Buyer Beware of The Tennessean’s Sales Job on the New VW plant
The Tennessean employs a rather interesting format on its Opinion page. Take one issue, offer the house view, then grab three outsiders to provide contrasting arguments. In theory, it’s a grand idea. Readers are served a buffet of competing notions, and can decide for themselves where they land on the issue.
But in Sunday’s paper, theory went out the window when Chattanooga’s new VW plant was the catch of the day.
Okay, so it’s hard to argue against new jobs—especially auto jobs, the best blue collar work remaining in America. But since the deal involves a handsome slice of corporate welfare – welfare of a magnitude yet specified—it would seem The Tennessean might wish to flush out a very basic question: Is the plant a truly smart play for Tennessee?
Unfortunately, the paper went in a different direction, offering up prime real estate to two politicians and a VW exec to let us know that this is the best thing conceived since Christ or beer.
We begin with Governor Phil Bredesen, who carefully walks us through how Governor Phil Bredesen made this wonderful turn of events possible. For all this, dear reader, you can thank Governor Phil Bredesen.
Then we have U.S. Senator Bob Corker, who must have employed a rather zealous staffer to ghost write his praise. Bob takes the time to remind us of how much he did as mayor of Chattanooga, then kicks his gushing into overdrive: “Volkswagen's announcement affects every person in our state and will for generations.”
Also on board is Stefan Jacoby, chief of VW’s American branch. He offers all the platitudes one expects from a corporate chieftain who’s just been give a huge pile of money to be your friend.
Finally, we hear from the editors, who argue that Tennesseans should be “justifiably revved.” Not till later in the story is the elephant in the room revealed: “The choice by Volkswagen does not come without reciprocal help, in the form of incentives from the state and local levels. Those incentives need to be fully revealed to Tennesseans, although Volkswagen officials say the incentives were not the driving force behind the move, and state officials are either being coy or genuinely don't know the full package yet to give details on incentives.”
So there it is, boys and girls. The paper just spent an entire page praising this divine gift, but said gift is being paid for with your money, and the aforementioned pols you just heard from won’t reveal the pricetag.
The plant may very well be a great blessing. But whenever salesmen gush about a product’s features, yet are loath to reveal price, the fine print is bound to be nasty.
Comments
OK, Kotz.
Posted 07/21/2008 at 05:36:46 PMHere's a great opportunity to show what kind of journalist you are - How about FINDING OUT and reporting and analyzing what the incentive package was, and letting your readers know what WE have been obligated to pay in the name of progress? If this is such a great deal for us all, Bredesen and company should be willing to tell us the pricetag and defend it. I agree that the Tennessean is a timid, clueless rag for hosting the politicians' orgy of self-congratulation. But why are YOU letting them get away with it?
Nashville is waiting.
VW and Jacoby should look at product quality first. View my experience at: http://www.reesphotos.com/VW/
Posted 07/22/2008 at 09:12:09 PMJohn Rees
Anything desirable has a price -- and making yourself "beautiful" and "desirable" to a desired suitor is part of the cost of winning that suitor's attention.
Now, romance is great, but love can come later if the marriage is successful on more practical terms.
So you are unhappy that Chattanooga specifically, and Tennessee generally, spent money, time, and gave away a small part of future earnings in an effort to court a potentially wonderful bride?
Face facts dude - if you were in danger of dying of starvation, you wouldn't refuse a promise of a lifetime of good meals, paid for by future income that you wouldn't have earned without the presence of the chef.
Posted 07/23/2008 at 10:16:21 AMFine analogy, Bill. But let's take it a little farther. Say you've asked for the hand of this beautiful woman. Say she's agreed. But say she also has a mountain of expectations she intends to bring to the marriage. You just don't know what they are.
The wise man, one would presume, might wish to discuss this prior to engagement. If she's expecting the McMansion with the heated pool, jacuzzi, and executive kitchen, would it not be smart to discuss this beforehand? To examine the contents of your wallet to see if it holds the adequate firepower? Surely you wish not to head into a lifetime of financial misery, where you're perpetually behind the 8-ball born from blindly leaping in.
That's my problem with the deal. We have no idea how much we're going to pay for this marriage.
I've spend the last three days trying to find out. The governor's office doesn't want to talk. It referred me to the spokeswoman for the Department of Economic and Community Development. She couldn't answer my questions, either, so she kicked me to the assistant commissioner, Mark Drury. He's seeming rather slow to call back.
Maybe they're all just really busy with important matters of state. But it seems really odd that they're trumpeting this huge deal, while being very secretive about the cost.
If was a suspicious guy, I might be inclined to believe that they're selling me on the beauty and everlasting love of said bride, while waiting till after the marriage to inform me that the pricetag for her happiness will be the emasculation of my checkbook for years to come.
Posted 07/23/2008 at 04:43:17 PMHere's my problem with the VW deal--and my problem generally with the South's crush on the auto industry: While it looks shiny and new, it actually has a lot in common with the region's traditional economic development strategy. That has traditionally been described as a "cheap labor" strategy, and these jobs will definitely be high wage. But more deeply, what the South has done is make up for its lack of industrial creativity by glomming onto mature industries and using cost advantages [along with a fair amount of bribery] to gain market share at someone else's expense. On one level that works; obviously Chattanooga will get a bunch of better blue-collar jobs than it has now, and replacements for those it has lost. Further, the plant could well be a growth pole attracting suppliers, as have the other assembly plants that have cropped up here. But assembly is assembly; the very reason it's so easy to attract these sorts of facilities is because their skill requirements aren't especially high or specialized; moreover, they're geographically far enough apart to assure them their pick of the best workers over a wide area. [Spring Hill is an exception to a lot of these rules, but so is its lack of profitability]. But the auto industry are hardly a technologically dynamic industry in the way that, say, Silicon Valley is. The Valley doesn't throw money at outside companies to move there; it *starts* companies, and when a product runs its course, the entrepreneurial community there starts new industries and sends the old ones off to, well, places like Tennessee [The Dell deal was supposed to bring high tech to Nashville; it brought low-wage, light assembly using temps]. Smokestack-chasing [and that's what this is, even without the smoke] may bring jobs, but they're not necessarily secure jobs, as many small towns have learned when their plants packed up and moved abroad. Instead of staying on this treadmill, we need a strategy that encourages the creation of new industries, not the stealing of old ones.
Posted 07/24/2008 at 11:06:15 AM