Your argument for transplants makes good sense over a Mexican Ford or a Canadian Chrysler.

I guess Detroit will have to fail COMPLETELY for them to change their way – by they I mean the unions and the top level folks making millions.

If that isn’t enough, the import guys more often build what I want to buy.

Skooter – consistently the Toyotas and Hondas around us have lasted MUCH longer than their domestic cousins big and small. YMMV but mine hasn’t.

Where exactly is the 2.8’s response to the Prius, the Versa, the Fit and the Yaris? Oh, right, they were too busy making big bucks on trucks to bother building world class fuel efficient cars.

Skooter– 

You want to blame AMERICANS because they choose what THEY consider value over what YOU think they should buy? Profits going to Japan? GREAT!They deserve to make a buck on their products if they sell them to willing buyers. Then again….

The transplant dealerships here..do THEY make a profit? YES! The parts suppliers, transport companies, salesmen, technicians, dealership personel-do THEY make money with the sales of Japanese-branded nameplates? Of course they do. Do cities and other government entities get tax money from the operations of these transplant dealerships? YES.

Face it–WE DIDNT WANT THE DOMESTIC CARS–to which the factories said–”BFD–We make $$ with out trucks and SUVs anyway.” And now that we dont want their trucks and SUVs..they are LEFT OUT IN THE COLD VIA their OWN bad management and planning. Right now–as we speak…the transplants are now the domestic car industry. 

Are you a GM buyer whose cars may not be built in America by American workers. Any profit that is made on that car (as if!) goes back to RenCen and is paid to Rick and his gang of mobsters making >$10M a year and to overpaid factory workers who on top of it the last bastion of the mob runs the unions – the leftovers go out as dividends to shareholders to keep them happy – and GM begs the gov’t for money to do R&D. GM will build SUVs an cram them down customer’s throats just to keep the factory running. The entire management at GM is basically a bunch of accountants (a customer’s safety is just a statistic to them) and used car salesmen.

Or would you by a Honda or Toyota – companies run by engineers that build cars that are reliable and consistent. Many of these cars are actually made in the US with parts from US suppliers – they can easily change over lines to (and these two companies have helped rebuild many suppliers and tooling companies to make a profit in a global economy) build cars that are in actual demand and not artificial. The profit they make goes back to Japan but is heavily reinvested into the company further pushing the constant development and refinement of their products.

America gives me a choice – I don’t buy into the America manufacturer of Ladas where I have to buy from them regardless b/c I’m told to. I’ll buy the best car for my money and enjoy it. I’ll send my hard earn wealth to a company that will use it wisely and make better profits for the long run.

Using resources to pile up products we don’t need or want is NOT good for our country.

The sooner we get rid of GM the quicker our overall economy will recover from this wealth hole.

I have learned that most people have little concept that wealth is also created and destroyed-that is, it is not a fixed quantity.

I can’t say I can judge for a given company, I don’t have the skills, but it seems that an indigenous company that is conflagrating wealth, removing it from the system is in the long run harmful to the system.
Conversely, a healthy company that is generating new wealth within a system, regardless of where it is based, is helping.

Ergo, a dying company and it’s employees are, to a degree, wards of the productive members of society. (I’m not saying that many in the company aren’t trying to be productive, just that the net result of all company efforts, including the spending of employee wages in the economy, could be a negative for the country. Not slamming individual effort here.)
It maybe necessary to allow the destruction of the company to free up the potentially productive workers to positions that will actually be beneficail to all (including themselves).

I’ve been through this process and know it hurts but I suspect the end result is better than life-support.

This is not meant to get in anyones face, BTW.
Just my honest thoughts.

Sincerely,

Bunter

Off topic, but I’m curious: has TTAC’s new emphasis on T & A shots increased page views? I may have inadvertently clicked a few extra times.

Yes. (That’s our story and we’re sticking with it.)

If it comes down to a choice between the Mexican built Fusion or the American build Accord, I’ll buy American.

As much as I respect my country and the need to keep money flowing, a car is the second-largest purchase I will make (multiple times) throughout my life. Screw getting something that I don’t like/want just because it’s a (re-badged) domestic.

Besides, I’m of the mind that the jobs are more important, especially since the domestics are having serious troubles. Whose to know where these workers will be in 5 years? I can’t imagine Toyota/Honda/Nissan NOT bringing in more work for our country if the demand for more vehicles was there.

In macroeconomic terms, you want the domestic manufactures healthy as there’s a whole-nation effect if they go insolvent, but you don’t want to be simply lining the pockets of executives, shareholders and bankers (which is where profit goes; R&D is function of cost, not profit).

I’ve been thinking about this in great detail recently, as I’m looking to buy a new car and I live in a community that depends, largely, on the viability of GM Oshawa and it’s satellites. I want to buy local, but nothing made in Oshawa really meets my needs. About the closest is the Cambridge-built Matrix, which doesn’t help my community nearly as much.

I can see three options, and it depends upon your location as to what’s most important:
* Buy used and keep 100% of the dollars local, but send none to workers and manufacturers. If your economy isn’t at all dependent on manufacturing, this works best.
* Buy domestic, which at least helps the overall health of the company. This logic works well in Michigan and Ontario more than elsewhere, as those areas’ health swings directly with the big three.
* Buy locally assembled. Sound logic anywhere, but there’s compromises required.

The jobs ratio is just much better that way – more American people are employed, the only real losers are the incompetent fat-cat executives who see the high-level ownership positions go away. If we lose 100 executive positions but gain 1000 line workers, that’s a net gain in my mind. Give me US made any day, overpaid, shortsighted (quarterly results at all costs!) C-level execs can all go screw themselves as far as I’m concerned.