FactCheck: Obama Ad Distorts McCain's Role in Job Loss | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008

Distorting the DHL Deal

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In fact, for several years, the merger provided significant benefits to the residents of Wilmington. It allowed DHL to invest $1.2 billion into its North American Operations. Part of that investment included transferring operations from an older hub in northern Kentucky to the Wilmington facility, a move that added about 1,000 jobs in Wilmington. And while a 2003 article in Aviation Week warned that the merger could affect the survivability of either ABX Air or DHL Airways (which later became ASTAR Air Cargo), the warning proved to be, at best, premature. ABX Air stock rose more than 600 percent in its first year of operation (ASTAR is privately held).

Airborne's former employees were happy with the deal, as well. A press release from the Teamsters union praised the "historic" agreement it reached with DHL after the merger. The agreement protected more than 6,000 Airborne jobs by including a "no-layoffs provision" and held out a promise of "more Teamster jobs" as the result of anticipated growth. That prediction proved true for a while. According to the Cleveland newspaper:

Cleveland Plain Dealer, Aug. 6: Several Wilmington civic leaders said that what happened in 2003 created an economic gain for their community, lasting several years.

But despite its investments in the North American market, DHL significantly trails its three main competitors in market share, having never topped 10 percent. In the overnight package business, for example, DHL's 9 percent share lags well behind the U.S. Postal Service (32 percent), FedEx (31 percent) and UPS (25 percent). It's perhaps little surprise then that DHL has consistently lost money on its North American business. A lot of money: $900 million in 2007 and an expected $1 billion in 2008. An analyst at Morgan Stanley predicted in late 2007 that DHL would have to either outsource its business to one of its competitors, reduce its coverage to major metropolitan areas or leave the North American market altogether.

It's possible that Airborne Express would have fared better against its much larger rivals, but we've seen nothing that would suggest that. In fact, according to Congressional Quarterly, Airborne Express had laid off 2,000 workers before the DHL merger went through. And an analyst told the Seattle Times that to continue to thrive, Airborne was "going to have to grow internationally, and that was going to be expensive."

While DHL's move undoubtedly will hurt many residents of Wilmington, it is worth noting that UPS has announced that its new deal with DHL will result in new jobs at its Louisville, Ky., hub. (The exact number won't be determined until early 2009.) So at least some of the jobs in Wilmington will move 150 miles down the road. It's misleading to imply (as both ads do) that these are jobs that are leaving because a "foreign company" owns DHL. The company ships packages inside the United States. It can't very well outsource that sort of thing beyond U.S. borders. In this case, DHL has swapped one U.S.-owned subcontractor for a different U.S.-owned subcontractor.

In any case, it's implausible to suggest that an Arizona senator's vote in 2003 is directly responsible for the business decisions of an independent company five years later.

Reprinted with permission from Factcheck.org.

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McCain wants to take credit if a company comes in that supposedly bring new jobs. Then he should be equally willing to acknowledge that he brought in the employer who was not committed to this market. He should connect himself with DHL when they leave as much as when they arrive. Do I smell hypocrisy?

McCain and Republicans want the big players in the market, but fail to work as hard on updating the tax code to penalize firms who move offshore. If McCain spent as much time in Congress as he has hob-nobbing with Petreaus and his pro-Bush buddies overseas, more might have been done to save jobs in the US. Not a big work ethic for him - missing at so many votes.

No distortion of the facts by McCain's opposition - just some heated criticism of the sort McCain's own campaign has been flinging non-stop in Obama's direction. They often say - don't dish it out if youcan't take it...

"Does either guy share your values" is not exactly the best question to ask about any candidate for the simple reason that some people's "values" are not what governs everybody - the Constitution is what is supposed to govern everybody. This is the problem with "values voting": "values voting" is nothing more than a euphemism for "religious voting" since almost all people's values come from their religions. Conveniently for us, most religions share a set of common values.

