"Fewer than half of the parts on some Big Three vehicles are made in the U.S.
Looking at a Ford Fusion? It is assembled in Mexico. The Chrysler 300C is assembled in Canada, but its transmission is from Indiana; the brand's V-8 engine is made in Mexico. Engines in the Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicle are from China."
Then, in comparison,
"On the other hand, Toyota's Camry is comprised 80 percent of parts made in the United States, and 56 percent of Toyota's vehicles sold in the U.S. also are made here, according to Toyota spokeswoman Sona Iliffe-Moon."
The Toyota Sienna and Tundra also have 80 percent of their parts manufactured in the U.S."
Now, this is somewhat ironic is it not? After all, our apparently "american" companies does not use American parts. This information is somewhat disconcerting because if they are not made in the US, that means most of the jobs (a lot more than I though) are not here. Then, it really would be better if these companies died because it will teach them that factories and jobs at home are most important to stimulate the economy that buys your car. Honestly, maybe the collapse of one or two would not be such a bad idea since it would teach them such a lesson
10 comments:
Not so much. Even though parts are assembled and manufactured in other countries, these American car companies do provide jobs in the U.S. Maybe not as many as you thought, but nevertheless allowing these companies to self destruct would not only leave thousands without jobs, but it would cause great harm to the economy. I do however think that money alone will not solve our auto industry's problems. There needs to be strict federal regulation. If the government is expected to bailout wall street and the big three, then it should have the authority to regulate such industries to prevent irresponsible actions that led both to self destruct. The argument that nothing should be done to prevent the fall of the American auto industry is ignorant to the fact that many families rely on this industry as their sole source of income
While it is true the collapse will bring people jobless, the numbers might not be as big as you think. Other companies will try and buy out the factories and such that the Big Three own and thus many jobs will still be kept. Also I think that the only reason that Toyota and such builds on the US is that importing is expensive, there is a curve to the import cost to calculate profits. This makes the cars significantly cheaper. I think that the fall of the companies will teach them a lesson about how to do business on a more global scale.
I agree with Laura, as long as they provide Americans with jobs, then I think we should bail them out. The more people that are laid off, the worst our economy becomes. It becomes the snowball effect that we learned last year in McGlashan's. The people who are laid off don't have enoguh money to buy what they need, so they cut down...and then other buisness are effected and they shut down and even more people lose their jobs and it just keeps spiraling down. So I think the economy will be better off keeping these jobs than losing them.
I disagree with the statement that the collapse of one or two of the big car companies would be a good thing. The major car companies there are, the more competition there is for customers, and the more jobs there are at home. Even if some parts of the cars are created outside the US, the companies still need people here to assemble the cars, transport them around, sell them, and advertise for them. Also, more competition means that the automakers will be forced to create better, more gas efficiant cars in order to hold on to their customers, because--let's face it--we all want to spend less at the pump, especially with the nation's current financial situation.
Yes, the collapse of these car companies may teach them a lesson, but the real question is how many people actually care where their car parts are manufactured? Now I am not saying that I am one of these people, but most people buy the car for the car as a whole. Not many people care if the car was assembled in Canada or the engines built in China, as long as the car runs, gets good gas mileage, and looks decent enough, people just aren't going to care.
I was reading one of your other blogs and you said that these American car companies employ 250,000 jobs directly and 100,000 jobs from else where meaning in other countries and so i do disagree with having one of these car companies collapse because even if it was teaching them a lesson, they would be causing 250,000 people to loose their jobs along with other people in other countries. It would effect everyone and the purpose of teaching the lesson would be to say give american people the jobs to build these parts but that would be kind of ironic if instead all those people lost their jobs to teach them that lesson.
Welcome to one of the grand ironies of the American Industry.
We get all riled up about saving American jobs and "buying American," and "Supporting our own industry," but the reality is, the sale goes to the person with the lowest asking price. So, you can support an American car industry all you want but there is vertually no industry left in the American economy that produces all its goods based solely on other American businesses. Ironically, overseas companies, such as Honda, end up employing close to the same number of employees in America as home based companies.
I dont think that simply because a company buys manufactoring compenants from overseas is a significant reason to let them fail. In my opinion these auto companies have made far worse decisions, and their current situation is the fruit of poor money management, not money saving techniques such as outsourcing. I would also add that outsourcing is not mutually exclusive to the auto industry, rather, as I said before, I seriously doubt there is any American company left that doesnt outsource at some point in the production line.
Honestly I think the article is true but the car companies in America provide so many jobs. Yeah we need to buy an American car over a Japanese car because the American workers assemble the american vehicles. Okay so the parts are made in other countries, that doesn't change the fact that they are just parts and someone needs to put them together to make a car. I think supporting American cars is really supporting America although people in America aren't making all the parts that make up a vehicle.
i would like to say that although american cars are extreemily fun to drive and they are powerfull i think that they are teribly innaficient in all aspects of the word they wast alot of gass there parts are made all over the world, and they brake down. however in the car companies go under there will be many people without work and that woldnt be to good for the economy
The reason I think we shouldn't bail out the companies is mainly because these companies are doomed to fail. If the US government will bail out every giant corporation that begins to fail, the companies will begin to assume that the government will always be there for them, and they will start taking more risks if they think they are safe. The American automobile companies have made bad decisions. They have had failed projects, and now foreign automobile makers are dominating the market, and no amount of money we give to the Big 3 will change this. You can slow down the decaying of the industry by giving them more money, put stricter regulations, make them produce cars with 90% hybrid efficiency...etc, but they will never become as strong as they used to be. If we do let them die, it's true that hundreds of thousands will lose their jobs. But if we spend billions trying to save them, we will be in an even worse situation when they die 5, 10, or even 25 years later, because all the money we spent will be wasted.
By the way, if these companies die, all their factories will have to be sold to someone. Lets say they are sold to Toyota, the biggest automobile company in the world at the moment (Honda is a close second). Now that Toyota is up, say 2,500 production factories, who is going to work in them? My guess, the thousands of GM factory workers who just lost their jobs. Who's going to be hired to watch over these workers? Ex-GM administration officers. Point is, not everyone that loses their job in the auto industry is going to stay unemployed. There is almost guaranteed to many companies just waiting for American car companies to collapse to jump in and take over the old positions.
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