The other day I saw a neat little American flag sticker with the words "Believe In America", The irony of course was that it was in the window of someone's Honda Civic in the work parking lot.
I work at an American Owned Manufacturing company that has a great deal of its development, corporate, sales, manufacturing, etc in the United States. Therefore they/we generate a lot of tax dollars and jobs for America. This is a good thing, but what concerns me is that many of these employees that traditionally would have been American Manufacturing advocates and supporters are now driving non-American product. They seem to agree with Stossel's view.
Stossel Buy American Dumb Idea
Of course, the irony is that if everyone optimizes to get the most value at the lowest cost, then there will be less money available to spend, since companies have to have revenues in order to pay personnel. Stossel seems to avoid that side of the equation totally.
Of course Obama's policies are about punishing American companies for trying to reduce costs and stay competitive. (ie prevent writing off plant closure expenses) And about spending Tax dollars to help subsidize GM and its workers. So I am not sure what he is thinking?
It is kind of funny that no where in the campaign did any of the candidates stress the importance of American's buying American if they want to save American jobs. As one of my friends said " soon we will all be selling carpet to each other", and I don't think that pays too well... The upside is we won't need to be good at math or science...
Thoughts?
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6 comments:
Interesting how this one drew no comments. Guilty consciences?
By the way, my vehicles and toys are about 50% domestic and 50% foreign. I try to buy the American product if one is offered, but I won't hesitate buying foreign if the USA producers don't offer it.
My cycle is a good example. Yamaha FJR1300 Harley still doesn't offer a sport touring.
I just find it amusing that most of the die hard Liberals I know own Toyota, Honda, Subaru or VW... So much for supporting American industry and workers.
There are no comments because it's obvious you didn't listen to the Vice Presiden't speech at the convention.
Your last statement is also not based in fact, as many of the Japanese auto makers have set up assembly plants in the U.S. employing U.S. workers.
Of course I didn't listen to the Vice Presidents convention speech, though I can now if there is something I should learn from it. What am I looking for?
By the way, you said my favorite words... Assembly Plants... Don't you ever wonder why Toyota, Honda, etc were impacted the most after the tsunami?
Here is some back ground.
G2A Made in America: The Myth?
By the way, from what I understand Honda is the only brand with a significant design center here. And it still tiny compared to the domestics.
The Vice President's speech was about betting on America. Too bad you missed it.
I know the Toyota Camry is produced in Lafayette IN. Honda has several here in OH and IN, I believe.
It is never too late in our modern world. I hope I am not going to be asking you for 38 minutes of my life back...
Youtube Biden DNC 2012
I fully accept that most car manufacturers have domestic assembly facilities and some other support/development staff here, however as the link explains most of the money still heads back to their home country and foreign jobs.
I had better start listening to Joe...
Okay I only made it 30 minutes... But I saw the GM portion if that was what you are talking about.
Here are a couple of articles by business folks that should hopefully cause you to pause and at least question what Obama & Joe are claiming.
Forbes GM Headed for Bankruptcy Again
WSJ UAW's Bailout
It turns out that Obama's solution may have been worse than if he had let them go through a typical bankruptcy. Since the govt's solution moved too much of the settlement to the UAW and it didn't force the UAW workers to accept big enough cuts in compensation across the board to make them competitive with the domestic plants of the foreign competitors. (bummer)
The problem with this is that if you are paying your employees too much, your car costs too much. If your car costs too much your margins are too low. Therefore you don't have enough money to hire and pay all those smart and highly educated development personnel that you need to have the best cars on the road. (double bummer)
And on top of this, you are in a culture that will only buy the best car for the money, no matter how many American jobs it costs the country. Which brings us back to the post topic...(triple bummer)
One more note, there are some Manufacturing Engineers, Accountants, Buyers, IT folks, etc in the assembly plants of the Foreign Manufacturers. However I am pretty certain the vast majority are traditional blue collar execution jobs. Which is great for the communities near by since they pay a lot more than a burger joint. However most of the college educated jobs are overseas.
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