Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Hope for the Future - 11/26/2008

When I think about Michigan’s future, I sometimes think about 1900, when baseball’s American League was being formed. Detroit wanted a team, but some of the other owners were against it.

Would never work, they said. Detroit was a small town. It lacked an insufficient economic base to support a major league team. Fortunately, this was an expansion league, and enough of the other owners were willing to take a chance on Detroit.

They had no idea that some country engineer was banging around in an old factory a couple miles from the ballpark, inventing something to vault Detroit into world-class status almost overnight.

We don’t know what’s going to happen next. We never do. Right now, the nation seems to be in near panic. The national government is throwing money at things to try and get credit moving. The soon-to-be extinct Bush Administration and the lame-duck Congress seem willing to bail out just about everybody except the auto industry, to our profound annoyance.

Things have been spiraling down. People are losing jobs and are intensely worried about their futures. And yet - we sometimes forget that we have a lot going for us.

This is an enormously beautiful state, with tourism possibilities and lakes and vistas that most of the rest of the Midwest can only envy. This year, with passage of the Great Lakes compact, we took a giant step forward to protect our water supply.

Michigan’s economy has a strong and vibrant agricultural sector. We have an excellent higher education system. This fall’s passage of expanded embryonic stem cell research promises to help keep our research universities competitive.

Ironically, even the auto industry in some ways is in far better shape than it was, at least for the long-term. The quality of the cars is vastly improved. The industry has been forced to eliminate waste and inefficiency. The United Auto Workers’ union really does recognize that we are no longer in the 1950s. They may lack visionaries like Walter Reuther. But the union does know they can no longer count on more and more for less and less. They get that Generous Motors no longer has pockets that are infinitely deep.

The heads of the Big Three got taken to the woodshed by Congress last week. When they return next week, they are bound to do a better job making their case. And my guess is that the government will agree to help them help themselves. So as we approach Thanksgiving, think of this. Maybe things look a little bleak.

But what if five years ago I had told you, “our next President will be a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama. He will show an uncanny ability to inspire the nation and fill young people with hope.”

What would have seemed more impossible - that, or Michigan making an economic comeback?

I just wish I could have seen the future and known what was coming. If so, I would have done the right thing.

Withdrawn all my money, and headed to Vegas.

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Interview: Mike Whitty - 11/26/2008

The past few weeks have been bruising for Michigan. We’ve had to worry about the survival of the auto industry. Our economy has gone from bad to worse, and talk of a recession is increasing. So, on the Eve of Thanksgiving, let’s find some reasons to be optimistic. Mike Whitty is a Professor of Management and Labor Relations at the University of Detroit Mercy. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Welfare to Work - 11/25/2008

The news that Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance fund is running a deficit could probably win an award for the least surprising development of the year. We have had the highest jobless figures in the nation for most of the last few years.

Things aren’t great, and they are getting worse. The University of Michigan’s economic forecast last week projected that our state’s jobless rate will soon hit double digits, and stay there, for a good long time. And that’s assuming there is an auto industry bailout.

And if there isn’t we could be looking at numbers I don’t even want to imagine. I do know the one person with job security in Michigan; my friend Jim, who works for the state. His job is to calculate the state unemployment figure every month.

The family joke is that when the rate hits 99.9 percent, his instructions are to turn off the light on his way out.

Well, we aren’t ever going to get that bad, but it is pretty clear that the strain on the state unemployment fund is going to worsen.

Michigan already has borrowed close to half a billion from the federal government to pay unemployment claims. True, the state is increasing the amount some employers are going to pay into the fund next year, and increasing the payments for most employers the year after that. That‘s something even the Michigan Chamber of Commerce approves.

But as things now stand, that won’t be enough.

Nor is the free market likely to create jobs for these folks anytime soon. So I have a reasonable, conservative and time-tested solution. We should put as many of them as possible to work.

We are going to be paying out billions in unemployment insurance, and perhaps other forms of welfare. So, why shouldn’t we get something out if it? We should recreate something like the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration, or the WPA.

The WPA put millions of unemployed people from all walks of life to work during the depths of the Great Depression. Critics raged at it, saying it was socialism. No doubt there were abuses.

But not only was it a lifesaver for millions, it left this country better off. Nearly every town in America has a bridge or a public building somewhere built by the WPA. One of the few decent and functional buildings in Highland Park today is the WPA post office.

Now, if anything, America needs such a program more than ever. Think of it: We have thousands of unemployed skilled workers, including laid-off engineers and construction specialists. We have roads which look like they’ve been shelled by enemy artillery.

