Peter Morici

Today there was a Senate hearing with the CEO's of Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Chris Dodd the chairman of the committee called this man Peter Morici "The mouse that roared" after his initial testimony. I have looked into Morici and he has written several articles about the economy and specifically the auto industry. One of the best point I think he made is that the car companies make very high quality products. They are such a high quality that they will last quite awhile, long enough so that the current level of consumption will drop off. With this drop off of consumption come a shrinking in the production. Morici then explained that because a shrinking industry requires layoff, these layoffs require severance pay as agreed upon by the United Auto Workers contract. This severance pay makes the companies less competitive, he emphatically said "even if everything else is equal" that this severance will make their vehicles on average a thousand dollars more then their counterparts, or Japan and Korea as they are known. Morici also touched upon an important thought not often discussed in news of the so called "economic crisis" the Chinese Yuan. The Chinese government has not let the Yuan be valued in a free market structure. This is faulty when realizing the trade deficit with china. When the Yuan is cheap, then Chinese products are cheap here and U.S. products are expensive in china.
Anyways Morici sort of shot holes in the shit spewing from the CEO's as they groveled their case that unless 25 billion is given, Armageddon will happen and unemployment will ruin the country.