Some stories are destined to go around the world a few times. Take, for example, the story of 7-month-old Mi-Asia Anderson, the incredibly lucky baby who took a stray bullet in her diaper during the New Year’s Eve service at Memphis’ Greater Faith Tabernacle church …
Read Chris Davis look at the week in Memphis media in Fly on the Wall.
Joe Cooper Speaks
In the spirit of the season, I humbly accept the award by John Branston for the Worst Courtroom Performance (December 25th issue) but reserve the right to point out the following on my behalf:
I’m the guy who risked his life to go undercover and nail the two Memphis city councilmen caught in the act of our very own “pay to play” scenario. The first councilman reviewed the tapes and knew he was a cooked goose. He pled guilty and received 51 months in prison, so the public never saw those tapes that I made with him. The second councilman is either the luckiest guy in America or someone bribed a juror. The two U.S. attorneys on the case were seasoned veterans. The tapes don’t lie! There is no way to confuse giving an elected official thousands of dollars (as directed by the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office) on three different occasions. Anyone who could perceive the money exchanges as loans is either naive or dumb or in on the scheme.
On another subject, there were three people who knew of the favor-swapping going on between Edmund Ford and Joseph Lee. They were Ford, Lee, and me. Lee should receive zero dollars for his grossly inflated legal bill over this matter!
Finally, if a reader has credible information about corruption in our community and is hesitant about going to the Feds, give me a call, and I’ll make sure it gets to the right place.
Joe Cooper
Memphis
Boat Docks
After reading John Branston’s City Beat column (“All Boats Away,” December 18th issue), one might speculate as to the condition of his eyes. Memphis Riverboats, Inc. has been a family-owned and -operated company since the early 1950s. We have been located at the foot of Monroe for decades with no city or private funding. Each year, we are host to hundreds of events and welcome more than 150,000 tourists and locals to our business. The historical cobblestones have been an enormous impediment to all who have dared to challenge them. The disabled and elderly have been particularly affected.
The foremost reason for the Beale Street Landing is to boost tourism and create a safe and accessible environment for all people who wish to experience the Mississippi River. This has been a long-awaited relocation after years of surviving with little or no acknowledgement from the city and local citizens. Our passengers have contributed greatly to the revenue of many local businesses. With the new landing, we anticipate an increase in tourism and local patrons, which in turn will generate tax dollars and profit for local establishments.
This docking facility has always been for Memphis Riverboats, Inc. as the primary resident. Our daily operations will be conducted from this location and will ensure safe passage for all who wish to experience the majesty of the mighty Mississippi River. This is a long-term investment in the future of Memphis tourism and the preservation of a nostalgic riverboat era.
Captain William D. Lozier
Memphis Riverboats, Inc.
Go Veggie
The year 2008 was not a good one for the meat, dairy, and egg industries. It began in February, with the USDA’s largest-ever recall of ground beef produced by California’s Westland-Hallmark Meat Packing Company.
In April, Archives of Internal Medicine published a 25-year study of 88,000 women, finding that those who ate lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains were 24 and 18 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack and stroke, respectively, than women with more typical American diets. A review of dietary habits in 52 countries in the October issue of Circulation reached similar conclusions.
In May, the American Institute for Cancer Research warned consumers that grilling of meat or fish raises the risk of colon cancer. A National Cancer Institute study in the November Proceedings of the National Academy of Science confirmed that consumption of meat and dairy products elevates the risk of cancer.
Last spring, the prestigious Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins University called for a phaseout of factory farming. In November, 63 percent of California voters agreed, by requiring that animals raised for food must have space to turn around and spread their wings.
Let’s make 2009 a really good year for ourselves by exploring the rich variety of veggie burgers, dogs, deli slices, heat-and-eat dinners, and soy-based milks, cheeses, and ice creams in our local supermarkets. This is one new year’s resolution that’s easy and fun to keep.
Mike Potter
Memphis
Nappy New Year
Some stories are destined to go around the world a few times. Take, for example, the story of 7-month-old Mi-Asia Anderson, the incredibly lucky baby who took a stray bullet in her diaper during the New Year’s Eve service at Memphis’ Greater Faith Tabernacle church. Most media outlets treated the story delicately, treating the near miss as the near tragedy it was. And then there’s Anorak.com, an online parody of the British tabloids, which sported the ridiculously no-nonsense headline, “Baby Catches Bullet In Her Nappy.”
