GM LAYOFF HYSTERIA IS MISPLACED

The MSM is getting a little hysterical about the recently annouced layoffs by GM - layoffs which were in fact an increase of only 5000 from its months old announcement of a 25,000 person layoff over 3 years. Typically hysterical is this LATIMES - Op-Ed:

THE AMERICAN auto industry is dead. With General Motors announcing, days before Thanksgiving, 30,000 more layoffs and nine plant closings, the Rust Belt just got the final strike of the sledgehammer. When GM finally goes down for good, all the rusted remains of that region will crumble.

HIS SOLUTION: socialism :

First, we must implement a system that guarantees universal healthcare. ... Second, we must provide concrete steps for workers seeking to retrain and acquire new job skills. ... Finally, we must reinvest in the infrastructure of crumbling cities and towns.

WHY DO LEFTIES TO PERSIST IN ADVOCATING POLICIES WHICH HAVE FAILED MISERABLY IN THE LAST CENTURY. Yup: Socialism is so last century! What the marketplace needs is a little unfettered "creative-destruction."

BESIDES, THE PREMISE OF THE HYTERIA IS NOT TRUE: Despite all the layoffs by the BIG THREE since 1980, there are actually MORE blue-collar workers employed by the automobile industry now then in 1980 - they just don't all work for The Big Three (or in Detroit); 25% of the labor force in the industry - 300,000 people all over the USA (not just in Detroit) - work for foreign companies. The industry is HARDLY dead. And that's why we should not over-react and fetter the industry (or the economy) with reg's just because one company - albeit the largest (RIGHT NOW) - is having problems due to its management.