America’s Other Auto Industry Is Thriving
As the Big 3 belly up to the federal trough in Washington DC and demand that the taxpayers bail them and the union parasites attached them out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves foreign car manufacturers are thriving...and employing a lot of Americans.
Drew Ferguson IV is a 42-year-old dentist whose family has lived in this town, population 3,300, “since God put us here.” To be precise, the family arrived eight generations ago. Ferguson went off to the University of Georgia, then on to dental school, after which he came back to West Point. He and his wife, whom he met in college, have four kids. A year ago, Ferguson was elected mayor. “There’s a reason I live in West Point,” he says. “I love it. There’s a sense of place here.” No doubt, but West Point is located in what might also be considered the middle of nowhere. It’s pinched between I-85 and the Alabama border. Atlanta is a good hour’s drive away.
West Point today isn’t the same town Ferguson grew up in. Textile company executives used to live here. But when the textile industry collapsed in the 1980s, the victim of foreign competition, they moved away. Thousands of jobs were lost. A few small technology firms took up some of the slack. But the high-tech bust of the late 1990s proved to be another job killer. “We survived without a federal bailout,” Ferguson says sarcastically. Now, while much of America wallows in the gloom of a recession, there’s great joy in West Point. “West Point will have more economic growth in the next 24 months than anywhere else in the country,” Ferguson boasts. And he may be right.
KIA has come to town. The Korean automobile manufacturer is building a huge assembly plant, which will employ 2,900 workers when it begins turning out cars a year from now. KIA suppliers will employ thousands more nearby.
Remember that KIA competes with Ford and GM and Chrysler. Which begs the question: Why should KIA and other successful car company’s failing competitors get a bailout? Is that fair to these other companies? Companies that invest hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars into America’s economy? Companies that employ tens of thousands of Americans? Companies that bring vehicles to market that Americans want to buy?
Why not let the “big 3” fail and let the auto market drift toward companies like KIA that are able to run their businesses without relying on the taxpayer dime?
