Adam4356

i think you ignore the japanese market. GM is profitable in all foreign countries except here.

A focus solely on product is how the competition is fought. Tariffs in theory should prevent imports or at the least cause them to be higher priced and less desirable.

The foreign automakers laughed at the tariff and worked around it out smarting everything we had. Fool us once, shame on us, fool us twice.....

The big three can be competitive on product alone and they need to do it here first. Penetration into other protective foreign markets can be a future goal they can pursue once healthy for the fight.

Robert_Nashville

I don't have time to do it for you - the data is there; I just suggested two sources; there are many more.


It's hard to keep up with your argument when you keep changing it; now I guess we've gone from printing money to leveling the playing field and tariffs.

Tariffs are THE reason the transplant facilities are in the U.S. in the first place...do you really think more of the same is going to give a different result?

People didn't stop buying Detroit products overnight; Detroit lost its market because Detroit chose not to compete - there isn't a single thing wrong with Detroit that Detroit couldn't have fixed on its own (supposed subsidies of foreign brands notwithstanding) and there is no reason why Detroit can't go toe to tow with ANY other manufacturer (even subsidized ones) and win the battle for customers other than its own lack of will.

Robert_Nashville

You know; that is an excellent point...if the Detroit Three had truly competed here, in their "home" market; there is no reason why they couldn't be so profitable here that they wouldn't need a foreign market presence at all or at least could pursue foreign markets from a position of strength.

Z28x

I had a feeling you just made the information up and don't have a source. I also don't have the data, but it is my understanding that from about 1850 - 1975 the USA ran mostly trade surpluses. We made a lot of money selling great products and natural resources to other nations. Back in the 1930's the US was the Saudi Arabia of the oil industry. We used to be the worlds largest oil exporter.

Robert_Nashville

I prefer to give fishing poles to people; not do the fishing for them.

It's probably just as well you not waste your time researching as I doubt you would change your mind regardless of what data you found.

92RS shearn

Here is some data that goes back to 1960. Looks like we did have a trade surplus for all of the 60's and a couple years in the 70's. From then on it just gets ugly.

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/...ical/gands.pdf

Darth Xed

An interesting response from someone whose favorite lines are"What's your source?" and "Where's the proof?" (paraphrasing because, well, I don't have time to look up your exact quotes. ) :blah:

Robert_Nashville

Unlike the responses I typically get after asking that type of question; I provided several sources for the data.

Not everything can be reduced to a single web link nor can an adult lifetime of living this kind of data be reduced to a paragraph in an internet board.

Darth Xed

And yet.... you try to do this very thing, just with a different viewpoint.

Robert_Nashville

Try to do what "very thing"?

Do you have a real point to make here or do you just want to argue?

Darth Xed

Not everything can be reduced to a single web link nor can an adult lifetime of living this kind of data be reduced to a paragraph in an internet board.


Hello, Pot? This is the Kettle...

Robert_Nashville

I guess it takes a mind like yours to equate providing no data of any kind (which is the usual results to my queries for sources) with my providing two separate links and three suggested authors when the question was posed to me in this thread.

Since you decided to jump into the thread; I'm sure you have a great handle on the topic that was being discussed...perhaps you would care to elaborate on the meaning and importance of the U.S. balance of trade and the consequences and benefits of carrying a surplus and/or a deficit?

Eric Bryant

Trade deficits can be maintained if one's country creates enough wealth to increase both its own prosperity and that of the rest of the world in an amount sufficiently greater than the deficit.

Anyone who would argue that we're in a position to do so today has probably been sleeping since the 60s.

Robert_Nashville

People far smarter than I (or you, Eric…no offense) would state that there is nothing neither inherently “good” with a trade surplus nor inherently “bad” about running a trade deficit.

Those same people will also cite that even with many decades of trade deficits, the U.S. economy was creating jobs and still THE economy the rest of the world wanted to and did invest in…unfortunately, the ridiculous housing bubble, which fueled a lot of the recent economic boom we were enjoying, finally burst (as it was always destined to do).

But even taking the downturn of the past 8-12 months into consideration, and going back to the original post about the current trade deficit, I suggested earlier in the thread, and it’s never been challenged, that much of this year’s deficit is due to the record high crude oil prices…take that away and I would suggest that the number would not look so frightening.