I'm all for that, and I applaude you for attempting to provide some proof.

If you don't feel that it matters in making a decision, that is you're choice, and perfectly acceptible.... however, I think multi-million dollar contributions as well as hundreds of vehicles donated and other actions are quite substantial.

That is probably a fair statement... however, it is a fairly large gap between the domestics and the listed import manufacturers....

That may be the case, but then that just means the information provided/available is not complete.


.
.
.
The thing that gets me most is how people who own imports are so quick to dismiss anything good that domestic manufacturers do for the American workers and/or people... yet, are so quick to defend everything the import brands do (or do not as the case may be)...

I suppose it's all part of justifying the decision to purchase an import...

 

Wow, this thread is still going? Funny, actually thought about it yesterday. Saw a Nissan with US Marine sticker on the back with a bunch of "support our troop" ribbons. Awesome to see!

-B

 

Frankly, I've never felt the need to "justify" my purchasing decision.

The whole basis underlying my original question (should we "buy American") was is to point out that there really ins't any such thing as a truly "American" car today (no matter what nameplate is on it)...from the initial design to much if not all of the tooling to the parts and raw material suppliers, to where the vehicles are manufacturered and the nationality of those doing the manufacturing; it's highly homoginized...if you get past the nameplate; it really becomes a "non-argument".

What I've maintained all along is that the "good old days" of the 50's/60's when it was easy to define a domestic from an inport are LONG gone. We can lament that, but pretending it isn't true doesn't change anything.

As someone who has owned many nameplates and who vividly remembers the cars of the 60's/70's/80's, I'm glad for the competition that forced the domestic industry to change its ways - it's made and will continue to make ALL manufacturers do a better job than they would have otherwise.

As I've said, I'm not saying the contributions are unimportant or unimpressive; only that per my original topic, it, in my opinion, misses the point.

 

i just had to proof-read a paper my gf did on Toyota for an ACC class.

i was surprised to learn that all through the 80s, 90s, and up to now, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda had the lowest # of hours to produce each vehicle than GM, Ford, etc. That blew my mind. and please note I've never owned a japanese car, i had a 77 Nova, a Monte Carlo and now a Z28, so as you can see, i like GM.

BUT US automakers can't even get their efficiency ratio down to compete w/ the imports. She wrote about how Toyota organizes their workers into squads, or teams, and each one can do the other's job, and they often switch positions to avoid getting burned out on the assembly line.
They also get paid less, and unions are almost illegal in japan, but that does not explain how they are able to do that here, with American workers.

Chris is also right about the competition helping GM. It seems a lot of people blame toyota, honda, etc for troubles at GM, Ford, etc. But if these imports were banned from being made here, then GM and Ford would have no reason to improve quality, except in relation to each other...

Also, it is true that they build plants here to make a profit, not to spread the love. but OUR gov gave them BIG BIG BIG tax breaks to build those plants here. They also avoid the tariffs, which even at 20% are not as high as the tariffs on US cars in Japan. A regular Camaro costs about $45,000 in Japan!! and gas is $6/gallon. AND their gov also does some CRAZY **** to their own people, like demanding a "safety check" that costs like $2,000 every two years. That and other crazy regulations promote people buying cars every 2-4 years there... all designed to benefit their auto makers with more frequent car purchases at the people's expense.

There are many problems in the way of competing w/ them, but the true blame also lies with decisions in our own gov, and the fact that US automakers have struggled to compete with the quality of imports. Why is that? High US wages and benefits have a lot to do with it. I'm sure the Camaro would have been built better if they could have afforded to do so....but the question is why can't they? The masses will always buy the car that has better quality and resale value for the price, style, etc.

 

This =

Again, this, what you just typed, is called justification.

 

You may feel I need to "justify" something; I don't - I don't feel the need to justify my vehicle purchases to you or anyone else; when someone else starts paying my bills THEN they can question what vehicle I choose to buy and what nameplate is ont it.

All I wanted with this thread was an honest discussion about the concept of "Foreign Vs Domestic" vehicles, hopefully based on actual facts and not feelings...apparently that was too much to expect.

 

I'm older than you are.
I've been paying in to SocSec since 1978. I'm fully vested, and will receive benefits in 2033 if I live that long, there is money to get, and I am qualified by the guidelines in place at that time. That warm bit of knowledge right from the SocSec statement I got last month.

I have seen the foreign trade deficit grow exponentially. At first, everything was made in Japan (1970's). Pencils, clothes, cars, calculators, forks - you name it. The joke of the day was "the world was made in Japan". Then it moved to Taiwan - everything was made there. Then to Malaysia. NOW, everything is coming out of China. The "work" of manufacturing moves from country to country, following cheap labor and unregulated behaviors (like dumping, emmissions, and safety). Once civility catches up to the country that grows from the economic boom, they decide to regulate for the safety of their people and ecology, the big businesses go find another place to run to. Our trade deficit continues to grow because we keep allowing our companies to country-hop in persuit of unethical profit-taking (yes, unethical - to me, making and extra dollar at the risk of an Asian life, or allowing a man to inhale sulfur-dioxide because there is no EPA to stop you from doing so is unethical). The trade deficit is a real threat, but it is like asbestosis - by the time you diagnose the problem you are too far gone to save. We are basically releasing our nations naturals resources and wealth to other nations through dollar exchange - not good.