Vanities
Marilyn Loeffel’s most recent “Right Perspective” column in The Commercial Appeal can be easily summarized: Crime is soaring because we’ve lost our regard for the sanctity of life and because we don’t kill nearly enough people: “Vendetta-style firing into a person’s home is pure cowardice,” the former county commissioner courageously stated before asking what may be the most accidentally hilarious question in history: “Have gangs and thugs become our mafias?”
“Even the fictional Corleone and Barzini families had a code of honor that left the women and children out of blood feuds,” Loeffel continued, confusing cinema and reality and showing a flagrant disregard for the films of Martin Scorsese in the process. First she blamed abortion for violent crime in Memphis. Then she blamed the infrequent use of the death penalty. Then she prayed that the senseless killing of 11-year-old Kentaria Traylor wasn’t “in vain.”
Headlinezilla
It’s only January and already we have a contender for most inexplicable headline of the year. Most papers that ran a recent AP story about the future of Scouting in America used headlines such as “Boy Scouts woo Hispanics into ranks” or “Boy Scouts Target Hispanic Recruits in South Bay.” The Commercial Appeal decided to go with this one: “Scouts honing survival skills on Hispanics.”
Rather than preaching the same-old, same-old Bible stories or delivering a fire-and-brimstone tirade, the Rev. Benjamin Hooks used his final sermon as pastor of Greater Middle Baptist Church to speak on the progress of civil rights for African Americans.
“In my lifetime, it’s amazing to see a black president,” Hooks said. “I remember when you couldn’t ride on the front of a streetcar.”
But Hooks urged church members and visitors not to get too excited.
“We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go,” said Hooks.
The 83-year-old civil rights leader is retiring after 52 years as pastor of the Greater Middle Baptist Church on Knight-Arnold Road in East Memphis.
His sermon was punctuated with cheers of “Amen!” from the enthusiastic congregation. Church members and numerous visitors, including Congressman Steve Cohen, packed the sanctuary. At one point before Hooks’ sermon began, ushers were forced to seat people in extra chairs typically reserved for the choir.
“I felt that the active ministry of the church, with all its joys, was a little too much of a burden,” said Hooks, in an interview with the Flyer. “I love preaching, but the demands of preaching every Sunday and being at prayer meetings every Wednesday and the missionary meetings on Thursdays and all the funerals, weddings, and counseling was just a bit too much for me.”
Hooks’ retirement doesn’t mean he’ll be slowing down. He says he’ll continue practicing law and will stay on as minister-in-residence at his church. In that role, he’ll help church members with financial planning, as well as performing home mission work.
Hooks is also an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis’ Hooks Institute for Social Change, where he occasionally lectures on civil rights.
“I have already have invitations to speak at other churches if my health allows,” Hooks said. “I want to visit other churches for a while so my church doesn’t still think I’m still their pastor.”
Hooks was one of the first African-American attorneys in Memphis, breaking racial barriers in a white-dominated field. In 1965, he became the first black criminal court judge in Tennessee history. He was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference along with Dr. Martin Luther King and served as president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1977 to 1992.
About “Gadfly to ‘Plain the Madoff Mess on Fox Business Network,” concerning Marty Aussenberg’s appearance on the January 5th show:
“Gadfly, that’s effing hilarious. Fox is a clown show. You couldn’t hurt your credibility if you dressed up like Bozo.” — Jeff
About “RNC Hopeful Saltsman in Hot Water over ‘Magic Negro’ Lyric,” by Jackson Baker:
“The problem is that this guy stands at the head of the Republican Party — one of a few who are running to head up the RNC — and yet he has no common sense whatsoever. I would fully expect people at his level to be a tad smarter than to stoop to an 8th grader’s level (no offense to 8th graders).” — clint
About “20 Questions: Will the Memphis Zoo Avoid Controversy [in 2009]”:
“Hell, just cut ALL the trees down and do away with the park; that’ll get rid of the pervs and the riffraff. In fact, we could just shut down the whole city and then the police would have a much easier job.” — packrat
About “Coal Sludge Disaster Devastates East Tennessee River and Environs”:
“Coal about as clean as Bush’s track record. You get what you deal. … Anyone got a size 10 loafer for TVA?” — The_Unicorn_of_Memphis
Comment of the Week:
About “No Frist in Governor’s Race? Then Gibbons, Maybe Norris,” by Jackson Baker:
“I know the AP style guide doesn’t specify, but it’s a good idea for online editions to always make clear the Norris in question isn’t Chuck in the headline.” — fancycwabs
In 2006, the Shelby County Election Commission spent $4 million on touch-screen voting machines for the county’s 275 precincts. Now a new state law threatens to make those machines obsolete.
