Honk If You Are Stupid

Scenario: It is 1980, the car industry in America has almost collapsed, you are a high-school drop-out, you live in Detroit, your car-manufacturing employer is trying to strip you of all job benefits, you are facing plant closures every year, more foreign cars are hitting the market each day, your company is plagued by quality issues, your company is surviving on various forms of federal subsidies, your pension plan is continually being pared back, and you are holding your 6 month old child in your hands. What career advice do you give him or her?

The answer: Stay in Detroit and work for a car manufacturer.

Now that is real intelligent.

"Nev'r even seen it comin'," said Ruth Kolwowski a 45 year veteran of GM. "If you told me 20 years back I'd be here talkin' to yous 'bout GM closin', I wudda said you were plain ol' crazy." And why wouldn't she? After, all GM, like all the major US car companies are American establishments, and even greater legacies. However, deep down, past all of the empty plants that litter Detroit's suburbs, beyond the lines of picketers outside the remaining plants, Detroit's little secret is finally coming out in the open. What secret? The car companies are in trouble.

This is precisely what the American public, as well as the great and ever observant people in Detroit aren't supposed to know. Now, the government is dropping a whopper on the blue collar workers of Michigan: "No soup for you!"

"I just don't get it. They couldn't have given us a warning or something?" said one out of work mechanic. The car companies claim that they tried to signal that they were in trouble, but no one took them seriously. "I don't know how we could have been more clear. We said we didn't have any money. We said people were not buying our cars. We said we would close plants. We said that we were cutting pay and firing people across the board. What the hell do you people want?" said Chevy spokesman Keith Evans. These sentiments were echoed by others in the industry. "I thought that people would take us seriously when we told them we were literally out of money," said Rick Wagoner former CEO of GM.

Now the talk from Capitol Hill is all about retraining the workforce. The question that is lingering on the minds of millions is: Retrain them to do what? However, maybe a better question whould be: Who would want to hire them?

This is a workforce that got paid more than most Americans to do less than most Americans. In fact, at certain times these people actually got paid to do nothing. This is a workforce that worked set numbers of hours and was historically protected by one of the strongest and inflexible labor unions in the land. Just in case potential employers needed more motivation to not hire them, they speak with heavy accents, mostly lack college educations, and practically require Canadian visas to work in the US.

Sound good? That's the problem, it doesn't. Unfortunately for Detroit its citizens failed to see any one of the literally hundreds of warning signs over the past 30 years. Typically 30 years is long enough to notice that the boat is taking on water, and this ship was nothing short of the Titanic.

Not to worry! A new plan being hatched by the mayor of Detroit to save the city hinges on the US government paying each citizen an inflated salary to stay at home and guard the northern border against Al-Queda. During the winter when even Al-Queda can not cross the border without freezing to death, federal subsidies will be used to finance a chain of polka schools. Sound good? Honk if you do think so. Honk, Honk.