The problem with that is people will give their money to a Japanese automaker when something equally as good is sitting at an American dealership.

But then these same people will screech at GM for laying workers off or wanting to do something about their costs concerning retired workers. As much as I HATE to say this the only thing that is going to wake folks in this country up is if Ford or GM go under completely. Until then people will be satisified getting a paltry amount of jobs and money running into the US economy in the few plants that are over here.

And as far as parts from Mexico and being built in Canada...
Think about this. If we can help better Mexico's economy our immediate neighbor and provide them jobs...there's going to be fewer people crossing over here...

 

GM = owned by guionM

quote of the year.

Don't forget the SSR. You know I am always willing to get in on this slow to market rant.

 

Please provide examples of equally good in the affordable car segment. And don't forget, style and design go a loooooooong way in shifting buyer's opinion.

For all i know, GM just pissed away your money and thousands of other people's money in the form of billions to Fiat. That sure helps our american economy.


I will just pretend I did not see the xenophobic tone of the above paragraph.

 

I would now put the Cobalt up against any Japanese entry level car, and feel confident that Cobalt is the best overall car.

 

Just as a flipside to this, GM is large, bloated and inefficient. It needs nearly double the workers to do the same job in the US as Japanese automakers.

82% parts in the average GM car or truck are domestic content

At Honda, it’s 49%
At Toyota, it’s 41%
Nissan? 38%

I can't speak from BMWs perspective, but Audi has certainly sold itself in terms of parts made in Germany. I would like to find a domestic vehicle that could have factory air conditioner charged and working after 13 years. Whereas my POS Z28 waterpump had to be replaced twice. My power rack and steering had to be replaced twice. My differential had to be rebuilt at 65K miles. From my experience, I hope that BMW only has 11% of its parts made in the US of A.


This is the figure we're interested in. This is what helps the economy.

But no offense, compare the size of Honda to the size of GM. Or Nissan. Only recently have they been growing steadily.

 

SS - yes. But I still feel the regular Cobalt, especially the 4-door, has that appearance of some sort of korean make.

 

My lone sticking point on Cobalt (other than the SS wing being too over-the-top for me) is the looks of the C-pillar area of the sedan.... As I've seen a lot of them on the road now, though, the awkwardness of it is going away.

That said, I'd still put it up against any car in it's class and feel good about it.

 

OK - here we go again. <straps in and flips down face shield>

Some of you just can't seem to see past our borders... or past your wallet either.
There is MORE to life than money, and there is more to "value" than what you spend on an item.

Using an oversimplified example...

Making simple can of spray paint can be a tough thing to do. I know you all have several cans around the house, and use them frequently, so this is a good example.
There's the packaging (cans made from metal, which means furnaces and emissions). There's the pigment (typically a fine powder emulsified in a chemical vehicle for handling and homogeneity) which again brings toxicity and chemical exposure. There's the propellant (which is mostly compressed air in the uS today but some still use aerosols) which again brings chemical exposure and safety risks when dealing with pressure vessels. There's the plastic top and spray nozzle, which are both molded from plastic (again, toxic emissions during molding and dangerous molding processes). Then there's printing the instructions and info on the can (including chemical exposures, presses, etc.) Packaging involves making cardboard from trees, processing, rolling, cutting, glueing, etc (all have their own risks and exposures too).

If we do this process in the US, we have to obey all laws regarding emissions into the environment, disposal of toxic and biohazardous waste, workplace safety, chemical exposure, and the consumer liability issues of chemical exposure, poisoning, and product mis0use and/or failure. OSHA is involved. EPA is involved. Consumer Products Commission is involved. Local, State, and Federal laws must be followed, etc.

So Krylon, DupliColor, PPG, Rustoleum, and others make a good product, that adheres to all rules, is safe to the environment, is safe to the end user, was safe for the employees involved in making it (from the employees at the steel foundry to the employees at carboard box manufacturer), and the company can still turn a profit if the can retails for $2.79.

However, the HungChow Chemical Company of China, known for having 50% of it's workforce die from black lung in the last 10 years and also for the high rate of birth defects in the town the operate in, has decided to start selling ChopStix Spray Paint in the US. They find some greedy importer willing to sell anything to anybody that has money. They get their importer to ship the product to Mexico in bulk, where it is repackaged into cans and boxes, then shipped to the US as a Mexican product - thereby exempt from Tarrif under the NAFTA treaty. It hits the shelf at BigLots as a clearinghouse merchant and sells for $.88/can under some name you have never heard of.