According to the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act, which went into effect on January 1st, all Tennessee counties must purchase optical scanner voting systems. The new system requires voters to fill in bubbles on a paper ballot, much like students do on ACT or SAT forms.
“The ballots would be scanned at the precinct, and the results would be fed into a central tabulating area,” said Myra Styles, chairperson of the Shelby County Election Commission. “There will still be a lot of computer involvement, so it doesn’t do away with the problems that people have seen in computer-based systems.”
Critics of touch-screen voting machines fear software can be pre-programmed to support one party or another, regardless of a person’s vote. The state’s Voter Confidence Act was meant to create a paper trail so votes can be audited or recounted if necessary.
But Shelby County Commission secretary Richard Holden has doubts that the new system will be any more reliable.
“I’d hate to see us spend $5 to $6 million to replace machines just to add paper to the process,” Holden said. “If you have a piece of paper that someone can count, how many times do they have to count it until everyone agrees that it’s perfect?”
State Coordinator of Elections Brook Thompson said the federal Help America Vote Act provides some funding to help counties pay for new machines. But Holden is more concerned with the long-term cost of operating the new equipment.
“The paper machines are more expensive on an ongoing basis because you have to buy paper from a vendor. That was one of the reasons we wanted to get away from that,” Holden said. “You have to buy more paper than you need to make sure you [have] enough ballots for the voters.”
And not all ballots are created equal. Voters in Shelby County are given different ballots based on what district they live in.
“In early voting, where people can vote anywhere in the county, you’re talking about usually 100 different ballot styles and layouts,” Styles said. “The only way to handle that is to have a poll worker print out the ballot as each person comes to vote. That would require very expensive printing equipment, and it would take a long time for each voter.”
Though the law went into effect at the beginning of the year, there are no elections scheduled for Shelby County in 2009.
Styles hopes Shelby County can be exempted from the new law, but that would require the legislature to change the act’s language, because there are currently no allowances for exemptions.
Flyer online columnist Marty Aussenberg (aka “The Gadfly”) held his own in a nationally televised face-off Monday with three Fox Business Network panelists.
Aussenberg, appearing as a guest on FBN’s afternoon Happy Hour show, argued that “the fallacy of self-regulation” in the securities industry was at the heart of financier Bernard Madoff’s recently discovered $50 billion Ponzi scheme, which defrauded untold numbers of unsuspecting investors. The Fox crew, reflecting the network’s bias toward minimal regulation, countered that the fault rested more with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had been presented with a 21-page report on Madoff’s potential irregularities.
“Nobody’s perfect. SEC is the cop on the beat, and any cop on the beat can miss a clue, a trail, an informant,” responded Aussenberg, who contended that “somebody should start seriously looking at FINRA.”
That’s the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an independent nongovernmental body that, in theory, oversees the financial industry from the point of view of the financial industry itself and which has enjoyed something of a heyday of late in comparison with federal SEC investigators.
Aussenberg had been tapped for his guest appearance after somebody at Fox read his “Gadfly” offering at memphisflyer.com last week, entitled “‘As You Reap’ … The Meaning of the Madoff Case.”
In that article, Aussenberg, a former SEC enforcement attorney, argued, “I believe the SEC is being scapegoated and turned into the sacrificial lamb for a system of regulation and oversight that was skewed heavily in favor of the ‘bad guys.’
“The federal agency I worked for was always woefully underfunded. In spite of the fact that the SEC, unlike most other agencies in Washington, brought in millions of dollars in fees from the industry it regulated, it was always treated like a stepchild by Congress and the president when it came to funding its budget. It was constantly outgunned, outspent, and out-manned by the securities industry and the corporations it was charged with regulating. And then, beginning with the ‘regulation is bad’ mantra of Reagan and taken up wholeheartedly by GWB [George W. Bush], it was decimated even further.”
To read the full article, visit memphisflyer.com.
When it comes to compensation for corporate executives, the two phrases we’ve heard for years are “pay for performance” and “align executives’ interests with those of shareholders.” This was supposed to justify their salaries, stock options, and bonuses.
