Whirlpool Exec Responds: The System Made Us Do It (1,000 jobs to Mexico)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010020822/whirlpool-exec-responds-system-made-us-do-it

By Dave Johnson

February 22, 2010 - 3:11pm ET

In last week’s post, Whirlpool Bites Hands Of American Taxpayers That Feed It, I wrote about Whirlpool closing a factory in Evansville, Indiana. In summary,

• Whirlpool closes a plant in Evansville
• Taxpayers will shoulder the unemployment and other costs.
• All the local supplier, transportation and other third-party jobs are destroyed.
• Even more home foreclosures in the area as a result.
• Local businesses are stressed or have to go out of business.
• They are playing nearby Iowa against Indiana for tax breaks and subsidies to keep just a few of the jobs.
• Whirlpool is profiting from making all this someone else's problem.
• And, of course, Wall Street celebrates the move.

This would be just one more “dog bites man” story – a company closes a plant and moves production out of the country, destroys workers’ lives, devastates communities and small businesses, sets states against each other, increases their profit margin, and Wall Street cheers. We read the same story over and over again for decades now, and the economy and the country of course have reached a limit of what can be lost. So what? What else is new?

But at Huffington Post a Whirlpool spokesperson responded, saying the post is “based on misinformation that’s floating around the Internet.” He wrote that their decision was based on “competitive factors.” In other words, Whirlpool says that the system made us do it. (The response in full is at the end of this post)

The spokesperson for Whirlpool is exactly right. It is the system that makes them do this. They are only following the market’s orders.

Set aside for a minute the lack of humanity in Whirlpool's response, the lack of patriotism, the placing of market values (privatize the profits, socialize the costs) above human values, and the lack of concern for the destructive effect of their moves on the larger American economy. The system - the market - lets Whirlpool plead that those things are not Whirlpool’s job or concern. They are only trapped in the rules of the playing field and it is the job of We, the People to set those rules. It's OUR fault, not theirs...

FULL story at link.

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. +1

[aquart]

2. What was their executive bonus package?

I pray that whatever they buy with it kills them. Perhaps a nice Toyota.

[Bobbie Jo]

3. Recommended.

:kick:

[Lyric]

4. No more Whirlpools for me.

Ever.

:hi:

[endless october]

5. bring back tariffs.

if we don't start making stuff in the states, the economy will not recover for a long time.

it's time to stop fucking around. the strategy failed and brought the whole country down with it. change the strategy.

[endless october]

6. whirlpool exec compensation :

http://www.dailyfinance.com/company/whirlpool-corporation/whr/nys/key-executives

looks like they could save some money buy outsourcing those high paying executive jobs, right?

[safeinOhio]

7. I just live down the street from the

Whirlpool factory that builds dishwashers. I'll be buying a GE dishwasher because I was forced to do so by the market.

[Generic Brad]

8. I call B.S.

Whirlpool could rebrand themselves as an exclusively American manufacturer. Most of us would gladly pay a little more for each of their machines if they guaranteed it would keep union jobs here in the United States. If they give up some profit in the short term and rebranded themselves, they would ultimately gain U.S. market share and make larger profits over the long term. Short sighted dumb asses.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

10. Why has no one (I know of) tried this?

[Luciferous]

9. Thanks for the update

[hootinholler]

11. Until the tax law is restructured to preserve US jobs...

The bleed will continue.

-Hoot

[Omaha Steve]

12. Kick