is American taxpayers subsidizing Ford’s $3.5 billion plant using China’s CATL battery technology. It also means the end of American cars.
The UAW is going on strike to demand that the workers assembling foreign tech in the foreign ‘joint venture’ plants should be unionized. Its demands include a four day work week. All the theatrics won’t change the fact that a full EV transition will eliminate many UAW jobs.
The American automobile industry will become even more of a government subsidized scam where a dwindling number of union workers install foreign tech in cars Americans can’t afford.
The industry is being squeezed on one side by the Biden administration to convert to EVs and squeezed on the other side by the UAW to maintain a pre-EV workforce. The only outcome will be more local, state and federal subsidies (the joint venture battery plants are already backed by billions in subsidies at every level) and the complete collapse of the American car industry.
The Biden administration wants Ford and GM to make EVs that Americans don’t want and can’t afford. The UAW wants a four hour work week that car manufacturers can’t afford. With lots of costs and no viable business model in sight, the subsidies will run out and the crash will come.
The quasi-nationalization of the automobile industry made it over on the model of subsidized British car companies that were unable to pursue their own business models, but had to shift with erratic government policies until they were hollowed out by American car companies. Now it’s the turn of government subsidized American car companies trying to meet the insane demands of Democrat administrations to be hollowed out by Chinese and Korean companies.
Ford and GM don’t exist to offer value to their shareholders, but to promote the political agendas of the Biden administration which simultaneously orders the automakers to meet the green mandates of San Fran tech elite class and the four day work week demands of the UAW.
The automakers couldn’t even do one of these things, they certainly can’t do both.
The entire purpose of the EV transition is for automakers to sell fewer cars for more money, but Ford and GM can’t be Tesla. (Since Tesla is funded by carbon credit fines leveled on traditional car companies, it’s not clear that any other company can be Tesla, or that there should even be a Tesla.) Selling fewer cars means that there will be fewer automobile manufacturing jobs. And if the goal is to sell fewer cars for more money, who needs GM and Ford, when Tesla exists?
China’s lock on rare earths and cheaper manufacturing means that whatever passes for an affordable EV will come out of the People’s Republic of China. That is the point of Ford’s joint venture $3.5 billion China plant. American automakers and auto workers are reduced to fighting over how much of a piece of the action they’ll take from the Chinese crap they foist on us.
The right hedge funds will make a good deal of money from the EV transition even as Americans are left with little choice except to take out a second mortgage to buy an EV or to try to keep their old car going. Democrats like Biden will pay tribute to the middle class on their occasional visits to declining auto plants before they cash their checks from San Francisco.
America’s automobile industry, once the envy of the world, will be little more than rusting factories and brands used by Chinese companies with no connection to Detroit.
It does not have to be this way.
The only way to save American car owners, workers and manufacturers is to stop EV mandates. People who want EVs should be able to buy them, but without the carbon credit fines imposed on car owners and makers, and without the bans on the sale of real cars. And automakers should not be forced to sell out their shareholders and customers to push EVs.
The UAW is selling its members the lie that they can have a four day work week and an EV transition. The only thing an EV transition means is the death of the American autoworker.
Autoworkers should not expect to have jobs when American can no longer buy cars.
Biden spent 87 seconds talking to UAW members and then hours pandering to the tech industry elites who are killing their jobs. The UAW shouldn’t be going on strike against Ford or GM, it should be going on strike against their car-killing bosses in the Biden administration.
Nationalised industries, trade unions on strike, export jobs to China, workers vs bosses, inflation, energy crisis, and government debt.
It’s like going back to the 70’s
Sadly I listened to a podcast from a business financial consultant who was asking about the latest uk government decision to delay the net zero target by a few years.
Their response included this statement:
“How is the government expecting car manufacturers to sell electric cars if the public ARE NOT FORCED to buy them?”
This was a BUSINESS advisory podcast, their main focus was the uncertainty about taxpayer subsidies for eco friendly vehicles.
“eliminating cars and replacing them with EVs”
This remains hilarious.
See that? It looks like a car. It drives like a car. It does everything a car does. But, hey, it’s not a car. Why not? Because I, Daniel Greenfield, don’t like it. I prefer devices that spew polluting contaminants into the atmosphere. That’s just how I roll.