We have bridges that are dropping pieces of concrete. Parts of Detroit’s sewer system date back almost to the Civil War. Most of our central cities have buildings that need to be demolished.

Think of how greatly we could benefit from something like a Michigan Infrastructure Corps. Yes, it would cost money. But so does unemployment insurance. Having a crumbling public sector costs in other ways. Those who are hung up on labels will say this would mean bringing “socialism” to part of our economy.

Yes, you could say that. But for that matter, so does the army. We could easily structure my Michigan Infrastructure Corps so that it doesn’t compete with the private sector - which, by the way, doesn’t seem to have many jobs to offer right now.

By the way, know what happened to the old WPA? Eventually, everyone went back to work, after World War II started, and it quietly died. If a shot of temporary “socialism” would help the people and the state of Michigan, I say, let’s make the most of it.

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Interview: Stephen Geskey - 11/25/2008

The number of people out of work is on the rise in Michigan and the state’s unemployment benefits fund is running out of money. In fact, the state has had to borrow close to half a billion dollars from the federal government to keep up payments that go to the jobless. Stephen Geskey is Director of Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Girding Our Loins - 11/24/2008

Everybody remembers that Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to put a brave face on things seventy-five years ago, when he took office during the worst depression in our nation’s history.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” the new President told the nation, in what would be his most famous phrase ever. Those are good words to remember. But they weren’t then seen as the most important part of FDR’s first inaugural address.

The papers led with these lines: “This nation asks for action, and action now. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.”

The new president then embarked on a hundred-day whirlwind of action, creating jobs and federal programs that remain controversial to this day. But they did put people back to work, and made FDR so popular he went on to wi three more terms.

Whatever else they said about Roosevelt, nobody ever said that he wasn’t an innovative leader. Well, we are a tad more sophisticated today than in 1933, or so we like to think. And frankly, most of us think we have a lot more to fear than fear itself, such as, never finding a good job again. University economists are often cautious creatures. I have been following the U of M’s forecasts for a long time, and they tend to be slightly more optimistic than conditions warrant.

But here’s what the man in charge, Professor George Fulton, said about the newest one: “The hard times are here to stay for awhile. These are doubtless the most uncertain times we have faced in the state since we started forecasting the Michigan economy 36 years ago.” Uncertain as used here means, uncertain whether the coming years will be grim or disastrous.

The forecast projects that Michigan will lose 108,000 jobs next year, half of them well-paying manufacturing jobs. The state will lose another 24,000 in 2010. That’s in addition to half a million jobs lost already this decade. True, the forecast talked of the possibility of modest job gains in 2011, but that seems based largely on hope.

And if that wasn’t stressful enough - this forecast is apparently based on a bailout for the auto industry actually happening. If it doesn’t, well, we may all need seats on Noah’s Ark.

Quoting Professor Fulton again, “we do fully expect that some form of rescue package will be approved by the federal government. The potential consequences of (any) alternatives are impossible to predict at this point, but none of them is any good for Michigan.”

What this should do is throw a bucket of cold water in all of our faces. We have to demand that our leaders forget ideological and partisan nonsense, and switch to reality-based thinking about our future, if we are to have one.

Fulton gets it. “We should take heart and hope from the words of a 21st century philosopher and resolve to make real change happen in Michigan.” Those words by the way, give the philosopher’s identity away. The words Fulton quoted were these: “Yes, we can.”

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Interview: Charles Ballard - 11/24/2008

On Friday, The University of Michigan’s semi-annual economic forecast for the state was revealed, and all indications are that we face some very tough years ahead. Charles Ballard is a professor of Economics at Michigan State University. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about the state of our economy and what can be done to revive it.

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Essay: Man of the House - 11/21/2008

The official records show that John Dingell has been in Congress for fifty-three years, but actually, he’s been there far longer than that. He grew up in the Capitol.

His father was first elected to Congress the same day Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president, at the worst point of the Great Depression. John Dingell was six years old then.

Seventy years ago he first went to work for Congress as a page, running errands for young congressmen like Lyndon Johnson.

He served in World War II, then came back to the Capitol to work as an elevator operator, putting himself through law school. He was just 29 when his dad died, in 1955, and won the special election to succeed his father. There is a famous picture of the tall and slightly geeky looking new congressman being sworn in by the short and bald Sam Rayburn, the most powerful speaker of the house in history.

Dwight Eisenhower was then president. Detroit had close to two million people. General Motors was the world’s richest and most powerful corporation. America had forty-eight states, and the number of Japanese cars on our roads was precisely zero.