Given those two scenarios, if you tell me you are morally, ethically, and economically correct for buying the .88/can paint because it was just as good as the $2.79 can and costs less - YOU ARE SICK IN THE HEAD
Maybe value to you, but not in the overall picture. Because you -innocent you - just contributed to chemical pollution and environmental pollution in China (which is still essentially unregulated), you just contributed to killing some Chinese workers that are inhaling carcinogens at the paint plant that requires no respirators, no masks, no filtration systems, and is not required to disclose to their employees that the air is killing them. You contributed to the dumping of chemicals in the populations water supply that is causing birth defects. You contribute to promoting of child labor and even slave labor in some situations. You contributed to and supported corruption by bypassing of trade regulations. So in short, you saved $1.91 on your can of paint, but cost the rest of the world in environmental pollution, health, safety, and morality, not to mention the US workers you helped put out of a job since Krylon had to cut back from lost sales to imports.
Yeah, nice trade-off there. If you can do that and your coscience doesn't bother you a bit - GREAT.
I'm happy for you, but I don't want anything to do with you, and frankly I wish you'd move to China.

Same thing applies in cars, food, oil, and everything else traded internationally. The only spin on the cars is that some of them are now being ASSEMBLED in the US - albeit still from parts mostly made in sweatshops and unregulated countries overseas. Granted, Toyota may employ 5000 people at their plant in Kansas. And they may create 2000 more support jobs in the local area. BIG FRIGGIN WHOOP. What about the 250,000 employees at Ford, GM, Chrysler, Oldsmobile, Dodge, Lincoln, Mercury, Cadillac, Jeep, AMC, Eagle, GMC, Plymouth, Buick, and the numerous other American-based companies that have lost their jobs due to the lopsided foreign trade practices? What about all the steel-mill towns like Pittsburgh that are like ghost-towns with huge empty mills and desolate downtowns? What about the entire city of Detroit - with all the empty lots, condemned buildings, and empty manufacturing space? Not to mention the 100's of thousands of small business owners that supplied these big companies with everything from labor to office supplies to parts to food? For the last 20 years, as the market share has gone from 10% imports to over 40% imports, we have seen the auto industry and all related thereto simply crumble.

Same goes for the textile industry. The electronics industry. And soon to come, the technology sector. Just keep pushing those jobs offshore... I'm supposed to believe that "somehow it will all work out." Somehow.
Do me a favor - go preach this BS-story to the Romans... Rome was infallible and was going to last forever too... rule the world.

Some of you have a great view of the situation... at least as far as your own wallet or your own street is concerned. But I am telling you from first-hand experience, the world that you refuse to see is far more cruel and viscious that you want to believe, and these foreign countries COULD CARE LESS ABOUT YOU. All they want is your money, and they are always trying to figure out a way to screw you out of it. Their governments are not going to legislate clean air acts or workplace safety or environmental regulations - they could care less... their governments are just as crooked as the big industries they support (most have people with mutual interests running both big business AND the government anyways - anybody hear about China's bid for Conoco oil?).

The ONLY WAY I would even consider foreign trade or foreign products is with a level playing field - meaning the country I trade with MUST adopt the same rules and regulations as my country with regards to workplace safety, environmental conservation, and consumer safety. If they will play by the same rules of good stewardship and morality that I do, I will invite them to my party - otherwise they can kiss my Proud-American -****... my money stays at home.

Before you start throwing back the flames, let me just say that I LIVE THIS SH1+... DAILY. I spent 2 hours on the phone yesterday with Wigan England discussing machine trades with US plants. I spent 1 hour on the phone with a company in Coburg Germany discussing delivery on machines they are making for our next plant in China. I emailed our Chinese operations to see how things are going and what progress has been made there. I deal with Venezuela, Taiwan, England, the Netherlands, China, and others on a daily basis. I've been to these places, I deal with their policy-makers, their governments, and their people. I see the situations first-hand, not in some filtered 30-second news reel. I actually argued with the plant manager in our Venezuela facility about the safety of the machines they were operating - they violated numerous of our safety regulations, but he insisted I allow him to run them because he already had product sold and needed to meet the deadline. Even after I warned him that if one of these machines exploded it would likely kill the operator (it has in the past), he still insisted that I give him permissionn to run them and promised they would "be careful". And this is our PLANT MANAGER!!! Life is cheap in Venezuela... about $8400 to the widow and you move on. I know of a situation where a company paid about $14,000 to the widow of a Chinese worker that was killed on our jobsite in China earlier this year - he fell from a beam without any safety gear on. That's it - it's done - move on. THAT'S THEIR WAY. Well, it's not mine.

So you guys bring it on - I'll take all comers and all arguments...
But you better bring the A-game boys... I'm getting tired of trying to repel the BS that the media spews forth. I'm tired of trying to convince the layperson that Wal-Mart is not the greatest thing ever. I'm tired of trying to convince the average Joe that just buying his one vehicle can make a difference. I think sometimes people don't WANT to know the whole truth - maybe it's like Jack said... "they can't HANDLE the truth".
Scott posted a great start a week ago... I'll just get some of our data together to further back him up - because he was SPOT-ON.

PLEASE - Open your eyes and LOOK at what's going on in the world as opposed to just your little window in the corner.

 

I don't have any problem with people buying what's best for them. However, I do have a HUGE problem with three things:

1. The seeming delight that people take in GM's demise (or Ford, for that matter). Oh, yay! GM is going down! They deserved it! They sold me a car twenty-seven years ago that was a POS! It's like someone cutting off their hand and then celebrating getting gangrene from the wound. Guys, we should NOT be happy about one of the largest segments of the economy going down.

