This is good. Michelle Pilecki of Huffington Post pointed out an article the Canadians are snickering about (and rightly so) about why Toyota decided to build a plant in Canada instead of Alabama or Mississippi despite the fact that Alabama was offering much better subsidies:
The Huffington Post | The Blog: "But [Gerry] Fedchun [president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association] said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project. He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use 'pictorials' to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.
'The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario,' Fedchun said"
Almost as funny, an Alabama newspaper wrote this article defending the massive brainpower of our southern neighbors entitled
Are Alabama workers dumber than Canadians? To dispute this claim, does the paper compare graduation rates? Aptitude tests? Teeth-per-mouth ratios? Nope. They ask a Toyota executive at the company's Huntsville engine plant, the Alabama Development Office Director and the director of Alabama Industrial Development Training. Oddly enough, none of these people agree with the article.
When our local school district was having a tough time (still is) getting a levy passed for an increase in support, I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper. I wanted to get across the idea that public investment mattered. At the end of the letter I needed an example of a state where public investment was not a high priority and low taxes trumped every other concern. The first state name that jumped out at me was Alabama.
I'd apologize for this post to
SJ, but I'm guessing that she probably enjoyed this post more than any non-Alabamians (or whatever the hell you call yourselves).
• I suppose it is funny, in a typical stereotypical 'Alabamians are dumbasses' way. It's also infuriating as hell. You are so right that PUBLIC INVESTMENT MATTERS! My entire life has been spent listening to people, politicians gripe and moan about our poor education system and all we've managed to do is rank 47th instead of 49th or 50th. Argh.
I must add, however, that asking high ranking officials of other automotive plants in the state if they are happy with their workforce is pretty good evidence that dumbasses can make good workers.
• I don't know when things changed so that now their is a pro and a con view to the idea that public investment matters, but I do know that Grover Norquist should be boiled in oil for his part in all this.
Three years in a row we have had to hold referendums for our school in order to try and get funding and three years in a row it has failed. This despite the fact that the school is losing teachers and using outdated textbooks.
If they think that asking people to vote to raise their own taxes in order to fund schools is such a swell fucking idea, then I'd like to try the same thing when they want to fund a war.
• Ok, Jamison, you have to post something else now. It's been weeks and the 'make fun of Alabama' post still tops your blog. If I didn't already have one, I'd be developing a complex.