Barack Obama, Osama Bin Laden, and the two new Democrats Michigan elected to Congress this month have this much in common: When John Dingell was first elected, none of them had been born.

Dingell has been in Congress through ten presidents, and is about to serve with an eleventh. On Valentine’s Day, he will have served in the House longer than anyone in history.

Twenty-eight years ago, he first became head of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. There, he became a legend, setting the agenda, rolling over opponents, serving also as chair of the subcommittee on oversight and investigation.

He never forgot that he was from Detroit, and that the auto industry was Detroit’s heart, soul, and wallet. Critics say he did too much to protect the Big Three from tougher fuel economy standards.

They may be right. But what we forget is that for all but two of his sixteen years as committee chair, Dingell had a Republican president to deal with. The only exception was the first two years of the Clinton Administration. After that, he lost his chairmanship for a dozen years, when Republicans won control of Congress.

Two years ago, he finally got it back. But it wasn’t the same. He had to give up running his subcommittee. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wasn’t a big fan of the auto industry. If she didn’t personally engineer his ouster, she did nothing to stop it.

When the results were official, John Dingell was perfectly gracious. Years ago, I spent a day with him in his district. How long did he plan to stay in Congress? He asked me if I knew anything about John Quincy Adams. Yes, sir, I did.

He nodded. Quincy Adams, the only former president ever to return to the House, served till he died there. Let’s hope John Dingell stays on his feet for many years to come.

Views expressed in the essays by Jack Lessenberry are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

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Interview: Jim Barcia - 11/21/2008

Yesterday, in the equivalent of a political earthquake, Michigan Congressman John Dingell, the longest serving member of the House, was ousted from his post as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. State Senator Jim Barcia served with Dingell in Congress for ten years, before his seat was eliminated by redistricting. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Michigan's Future - 11.20.08

Our unemployment rate is the highest in the nation, and our key industry is on the point of something like collapse. What‘s more, Washington doesn’t seem inclined to help us. Not, that is, until it may be too late. Our nation is entering what may be a savage recession.

John Dingell, our longest-serving member of congress, has just lost his powerful committee chairmanship, a post he has used to both help the auto industry -- and to shield it from reality.

The dinosaurs who have taken care of us for eons are fading, and we desperately need something new. Listening to the leaders of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler testify before Congress yesterday was actually painful. They were bloodless men, setting out their case in voices largely devoid of passion.

They made sense, yes, Bob Nardelli and Alan Mulally and Rick Wagoner. They just didn‘t make a lasting impression, these men with forgettable faces and bland demeanor. They were unfailingly polite to members of congress, some of whom, such as Maxine Waters of California, seemed to want to make demagogic points without having the faintest idea what they were talking about.

The CEOs endured the insults of dim bulbs from Texas, congressmen who seemed blissfully unaware that taking General Motors down would cost their districts jobs, too, even if there isn’t a single auto plant in them. The auto barons know that, of course.

They did their logical, clerical and bureaucratic best to make their cases. Yet they didn’t seem to understand what they needed to do. They needed, deeply and desperately needed, to be Lee Iacocca, or something very like him. They needed a gruff, tire-squealing, one hundred percent American folk hero.

They needed to say “look, damn it, we’re all in this together. Detroit put this country on wheels and made all our lives possible. We built the trucks and tanks and Jeeps that won World War II.”

“We’ve made some stupid mistakes that we could kick ourselves for. But we’re Americans, and we’ve learned from them.”

When Alan Mulally was asked if he’d give up his $21 million salary, he made the fatal mistake of defending it. He should have countered that he had given orders that until Ford is again profitable, he was to be paid what an assembly line worker makes.

The men who came begging for bailout loans each came separately in corporate jets they are refusing to give up. If they had been smart, they would have driven to Washington in an Impala, a Fusion and a PT Cruiser.

Their mentality was a universe away from that of the quirky mechanic who, more than a century ago, used to stay up through the night pounding away in an old garage on Bagley in Detroit.

His name was Henry Ford, and he was creating the modern world. Hopefully, someplace in this state, someone is at a laboratory or at a computer, creating a new vision for Michigan’s future.

Let‘s just hope we know it, and nurture it, when it arrives.

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Interview: Lou Glazer - 11.20.08

Even if Congress bails out the auto industry, and even if it returns to some form of profitability, everyone agrees it will be much smaller, and that Michigan needs a new basis for its economy. That’s a message Lou Glazer, founder and CEO of Michigan Future, has been sending for years. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about what do we do next.

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