Let me know, when it is time for new batteries, how that works out for you.
These lithium battery factories and the CCP want to collect private data on everyone who buys a battery too.
I know it’s an unintentional typo, but it is a 4 day, not 4 hour work week.
Its a 4 hour work week for government officials though.
Thank you for catching that.
you say four HOUR work week twice.
Well said Daniel. People don’t want electric cars, and they need jobs in the US which are going overseas. Looks like the auto industry is going to be destroyed too because of mental failure to discern.
If EVs were being demanded by consumers they wouldn’t need government to clear the field of their ICE competitors or massive subsidies. They may be suitable for some purposes (e.g., commuting) but battery and charging technology simply do not currently make them a good choice (or affordable) for others. You can lead a population to electric cars but trying to force people to buy them is a fool’s errand. But, then again, we are being led by fools.
Exactly. A product people want doesn’t need this many subsidies, fines and mandates.
When UAW members vote overwhelmingly in favor Bidenomics–and then go on strike against it–their credibility is zero.
I suspect a lot of them voted for Trump
The UAW, like every union, wants to control the companies, not just work for them. Their mantra, for as long as I can remember has been; ‘the man is F-ing us, we deserve more’. IMO they are responsible for almost every setback the industry has suffered including the “invasion” of foreign vehicles starting back in the 60’s and 70’s. Now they are asking for a 40% pay increase and a 20% cut in the work week from an industry in its death throes. Brilliant! One might say they see the writing on the wall and are trying to get all they can before the lights go out but I doubt that. If they had an iota of foresight they’d throw their lot in with conservatives and work to overthrow and/or dismantle the climate hoax and the EV mandates that sprung from it. Until then they are just committing suicide.
END the EV Tax Credit! Why should WE – who can’t afford a new car – subsidize an ev purchase? If they are so GREAT then let them compete on “EQUITY” (the DEMOcrat’s FAVORITE word these days)!!
Not to mention the carbon fines on carmakers that subsidize Tesla
I would say it is scientists and engineers who are largely the ones who built civilization. I keep thinking of Italian architects during the Renaissance who were able to figure out how to build stuff noone else had been able to build before.
So…um what does the union demand ? A 40% pay raise and a 4 day work week. In one word : Absurd. Right now the auto CEOs are planning to replace everyone with robots and who could blame them. The union people will be out of a job. Fools.
Yes even Tesla would not be a profitable company if not for the government invented carbon credit. Read their SEC filings. The whole EV industry is a top down communist oriented government creation whose intent is to imprison us by making transportation unaffordable.
Government energy markets are always giant scams and anything involving green energy is always the worst.
Tesla’s real business model is carbon credits which really means monetizing fines on non EV customers and manufacturers.
The UAW depends on Republican voters to purchase their cars. White Democrats, for the most part, wouldn’t be caught dead driving a big 3 auto made by a lot of black people. Look ups the article “Political leanings of US car owners”. UAW workers are pricing their ICE cars out of the market unless tariffs or subsidies are established to protect their jobs. There are many fewer parts in EVs requiring many fewer workers.
The auto makers and the UAW need to dust off the history books and study the reasons for Henry Ford’s success.
His introduction of the Assembly Line, of course, in which a man would specialize in producing and installing a single part, instead of building the entire Model T from start to finish. But everybody(?) already remembers that.
More important in Ford’s brilliant business model was (according to a documentary I saw years ago) to offer his employees generous wages–far above what comparable jobs normally paid at the time–AND, MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL–selling his Model Ts for just (if I’m not mistaken) $400–much more in the early ’20s than it is now, of course–so that his own blue-collar employees could afford to buy one for themselves….and still making a good net profit for the company.
Of course, Ford didn’t have the bootheel of the Biden Crime Syndicate and the “Green” Marxists on his neck in those days, either.
Capitalism at its best, and allowing the market to balance supply and demand…never fails.
Time to tell Biden and his Secretary of Transporation to Get a Life then hide for the rest of your lives
As I read I was looking for something to add in the comments section but you were quite thorough. Yes, the EV mandates are costing Detroit big time. Yes, pushing EV is a push for mass transit. There’s no plans for a massive increase of power generation nor transmission. Here in NYS the gov tried to push massive housing construction near commuter rail stations, not new power plants. It’s everything you said & worse.