The problem is that not all religions share the same exact values, of course. How does society address a difference in religious values that affect society? It defers to the Constitution, of course, and the Constitution allows freedom of religion except when that freedom infringes on the rights of other citizens to live freely. This dynamic should easily dictate the government's position on such disagreeable religious topics as gay marriage; sadly, however, because of the rise of "values voting," it does not. When we start trying to pass laws based strictly on religious values - that is, legislating morality by rule of the religious majority - then we are not adhering to the Constitution, which provides equal protection under the law to people of all religions or non-religions. Let us get back to the matter of homosexuality then: if we ban so-called gay marriage, we are doing nothing more than forcing our religious values on everybody else - including those who do not share our religious values - and thus denying them equal protection to pursue their happiness. And laws such as ones that ban gay marriage - which has never been shown to be detrimental to other citizens' constitutional rights or society itself - do not protect citizens from those who might interfere with our rights; they merely DENY some citizens one of the rights that almost every other citizen takes for granted. The only thing gay marriage has proven to be is an act (or just an idea in most cases) that is offensive to the religious beliefs of certain citizens - but nothing more, and certainly not detrimental enough to society as a whole to warrant a law forbidding it! (By the way: proponents of such a law proclaim that banning gay marriage would be protecting something - "the sanctity of marriage," that is - but I do not believe the Founding Fathers intended the Constitution to guarantee safety to abstract ideals such as the "sanctity of marriage." Does THAT end this silly little argument?)

The Founding Fathers had a very specific vision of government in mind: their government drew an extremely visible line between church & state and involved itself in the private lives of its citizens as little as possible. Thus, voting based on values - which is essentially passing laws based on your religious values because you are voting for "lawmakers" - is intrinsically incompatible with the Founding Fathers' vi

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Posted By: cmilesgervc @ 09/11/2008 4:53:55 PM

I've really heard enough of McCain's whining. It is ok for his false remarks on Obama and yes i feel McCain is clueless the majority of the time on the middle class folks he or Palin does not have to do without
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Posted By: dorfy @ 08/25/2008 5:52:47 PM

McCain wants to take credit if a company comes in that supposedly bring new jobs. Then he should be equally willing to acknowledge that he brought in the employer who was not committed to this market. He should connect himself with DHL when they leave as much as when they arrive. Do I smell hypocrisy?

McCain and Republicans want the big players in the market, but fail to work as hard on updating the tax code to penalize firms who move offshore. If McCain spent as much time in Congress as he has hob-nobbing with Petreaus and his pro-Bush buddies overseas, more might have been done to save jobs in the US. Not a big work ethic for him - missing at so many votes.

No distortion of the facts by McCain's opposition - just some heated criticism of the sort McCain's own campaign has been flinging non-stop in Obama's direction. They often say - don't dish it out if youcan't take it...
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: Murray Rizberg @ 08/18/2008 7:31:49 PM

"Does either guy share your values" is not exactly the best question to ask about any candidate for the simple reason that some people's "values" are not what governs everybody - the Constitution is what is supposed to govern everybody. This is the problem with "values voting": "values voting" is nothing more than a euphemism for "religious voting" since almost all people's values come from their religions. Conveniently for us, most religions share a set of common values.

The problem is that not all religions share the same exact values, of course. How does society address a difference in religious values that affect society? It defers to the Constitution, of course, and the Constitution allows freedom of religion except when that freedom infringes on the rights of other citizens to live freely. This dynamic should easily dictate the government's position on such disagreeable religious topics as gay marriage; sadly, however, because of the rise of "values voting," it does not. When we start trying to pass laws based strictly on religious values - that is, legislating morality by rule of the religious majority - then we are not adhering to the Constitution, which provides equal protection under the law to people of all religions or non-religions. Let us get back to the matter of homosexuality then: if we ban so-called gay marriage, we are doing nothing more than forcing our religious values on everybody else - including those who do not share our religious values - and thus denying them equal protection to pursue their happiness. And laws such as ones that ban gay marriage - which has never been shown to be detrimental to other citizens' constitutional rights or society itself - do not protect citizens from those who might interfere with our rights; they merely DENY some citizens one of the rights that almost every other citizen takes for granted. The only thing gay marriage has proven to be is an act (or just an idea in most cases) that is offensive to the religious beliefs of certain citizens - but nothing more, and certainly not detrimental enough to society as a whole to warrant a law forbidding it! (By the way: proponents of such a law proclaim that banning gay marriage would be protecting something - "the sanctity of marriage," that is - but I do not believe the Founding Fathers intended the Constitution to guarantee safety to abstract ideals such as the "sanctity of marriage." Does THAT end this silly little argument?)

The Founding Fathers had a very specific vision of government in mind: their government drew an extremely visible line between church & state and involved itself in the private lives of its citizens as little as possible. Thus, voting based on values - which is essentially passing laws based on your religious values because you are voting for "lawmakers" - is intrinsically incompatible with the Founding Fathers' vi