But a glance at compensation for the top dogs at Memphis financial institutions suggests otherwise. The banks made lots of bad loans that generated fees and revenue and profits for a while, until it all came crashing down in 2007-2008, leaving shareholders holding the bag. Several of these executives were on the job.
For their bad practices, some of the largest financial institutions in the country got a bailout. Among them were Regions Financial, First Horizon, and SunTrust, three regional banks with a big presence in Memphis.
The banks won’t tell us what they’re going to do with the bailout money. But we can see how they spent their money on executives in 2006 and 2007 by looking at their proxy statements, the most revealing document that public companies disclose. The 2009 proxy statements, which cover calendar year 2008, will be coming out in the next few months. If pay for performance and aligning executive compensation with shareholders means anything, then executives should be paid like teachers.
Here’s an overview of their executive compensation and stock performance.
Regions is based in Birmingham. It acquired Morgan Keegan in 2000, Union Planters Bank in 2004, and AmSouth Bank in 2006. Regions got $3.5 billion in the U.S. Treasury bank bailout. The stock price of Regions ranged from $35 to $38 in 2006, from $38 to $21 in 2007, and from $21 to $8 in 2008.
Dowd Ritter, the CEO of Regions, received $7,713,138 in compensation in 2007 and $18,433,989 in 2006.
Douglas Edwards, former CEO of Morgan Keegan, received $2,621,275 in 2007 and $3,181,408 in 2006. His compensation included a $1,873,000 bonus in 2007, even though, the proxy delicately notes, Morgan Keegan “had also been impacted by issues related to mutual fund offerings and the subprime mortgage credit issues of 2007.”
Three Morgan Keegan bond funds backed by subprimes lost 70 to 85 percent of their value in 2008 and are listed as the “worst-performing bond funds” over one year, three years, and five years in The Wall Street Journal ‘s year-end tabulation.
Like professional basketball players, bank executives get paid royally long after their useful life is over. Jackson Moore, former executive chairman of Regions and former CEO of Union Planters, retired at the end of 2007. He received $12,290,451 in 2007 and $29,190,349 in 2006, which includes severance pay of $4,993,987 paid to him in July 2008. W. Charles Mayer, former senior VP who came to Regions in the AmSouth deal, got $14,601,273 in 2007.
Bryan Jordan, former CFO who left Regions for First Horizon in April 2007, earned $2,148,547 in 2006.
SunTrust is based in Atlanta. It acquired Memphis-based National Bank of Commerce. SunTrust got $4.9 billion in the federal bailout. SunTrust’s stock price ranged from $73 to $84 in 2006, from $84 to $59 in 2007, and from $59 to $30 in 2008.
James Wells III, CEO, received $3,428,954 in 2007 and $6,147,410 in 2006.
William R. Reed Jr., vice chairman, got $1,828,736 in 2007 and $2,265,288 in 2006. Mark Chancy, CFO, received $1,810,941 in 2007 and $1,556,851 in 2006.
First Horizon is based in Memphis and is by far the smallest of the three regionals. First Horizon got $866 million in the bailout. Its stock price ranged from $36 to $44 in 2006, from $44 to $22 in 2007, and from $22 to $10 in 2008.
Gerald Baker, former CEO, received $1,707,964 in 2007 and $1,296,468 in 2006. He retired in August 2008 and was replaced by Bryan Jordan as CEO. Jordan received $1,587,722 in 2007 when he was CFO.
Kenneth Glass, who resigned as CEO in January 2007, received $968,013 in 2007 and $3,068,354 in 2006.
On its website, First Horizon says, “We continue to be committed to pay for results.” The company notes that “since 2004, actual total pay for the CEO and COO has been below the 25th percentile of the competitive market.”
Correction: In a column in December about his federal court trial, I mistakenly referred to former Memphis City Council member Edmund Ford Sr. as Edmund Ford Jr.
Frist is out, Gibbons, Wamp, and Haslam are in, and more are raring to enter the 2010 Tennessee gubernatorial race, already getting under way. Jackson Baker tells you who, what, when, where, how, why, and why-the-hell-not in this week’s “Politics.”
The first road trip I remember taking was from Michigan to Florida in a dull blue 1955 Chevrolet with a V-8 engine, one of 1,690,000 sturdy Chevy’s made in that record year for General Motors.
The last Tennessee road trip I made was just before Christmas from Memphis to Chattanooga with my son Jack in his trusty 1998 Chevy Blazer with 198,000 miles on the odometer. Don’t tell me GM makes crappy cars that nobody wants. I bought the car used for $9,000 when Jack was in college at UT-Knoxville, and it has survived six years of fender benders, break-ins, and countless hunting and fishing trips from the Smokies to the Mississippi River bottomlands, usually towing a johnboat.