Indeed. It’s about depriving much of the population of mobility to lower their carbon footprint.
The screen grab of Cleavon Little taking himself hostage from Blazing Saddles would work with this article, lol. The UAW are megafools the way even biden could make fools of them so blatantly. They don’t even realize they’re being insulted. Suc-kers!
After watching them go 10 or 15 on 1 against some guy driving by their picket, I hope they get what they deserve, unemployment, without their Cadillac insurance, vacations, retirement, and their discounted vehicles. They can stand in the line with the teamsters from Yellow Freight Most of them are overpaid unskilled labor, and are going to miss their old jobs. Maybe the feds with borrow a couple trillion to prop the big three up for an extra 5 or 10 years, but without a radical course change, there’s only one place this trajectory ends.
Well said. The UAW thinks they have a champion in FJB. They couldn’t be more wrong and it appears they’re going to find out the hard way. When, and if, the EV mandates kick in the influx of foreign built vehicles will end Detroit and the UAW.
Um. What makes you think that destroying American industry, and the Middle Class, is NOT on the Progressive (Socialist nee Communist) agenda? Government dependency is in the sequence. The Pharoh/Josef algorithm for consolidating money and power into the elite. Sounds rediculous, but it works.
EV’s require batteries made from rare-earth minerals. Consider the massive environmental damage caused by rare earth open mining techniques, along with the 3rd world child labor employed, then ask yourself where is the moral high ground in the EV debate? Consider also the expense of having to replace them every few years, then ask yourself if maybe the UAW may hold the moral high ground afterall.
They could unionize the 14 year old boys crawling down rat holes to mine the minerals. (sarc)
I have a son-in-law on strike at the Toledo Jeep plant. The media is pretending that the workers hate Trump. The truth is the UAW leadership hates Trump, but most of the people doing the actual work support him
Thanks Chief!!!
The UAW workers pay union dues which are then used to support Marxist candidates who don’t care about “Make America Great Again”. Open borders means lots of unskilled labor waiting to take their jobs for less money and benefits.
Many. don’t want to give their dues to the UAW and the left either.
Shawn Fain, their president, is selling out auto workers, they just can’t feel it yet. Their demands are pie-in-the-sky distractions from the fact they are being flushed down the toilet, Fain is sinfully anachronistic, sucking up to President Joe Job Death and dissing Trump the Fat Cat, their only hope.
all manufacturing will eventually end up in china . feckless joe cares for no one bar himself and how he can milk the system . the strikers will eventually be redundant just like when vw s were moved to mexico . history will repeat itself due mainly to the fact that blue-collar workers haven’t been taught anything in school especially history . none of them would have picked up a book by v d hanson or thomas sowell ever in their struggling lives . america is being gutted and the democrats with the help of most of the republicans and their elite friends will be immune from the fallout . the elites are immune to the failed policies they support as are silicon valley , tech giants , bureaucrats and all the corporations . the fact that both sides are leaving the border open for all and sundry , [ and that none of them are vaccinated ] but americans have to be tells you a lot .
Hmmm, it appears the level of intelligence required to choose the union leadership mirrors the intelligence used by the voting public to pick our representatives. Such a sad commentary on the state of our nation.
Take heart!
AI’s pseudo thought can never compete with or duplicate the clarity and morality of Mr. Greenfield’s articles; because there is data processing, and then, there is real human brain data processing – with flair, care and moral purpose.
The best I can do to understand how an automobile works is to compare it to a human being: the engine is the brain and the chassis and wheels are the body.
To replace the internal combustion engine brain, the “ICE”, with the traction battery brain, is a brain transplant.
Notice the word “ICE”?
Sound familiar?
My personal internal data processing mechanism connects the ICE auto worker to the ICE (immigration and customs enforcement) agent.
What is the connection?
The government is waging an economic war against its own UAW citizens and a social war against the forces that protect its own citizens.
The government wants to make both worker and agent obsolete.
Gee, Nothing like overloading the electric grids and leaving people stranded without a vehicle. If you think California had rolling blackouts a few years ago, wait until the planet does away with fossel fuels and relies on Windmills, and Solar which are not enough to sustain the usage on this planet. Going green is the new religion.