Despite getting a few raises, increases, and a job change a few years ago (at my option and for the better - not a layoff) I have to say that things are NOT better for me or anyone that I know.
You say "...we are better off finiancially as a nation than we've ever been in terms of total number of jobs and average wages, standard of living, etc. Stock market is near all time highs..."
Well, I'm EXISTING, but I'm not setting the world on fire. Better off?!?! No way.
My 401K STILL is not back to where it was in 1999 - despite the DOW breaching 10,700.
You do know we broke 14,000 back in 2000 right? The Dow reached 4000 too. But you think the market is near all-time highs now? ... when?

I am making more money (on paper) than I ever have. Today I am making $44,000 more than I was in 1999 and I was doing great back then - but do you know I am not seeing ANY of it in my savings or asset generation? It's being consumed in family support (wife lost scheduling/planning job at Sara Lee - it was sent to Costa Rica and she hasn't been hired by anyone else yet), insurance costs (health care for my wife, daughter, and myself has TRIPLED since 1999 from $99/month to $267/month), and inflation (the Mustang GT that was $17k is now $24k, etc).
You know, I don't even begrudge paying taxes, despite being in a much higher bracket. It's the other costs that I hate, and have such a hard time coping with. Why do I pay such a high insurance premium and belong to a prescription plan, only to go to the doctor and get socked for a $20 copay, then go to a pharmacy and pay $30 for 6 pills in a Z-pac to knock-out a sinus infection? Thats $8/pill out of my pocket AFTER insurance pays it's share to get me better?!?!
If I am lucky, I MIGHT see a 2% increase this year, after 3 years of locked salaries due to poor business conditions here where I work. Inflation is outrunning our salaries alone, without factoring the increased costs of insurance, dental, prescription, orthodontal, and other living costs. Throw in the price of gas to commute to/from work, the cost of clothes, and other business related necessities, and I am definitely going BACKWARDS - not forward. Saving for my kids college? Yeah. How 'bout existing.

I have 6 people in my immediate family that are able/capable of working...
1) Me - working like a friggin DOG - 65 hours this week, and going to Germany for a week of 12-hour days and hotel life next week (on a 40-hour salary).
2) Wife - lost job at Sara Lee after 13 years as a scheduler/planner making in the high $40s. She can't find anything without relocating and I am killing that idea because of my career.
3) Brother-in-law - layed-off from Alltel as a regional manager over 20+ stores. Simply cutting back on middle-management, after 15 years of service and dedication.
4) Sister - layed off from US AIR reservation center - only layed off after taking 3 salary cuts from 8% to 15% each time over the last few years, and 17 years of service.
5) Niece 1 - Layed off from Tyco Electronics during the Dennis Kozlowski episode - looked for a job for months and decided to go back to college in physical therapy field.
6) Niece 2 - Jumping from job-to-job as hostess/waitress at upscale restaurants in Atlanta - at Hooligan's the last I heard from her. She just takes it in stride.

So please, explain to me in great detail just how "wonderful" our economy is again? I have 6 college-educated folks in my family, 4 in need of work and 1 wanting to find better - and they are all out of work or unhappy with what they were able to find, and I am working myself into an early death because I am a capable individual and my company has decided that I can do the work of all the engineers around me that have retired, left, or been let go in the last 5 years. (I am doing the same work that 4 people were doing before I came here.)

If I were the teeny-bopper that just left McDonalds at $6.50/hr for a $30k salaried job and benefits, I guess I'd think life was sweet too. But for the hard-working folks who had the $30-50k job and are now replacing the kid at McDonalds for $6.50 - this sh1+ stinks!!!
And no, I don't care if Toyota is paying $14/hr to the man who will have carpal-tunnel and tendonitis because he has to run a screw gun 12-hours a day every day - his health isn't worth it.

A statistics professor told me that a person who is good with numbers can make them say anything he wants them to, depending on how he presents them. AMEN to that. These economists and stock market analysts are the masters at baffling the American Public with pure fabricated bullch1+, and the public swallows it hook, line, and sinker. Just keep buying the foreign crap.

We became the world's greatest nation on sovereignty. We were not buying the majority of our steel from Europe and Asia when we were building our ships in WWI and WWII. We did not execute foreign trade for aluminum when we were building airplanes - we smelted it right here in the USA with Reynolds and Alcoa. We produced tires, chains, and everything else here. Guns, trucks, trains, ships, clothes, boots, hats, and underwear. If we had the intention, we could have conquered the world in 1945 - but we didn't, we took the higher moral ground and GAVE our money to the countries that declared war on US - rebuilding Germany and Japan, supporting Russia and France, and we are still doing it today. We give away billion$ to a nation when a natural disaster strikes, yet we sit idly by and let that same nation withold export tariffs from shipments of sub-par quality goods they are sending to "dump" into the US market, and won't even let our US companies sell their goods in that nation on free market trade.

