Detroit’s Delphic Oracle
I consulted the Oracle at Delphi. Two different Delphis here, the auto parts manufacturer in Detroit and the ancient Greek city on Mount Parnassus. I was on Mount Parnassus, which is pretty rocky for street shoes and it turned out the Oracle was out for lunch, wouldn’t be back until two. Divining the future is union work these days.
But I was there to have the future divined for me about that other Delphi, the one in the auto parts business that plans to cut employee wages 75% so they can survive, if you can call that survival. The Oracle, in fact, confirmed my deepest suspicions. Said it was determined by the Board of Directors to be more cost efficient to turn their present employees into third-world wage earners than to actually physically move the plants to the third world. Besides, (most) present employees already spoke reasonable English. I asked him how he knew such modern lingo. "Hey," he said, "go with the flow is axiomatic in the oracle business."
When I asked how Delphi had …