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See the problem with this logic is that you think making widgets is a stationary thing that it is not changing...it did and still does. We are and should be a progressive society, only way to survive.
Most of the jobs that moved to China were low level paying labor intensive jobs and not many skilled people were involved. This forced the remaining companies to improve - so we invented automation.
People in recent generation had to adapt and change job skills and many did not want to. Manufacturing is more and more an automated process, so this makes it feasible to make parts in America again - since we have better resources & infrastructure (for most part).
Biggest problem we have right now is when our kids get a college degree with no realistic job in mind, a diploma that is only good for decorating mom's fridge. Our lack of advancement right now is due to our lack of engineers and technical trades, because many entitled kids think it is is too hard...
Creative engineering minds repeatedly open the door to new technologies, which will increase everybody's life quality.
I do have faith in our American creativity, best efforts seem to almost always show up under pressure.
Our lack of advancement is because American companies want to hire people at wages that are too low to make a good living. If there were truly a lack of workers, then the wages of those workers should rise to provide an incentive to enter the market.
Read Skills Don't Pay the Bills in the New York Times. It is a good insight to what is going on in manufacturing.
I don't get why people celebrate the fact that Americans don't build anything any more and that practically everything we use comes from china. Even so called Japanese goods are made in china now. These same people boast about an American made Japanese car that was most likely produced in a southern right to work state that rolled out the red carpet with tax incentives and or free land but hate a domestic company for getting aid from the government.
The Japanese came in here and destroyed our electronics industry then the Koreans behind them. No more magnavox no more zenith no more RCA. It was all Sony toshiba pioneer. Now it's Samsung and lg. they protect their home markets. An American firm can't go over there and build a plant and start pumping out goods and their population is very homerish anyway.
But not Americans. We're smart. We hate our fellow factory workers and want them all out of work because that's better for the country. They should have just built better products at half the cost. It's their fault.
Detroit or Tokyo, I feel pretty much the same about both places. I don't have any grudge against them but I don't have any special love for them either. I buy Nissan because they're better than GM. My wife owns a Ford and they're the only American car company I would consider buying.
But why should I pay more for a lower quality product? Just so some UAW guy can have a nice paycheck? Screw that.
I love my country, I just think the people that run it and make decisions are idiots.. Those people dont live on the same streets we do, they dont get food at stop and shop, they dont pop the hood to check oil...those people truly have nothing in common with people like us.
If I was the head of GM, I would stop producing so many cars that people arent buying. Stop saying weve finally caught up with the world..... Is it really that hard for us to make a GOOD car.
Why cant Chevy buy some diesel engines from VW or something and start using them for their Impala or something?
theres nothing wrong with it..
Look at the past, the Ford SHO used a V6 from Yamaha, and it was better than the newer bigger V8 that Ford used later.
But why should I pay more for a lower quality product? Just so some UAW guy can have a nice paycheck? Screw that.
Correct you are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Irishtom29
To Hell with your countrymen, eh? What's so wrong about a fella having a nice paycheck? Why are you so hostile to the notion? Envy?
Odd how so many Americans claim to love their country yet hold their fellow countrymen in contempt.
There's nothing wrong with having a nice paycheck... so long as the product you produce is worth the money. For many, many years, that was not the case with the American auto industry. That's the truth. I've had to work with some union people a time or ten, and believe me, what they charge has gotten absolutely ridiculous for things, I imagine it's the same in the auto industry too.
Case in point, at a trade show in Chicago, vendors were not allowed to carry anything from off the street to their booth. (The cost to even have a booth is already pretty extravagant.) One year, we had most of the product ready for the unions to move to our booth, but a few little things came in late, amounting to 3 boxes that weighed about 20 lbs each. They needed to be carried about... 50 yards I'd say. So myself and two coworkers each picked up a box and tried to go to our booth. We were stopped by the union officials and said we'd have to leave them on the loading dock and they would have to move them for an additional fee... of $372. To move 3 boxes for a total of 60 lbs took about 2-3 minutes. For the rate they charged, you'd think they were heart surgeons.
I used to scoff when I read stories about auto union guys making $80k a year to press a button or screw in some simple part, but I wholeheartedly believe them now.
On this forum I've experienced the same sort of attitude that exists on basically every other auto related site: This very obvious, sometimes overly patriotic sentiment when it comes to cars. I don't think this is necessarily an American thing as this same sort of thing exists in other countries as well.
But to me its odd that it seems that out of all of the thousands of industries and millions of products, cars are the one product people intensely focus their nationalistic, emotional opinions on. The consumer electronics industry is enormous and many times larger than the auto industry. We use cell phones, laptops, tablets, vacuum cleaners, microwaves, and TV sets every single day. Just about all of these are made in either China, Taiwan, or Korea. Yet you hardly ever hear people getting into heated debates about American versus foreign-made vacuum cleaners, cell phones, lawn mowers, or cooking utensils. The car is only one of the likely 1000's of things in our home. Yet the car is what gets all of the focus of where its made or what nation of origin its brand is from because let's face it- cars these days are becoming more or less like the electronics industry: They are made of parts from countries all over. The days of cars being these items strictly made in the nation of their founding are long-gone.
I've had so many debates with people and it seems with cars, the same sort of arguments are always made: That all "foreign" cars ( regardless of make) are inferior to anything from the US, or vice-versa and that ALL American cars are crap. I could go on, but almost all of those arguments are not based in technical fact and more so on nationalistic, emotional opinion.
So why is it that the humble car, despite being only a small sampling of the things made around the world became the outstanding symbol of national manufacturing prowess?
The auto industry in many nations is a very politicized industry to begin with since you are dealing with a large ticket item that includes components built by many industries that are basically held up by the automakers. Also, a lot of the political talk about cars is brought up by the media to begin with and most of the media is bought and paid for. Part of the $$$$ that buys the media comes from the auto industry including the dealership networks. There's a reason why the media doesn't talk much about dealerships, especially at the local and regional level. Of course the GM/Ford/Chrysler dealership wants you to think that buying their **** is going to save American jobs and give you that RED WHITE and BLUE tingly feeling. And of course the foreign branded dealerships want you to believe that the domestic junk is worthless. That's the whole point of the advertising that they put in the media. In the foreign media it's the opposite. I'm sure in Japan that Honda/Toyota/Nissan/etc have advertising that says that the American/European/Korean/etc brands are imported trash and Japan is King Kahuna. It's obvious that a lot of people who bring up the patriotism and auto industry crap are probably either employees of said companies or are just too doped out on patriotism to think. Hint: patriotism is the religion of the foolish irregardless of what country one is patriotic to.
Personally, I think all the automakers suck. They keep on churning out the same big stupid CUV crap now. Why do people buy that stuff? It looks like a guinea pig on wheels!
"What automotive brands and models come closest to the claim that they are American made?
The American University's Kogod School of Business analyzed 253 cars, trucks and SUVs for sale in the U.S., and the answers may surprise you.
Tied for first place with a score of 88.5 out of 100 is a trio of General Motors crossovers that have helped boost the automaker's sales: the GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave and Chevy Traverse."
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