My advice to all the "globalists" out there is this... hope you die soon and happy, because if you don't you will live to see the day that an American is no more significant than an African tribesman, a Malyasian fisherman, or a Chinese rice farmer when it comes to global stature, significance, or pride. We will all dissolve into global "parity" and share wealth, costs, and economies - except for the wealthy who will have a club all unto themselves.

 

It isn’t just Japanese nameplates in Japan that are more efficient - although there are some individual plants belonging to the traditional Big 3 domestic manufacturers that have become VERY efficient in recent years, the Harbour Report has consistently ranked the Japanese transplant nameplates (those plants in North America) more efficient/productive than the domestic nameplates.

A dirty little and not very well kept secret in the industry is that you can take the exact same worker (former Ford, GM, Chrysler employee), put him/her doing the same job in a Nissan or Toyota or Honda plant in the US and you still get a more productive plant than the domestic plant that worker came from.

Certainly, some of the reason for this is undoubtedly "management" but I believe a lot of the blame for that disparity rests squarely at the feet of the UAW and perhaps more importantly, on the "union mindset"...by that I mean, the mindset that going on strike and putting an employer out is business rather than take a $0.05/hour pay cut is called a "victory" because the union didn't give in.

The domestics have made great strides but are still behind the transplants; again, benefits I believe we wouldn't have seen were it not for competition.

 

We've been hearing all this doom and gloom "America is declining" crap for years and we're stronger econmically than EVER. Sorry, I don't buy it. Globalization has made us more prosperous,not less.

Do you know the square footage of the average american home has doubled in the last 35 years? That's a DIRECT increase in standard of living right there. Even our poor live more well off than most people did and do under Communist rule, for example.

 

No one has yet to prove me wrong in my assertion that this whole "its where the profits go" crap is totally naive and oversimplified.

The anti-globalizationists tell us that there are no more "US" companies anymroe anyway, they are all multinational now. So to be totally loyal, maybe we shouldn't buy any cars at all from anyone?

Seriously, where do GM profits go. They go back into capitalization of new products, plants, new hires, and advertising, etc. Whatever pure profit is made goes back to the shareholders, which are all over the planet, just like the Japanese companies. The money does not go back and sit in some big room at GM HQ in Michigan, nor does it directly benefit the little man no matter where the HQ is, unless he happens to own the company stock.

This "where do the profits" go is what is called a RED HERRING, sorry folks, it doesn't wash. Sounds good but when you are pushed for evidence it collapses.

Everyone has missed the fact that big business doesn't generate a whole lot of jobs in our economy. Its a fact that small businesses, classified as companies with under 500 workers, create over 98% of ALL new employment in the US. The stat is available from the Small Business Administration. The relative location of an auto manufacturer is pretty irrelevant when you understand how miniscule their role is in our economy vs millions of small businesses out there that comprise most of the workforce.

The issue of tax breaks and incentives for companies to build new facilities is an interesting one. This is done for domestic operations too, it just doesn't get the publicity as "tax breaks for rich foreign devils" does. The fact is that this is not money GIVEN to the company, its usually just reduced rates they will pay in taxes for a set future period of time.

But, w/o this, they'd go somewhere else. I think it is worth getting the jobs in your state, because each one of those employees is going to pay federal taxes, state taxes, property taxes, etc. So you still increase your tax base and hopefully raise the average prevailing household income of the community in which the plant locates.

In the end, buy what you want to buy, your decision is NOT going to cause the sky to fall. On the contrary, making smart decisions as a consumer is always good for the economy and leads to economic growth. Japanese cars make my favorite GM cars BETTER, and I'm glad for that.

 

This is true, the sky won't fall. If too many people think like this, the only thing that will be falling/failing is our economy.

But what's the big deal in that?......

 

Would we all agree that the follwoing is true... or no?

Buying a domestic brand is not the same it used to be... but, wouldn't you have to say that while that is true, buying a domestic brand still helps the American economy moreso than buying an import brand... even if the gap is not as much as some of us want to think?

I think this has to hold more water than the traditional "all or nothing" approach.

 

I would say yes, except for one thing:

The end consumer makes a choice on what makes the most fiscal sense for his family. If I save money buying the import and that frees money up to do other things like go to a movie or buy some new clothes for the kids or whaever, that aggregate spending helps the economy more than the relative choice of a domestic over a foreign name brand that may or may not be built here.

I don't see you guys (Not you specifically Darth, just all the anti-growth people) going out to give a rash of crap to everyone that buys a foreign built GTO, but then I guess the "profits" eventually make their way back to Detriot after filtering through Holden, etc. etc. etc., right?

 

A little OT but I love this line:

"The history of the American military and economy in the 20th century is one of being habitually underestimated..." Includes listing several instances which are eye opening.

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson...0502250748.asp

 

But that's just it, there is no scenario like that. No matter what segment you look at in the US automotive market, there is an equal or greater valued American (even if only by name) product. Period.

It's not as cut and dried as either side wants to make it, this is for sure. But for anyone to say anything even remotely close as to how import based companies can be as American as the American companies are, is just false, no matter how you want to distort (and ultimately create a false reality to your liking) the truth by justifying.