2. The portrayal of buying an import as being the same for the economy. See the above numbers. Sorry, guys, those are real. Enjoy whatever you buy . . . just don't try to tell yourself buying an import is the same as buying American, even if it's made here.

3. The unwillingness to even LOOK at a GM/Ford/DCX product. I know literally dozens of people who won't even go into a domestic dealer at all. Why? Because American cars are crapboxes, of course. Everyone knows that! And they're going down, anyway, so why bother? Lots of good cars are being ignored.

I've always been one of the first to bitch about GM's stupid sticker prices and rebate mania and ongoing examples of cheapness and stupidity (like the black interior on the STS), so it's not exactly like I'm a cheerleader for the cause . . . but the ongoing import bias/justification/rationalization just gets under my skin.

End vent. Returning to regular programming.

 

Are you the kind of person that will allow your child to die from meningitis because your religious faith claims that God made the baby and God's will is going to control the child's destiny?
Do you have faith that you will always have a roof over your head and a meal to eat, so you don't need a job - it's just a convenience to get things you may want - not need?
Do you have faith that all people are good-hearted and people from another nation would never want to invade the US, so our national defenses are really a waste of time and money?

Faith is one thing, stupidity is another, but is closely related to faith IMO.

For capitalism to work, all players are supposed to be exposed to the same conditions and abide by the same laws and regulations (be they laws of physics or laws of commerce).

When one party opts NOT to abide by the rules, they skew the model of capitalism - sometimes to the point of collapse.
Want a good example? Look at the illegal drug market... anywhere. You provide the best "stuff" for the right price, and you develop a huge market that belongs to you. You are set, right? WRONG - because the next thug down the street gets pizzed and pops a cap in your ****... you die, and so does your distribution system. Now the thug down the street has a shot at it with his price and his product, which may or may not be the best or have the best price. Now, did the best product at the best price win?
Capitalism = failed. Happens every day.

 

A big double- to that statement!

Nice post.

 

AMEN!!!

I too am in a similar situation in that I sell machine tools to all types of machine shops across Iowa/Nebraska. I sell high end machine tools (And Yes they are Japenese models) such as lathes, machining centers, grinders ect. but these are the best in the world. I spend my entire waking moments of the day selling these things not as stand alone units but I'm also pushing automation on EVERYTHING. By teaching our shops and manufacturers how to get lean and make high quality parts for cheap I'm keeping jobs in America! EVERY SINGLE SHOP I go into the conversations go to "Well, I might loose this to China because..." and then I jump in. Sometimes its to late but other times I'm able to turn things around for these operators and in one case we were able to bring jobs back over here that were previously lost. Alot of these people I sell to supply parts not just to the automotive industry but also farming, food prep machines, plastics, government ect...

What I'm trying to get at is this... I try and purchase American products whenever I can but if this country is going to survive we need to figure out ways to make ourselves more efficient and cheaper in the global market. This starts with the american worker and follows through to the managers that run the plant and the owners of said corporations. Lets learn to eliminate some jobs while creating others by changing the way we do things in this country. 2 Weeks ago I went into a machine shop and I witnessed guys just sitting around on there duff and one guy was actually sleeping on his work bench with a book over his face when he should of been working! and then people want to know why jobs are leaving! My proposal is going to include a new machine with a robot that can run 24 hours a day so long as it has product and that robot is going to run two machines at the same time! So yeah, that guy is going to loose his job but I just created another job for an engineer who will run that cell through computers as well as Two other cells! all while cutting back to 2 shifts rather than 3 and I increased production by 30%!!! Oh, and his machine payback will be 5 months!!! not bad for his $400K investment!

Lets get with it America!!!

 

Capitalism at its most efficient creates maximum wealth disparity and what should be considered a broken society from 21st century terms.

I am not a big fan of losing all of the industrial capacity in the United States.

When I was in Ecuador during the month of May I had an interesting discussion with a German about globalization. We both felt that it probably was not in fact necessarilly a good thing for the Western nations that are already economic powers. He relayed a few interesting stories about jobs being outsourced to Czechs. Even certain jobs for the government! Ah well. If the guys at the top in the US and Germany get rich from globalization, it must be a good thing.

I'm not sure what my post has to do with bumper stickers so far...

I am not going to call people that drive imports hypocrites when they put an American flag on their car (although they are pretty close). What is even sadder then these people driving the import is that the flag was probably made in China.

 

Thats why I put this in here..some of the most thought provoking thoughts have been said right here..

WOW..

Proud Pony..WOW

 

ProudPony your post was way too long for me to take the time to read.

I'm as American as the next guy - more so than many. I swing to the conservative side of most political issues, and have been active duty USN for over 21 years. But I feel no obligation what-so-ever to buy a "lesser" vehicle simply because it is made by a US company. That doesn't mean that the new cars are indeed lesser - but Ford and GM will need to do more than wave the flag to get me as a paying customer.