This trip would push the Blazer near the once mythical 200,000-mile mark. The weather was a Michigan-like 18 degrees, a suitable challenge for the occasion. The sun was shining, and we filled the tank for $20 with cheap gas, the mother’s milk of the SUV.
Jack was going to a wedding before leaving Tennessee for Montana. I was going along for the ride to eyeball the car manufacturing business that migrated to Middle Tennessee, as I did 30 years ago, along with millions of Midwesterners. Car towns like Spring Hill, Chattanooga, Smyrna, and Decherd are to Tennessee in the 21st century what Dearborn, Flint, Pontiac, and River Rouge were in the second half of the 20th century to Michigan.
A week earlier, U.S. senator Bob Corker of Chattanooga emerged as the Republican Party’s point man on the Detroit bailout. He sparred with the United Auto Workers (“We were this close”) and GM CEO Rick Waggoner (“You’re the problem”) in iconic television clips from the congressional hearings. A wealthy developer, Corker worked at Western Auto as a kid, graduated from UT-Knoxville, and was once a card-carrying union member. He owns a 1997 Toyota with 180,000 miles and a vintage Ford pickup truck. I have nothing against Corker or foreign cars. I drive a used Mercedes made in Alabama. But I have a soft spot for the UAW. You’d have to be an idiot or an ingrate not to acknowledge your debt to the UAW if you’re a baby boomer from Michigan.
What was good for General Motors may or may not have been good for America, but it was certainly good for Michigan, no matter where you worked. My friends and I went to state universities for a generously subsidized $480 a year in tuition, easily covered with earnings from factory jobs in the summer, meal jobs during school, and money left over for enough Carling Black Label and Stroh’s to ensure that we would not be invited to join Phi Beta Kappa. I can still remember where I was in 1970 when I heard that Walter Reuther had died in a plane crash. I doubt if one in 10 Americans these days can identify the labor leader who bargained with the Big Three for health and pension obligations in contract talks in 1950 and 1951 when they were on top of the world, setting the stage for the current crisis.
Bob Corker
Detroit was king in the ’50s. My favorite novel about the era is Edsel, by the Detroit writer Loren Estleman. Reuther and Henry Ford II are cast in a fictional reconstruction of the rollout of Ford’s disastrous Edsel, and the narrator is an aging ex-newspaper columnist whose time has passed him by.
The two Detroit newspapers were full of gloomy reports the week of my recent road trip, with several of them targeting Corker for his insistence that the UAW agree to givebacks by a specific time in order to get a bailout. A sampler: “More Are Saying So Long to Michigan”; “Union Members Have Messed Things Up”; “Shame on Sen. Corker”; and “Michigan’s Growth Stagnant While Other Parts of the Country See Robust Growth.”
Corker, formerly the state finance commissioner and the mayor of Chattanooga, told me this week that he feels misportrayed in the national media by Washington Post columnist David Broder and others. “I could not believe he lumped me in with folks who were not trying to make a deal happen,” Corker said. “We wanted to solve the problem in such a manner that the car companies would not have to come back and ask for more money.”
Corker said he was stunned that the UAW did not agree to being competitive with Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and BMW on reduced wages and benefits for active employees. The hangup was the month, day, and year they would go into effect.
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“I went to Washington to try to solve problems,” Corker said, “and I felt like I got within three words of solving this one.”
The growth of Tennessee at Michigan’s expense has been especially robust. The headquarters of Nissan North America is in Smyrna, just south of Nashville. Nissan also has a powertrain assembly plant in Decherd in Middle Tennessee. Volkswagen is building its first U.S. factory in two decades in Chattanooga and expects to turn out 250,000 cars a year in 2012. The granddaddy of them all is GM’s plant in Spring Hill, “the 14th fastest growing city in the United States” according to welcome signs. Adding insult to injury, in Nashville the Tennessee Titans were clinching homefield advantage for the NFL playoffs on this Sunday, while in Detroit the Lions were going 0-15.
Memphis, which was home to a Ford assembly plant until 1959, somehow missed the action. There are a dozen foreign and domestic car factories within 500 miles of Memphis and its 670,000 residents but none within 200 miles, except the future Toyota plant in Tupelo which has been delayed.
