by Rob Spiegel
You size it up first in economics, and not
how the decision leaves a trail of damage.
The Chinese, of course, are the beneficiaries.
You tried to justify it as your contribution
to the rise of the Asian middle class, but you
know how everybody feels in Cleveland, and
you’ll never get the chance to see the Chinese
peasant tell his wife how things are gonna change.
For the company, it’s a shareholder’s bonanza.
But you don’t know the shareholders or the
Chinese peasant. You know Cleveland and
mortgages that won’t get paid and friends of thirty years.
When the employees gathered in the plant you told the
truth, their jobs gone, no elaboration, nothing more to say.
Rob Spiegel is a journalist living in New Mexico. His work has appeared in a ton of magazines, including Milk Money and True Confessions.
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