Corker said he’s not sure why that is.
“There are some sites in rural West Tennessee trying to get megasite status, and I am committed to working with them,” he said. “We’ve created a niche for ourselves. Companies have seen that they can make money in Tennessee.”
But Middle Tennessee’s party may be toned down for a while. The Spring Hill plant retooled in 2008, aborted the Saturn Vue, and started making a crossover SUV/minivan called the Chevy Traverse instead, just in time for the recession and GM’s imminent bankruptcy. The tours had been canceled and the visitor center was almost empty when we arrived in Spring Hill three days before Christmas. The attendant said the plant was shutting down the next day. The last Traverse would roll off the line just 18 years after the celebrated Saturn debuted.
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In the most optimistic scenario, the plant will reopen in February 2009. In the worst scenario, it will remain closed indefinitely, two decades of prosperity will slowly unwind, and Middle Tennessee will get a taste of what Detroit is going through.
R.I.P., Walter.
Shot 1: Spring Hill
Behind this bucolic white, wooden fence and field sits a General Motors assembly plant, one of the first big Southern victories in the dismantling of Detroit. GM made the announcement in 1985 that it would build the Saturn on a horse farm in Spring Hill, 30 miles south of Nashville. By agreement, the site was dug into the ground behind a berm so that it is nearly invisible from U.S. Highway 31. More than 5,000 people worked at the plant at its peak. The first Saturn rolled off the line in 1990, a model that looks strikingly similar to my daughter’s well-traveled 1995 Saturn. In 2007, the plant stopped making the Saturn Vue, which is now made in Mexico. There is speculation in the Detroit newspapers that GM will soon sell Saturn.
“I think Spring Hill is one of those assets that, even if GM were to go bankrupt, it would survive and thrive,” Corker said.
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Shot 2: Saturn Visitor Center
The visitor center used to be a stable. It displays the very first Saturn manufactured with the joint blessing of the United Auto Workers union and GM management, led at the time by CEO Roger Smith, the subject of filmmaker Michael Moore’s breakthrough movie Roger and Me. Inspirational quotations from Smith are featured on banners hanging from the ceiling. Moore is from Flint, Michigan. Spring Hill is everything Flint is not — a scrubbed, manicured, prosperous place that boomed from 1985 until today. My favorite exhibit in the visitor center is a shopping cart loaded with two bags of groceries and mounted on a motorized track. Push a button and the cart rolls down the track and crashes into a Saturn polymer door panel without leaving a mark.
Shot 3: White Chevy Traverse
This 2009 Chevy Traverse sits outside the visitor center in Spring Hill. It looks sort of lonely, as it should. The last one rolled off the line on December 23, 2008, its life span possibly just one year. Billed as “the crossover where beautiful and useful come together in perfect balance,” it was instead the crossover where overproduction met irrelevance in the perfectly disastrous year of 2008. The list price is $28,000, and it gets 24 miles per gallon on the highway, which GM says is the best in its class. After a brief spike to $4 per gallon, however, the price of gasoline dropped like an axle late last yeat, making fuel economy less urgent. On this day, we filled up for $1.36 a gallon. My son suggested we offer $18,000 to take the Traverse away. I didn’t have the heart.
Shot 4: Decherd water tower
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Like something from The War of the Worlds, this water tower looms over the town of Decherd, home of a Nissan powertrain assembly plant. Decherd is in a beautiful valley about 100 miles southwest of Nashville, between the Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel distilleries. Wages are lower here than they are at the plants in the Midwest, and Decherd looks less prosperous but more authentic than Spring Hill or Smyrna. The little houses are neatly kept but older, and there is a roller-skating rink, drive-in movie theater, locally owned cafes, horse farms, and several impressive-looking fireworks stands not far away. It reminded me, as it probably did Nissan’s site-selection team, of the way small-town America used to look.
Shot 5: Nissan factory in Smyrna
Even Nissan is feeling the pain of the recession. This plant in Smyrna was closed for three days before Christmas. The headquarters of Nissan North America is just outside of Nashville on Interstate 24, halfway to Murfreesboro, and contributes mightily to the Middle Tennessee boom. Residents clogged the interstate for miles on Sunday heading for the Titans-Steelers game. The 1998 Chevrolet Blazer in this picture has nearly 200,000 miles on it and was manufactured in Ohio. If it has a fault, from GM’s perspective at least, it is that it lasted too long, giving its owner little incentive to buy a newer one.
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