I NEVER said it was better to buy imports than buy American. What I have said is that it simply will not have the impact that you so blindly think it will. My "useless arguments" are born of actual fact and statistics. Buying American is fine, scratch that, more than fine. However, stop trying to make people feel guilty if they would rather own a Toyota Camry over a Chevy Malibu. The why buy American question should be posed to every other large market. As the article I posted states, we can make a much bigger impact on American jobs be getting our exports up. That seems to me no more difficult then getting everyone to only buy American.

I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty. Just stating the obvious. It is better to buy American. LOL, the argument about creating more US jobs by creating more exports is correct, but when you consider that expanding our presence in off-shore markets creates more jobs off-shore than it creates domestic jobs, then it isn't so important. The reason is that the plants for the expanding Asian market will be jobs in Asia. Invariably, domestic jobs are supported by domestic sales.

My arguments are only useless to you since you don't have the vission to look past today. Your answer, in a nut shell, is that we should buy American in order to save American jobs. That in it's self is fine. But, my answer statistically improves our American job situation including manufacturing.

Your statistic is not useful when it says that 3.5 million jobs are created in Michigan when there are only 3 million workers in Michigan and most of them were already employed!!

I will guarantee, GM will not contiunue to lose this kind of money. They will either become more innovative, quicker to market, and more competitive are they will continue to lose jobs in which case, that great benefits package will be gone, gone, gone!! Also, if YOU knew something about small businesses, most are closely held and that company pays several people very well. Infact, many pay far better than GM and offer better benefits.

It is nice to see that you are so happy about GM losing jobs and GM workers losing benefits. It is that attitude that makes it hard to understand your point. I don't know how another American can rejoice in the loss of US worker benefits. Most small businesses have pay and benefits worse than GM. Maybe you can point our where your pay statistics come from.

Your statement about 1st and 2nd tier suppliers is incorrect. Again, I will use the plant in Georgetown, KY. 75+ percent of the content comes from US and more specifically, local suppliers that Toyota helped to be efficient and profitable. Additionally, 98% of the steel used at that plant comes from American suppliers. This is better than MANY so called "American Companies" So, the US, workers, suppliers, and customers benefit greatly. Yes, Toyota makes a profit, but far less than what is generated and kept in the US. Plus Toyota reinvests in the US.

Maybe you can point out where you are getting that statistic from! I haven't been that impressed by your use of statistics in previous posts. Especially considering your posts seems to be in conflict with an earlier post about content. And don't forget that the profits go off shore. At least American companies keep the profits in the US. Once again, it is better to buy from a US company.

 

As I have said before, our government needs to step up and help creat a fair playing field, particularly with China. But, the US companies must build cars that others in other nations desire. From there, they could spend a little less lobbying our government and lobby foriegn countries. Keep in mind, the are some tech products that other countries beg for.

Seems we can agree here, however, Japan also has major protectionists policies!!

Local and state governments will incent ANY manufacturer that wants to move into their area, not just imports. I didn't say we have protectionist policies now. I said that you and some on this board would prefer protectionist policies.

I don't advocate protectionist policies. I said we should not subsidize off-shore companies when US compnies are denied the same subsidies by other countries. This is just plain common sense. We don't need to spend millions of dollars to support these companies. We could invest these dollars more wisely by supporting domestic companies or new domestic industries.

Who in the world said we should ignore imports? You can't!! They sell more of specific models that compete with US brands very well and sell them for more money. On the contrary, it does to show that you cant rest on your accomplishment and build ugly cars with under powered engines expecting them to out-sell import competitors.

LOL, you need to read what I posted. My comment chastises you for ignoring import volume not some vehicle! But the rest of this paragraph does not seem to be supported by anything I have ever read. I guess underpowered means off-shore models? And I don't remember any automotive article ever complain the US vehicles are ugly.

 

read this and shut up, you're making yourself look ignorant again

freetrade.org/pubs/pas/tpa-002.html

 

Umm...That would be 3.5 million new jobs in the US....These are statistics that are readily available with every news agency. You don't have to look very far.

So what if our EXPORTING will increase jobs in Asia!!!! If we are increasing the number of US jobs by increasing exports, what difference does it make???

Of course profits go overseas...Again, so what?? Most of the profit stays in the US and in Kentucky for that matter. As for GM, where are those profits going?? Oh yea, they don't have any... And, NO I do not want to see GM losing jobs. And I certainly don't want to see another government bail out. It is time for GM to turn it around.

Your efforts to make me look stupid are back-firing. I check my facts and don't post fiction.

 

I whole-heartedly agree with Bryce in that buying American products would improve our economy. How can you NOT believe that? I practice what I say with everything that I buy. Before I look at the price, I look at where it is made. And if there is a domestic version of what I am looking at, 99% of the time that is the one I buy. It's just common sense knowing that if more people buy from a domestic manufacturer/company, then the company will grow and need more employees for more production. It's not a hard concept.

Let's keep it simple here. Buying American is obviously going to help us and our economy. How do we expect to export our products and sell them to the world if our own citizens don't buy them? That to me sounds like idiocracy at work!

 

Hey propnut.. maybe you should go back and read this complete thread. We are not suggesting trade barriers to foreign companies. We are suggesting that they (Japan in particular) open their markets. Furthermore, we are suggesting that it is better to buy American and that does not mean legislative barriers, it means a particular mind set. This mind set naturally makes for a strong domestic manufacturing industry. Now, if a particular country insists on creating trade barriers to us, then they should be economically arm twisted to open their markets. We have been doing this with Japan in the past and we need to keep doing this in the future. This is good old common sense that most anyone can comprehend. Now my comment about the article is that it sheds no real new information on our discussion other than it points out that since we save less, we need to buy more domestic products rather than more imports. The rest of the article implies that higher trade deficits resulted in spite of the lowering of trade barriers, but in fact this is an invalid linkage of facts. This guy has presented statistics to us that have no cause-effect relationship. You might as well say the trade deficit expanded because the ski is blue!!

 

Umm...That would be 3.5 million new jobs in the US....These are statistics that are readily available with every news agency. You don't have to look very far.

Good you are qualifing the statement. You shouldn't have listed it under "Apparently Michigan really is srtuggling. Facts:"

So what if our EXPORTING will increase jobs in Asia!!!! If we are increasing the number of US jobs by increasing exports, what difference does it make???

Probably you need to read my post. I said expanding markets in Asia results in creating manufacturing plants in Asia.. creating jobs in Asia, this is not the great creation of jobs in the states as you so often allude to. The jobs in the States are more directly supported by domestic products.

Of course profits go overseas...Again, so what?? Most of the profit stays in the US and in Kentucky for that matter. As for GM, where are those profits going?? Oh yea, they don't have any... And, NO I do not want to see GM losing jobs. And I certainly don't want to see another government bail out. It is time for GM to turn it around.

Like I have said many.. many.. many.. times and I will say it again. MORE money stays in the states when we buys from an American auto maker. And as you might have learned in economics, when GM sells more cars.. yes.. even at a loss.. more American workers are working and that money goes directly to GM workers and retirees.. who by the way.. spend their money in the US. And I don't see the difference between the government subsidizing GM than if they spent the money subsidizing a plant for Toyota.

Your efforts to make me look stupid are back-firing. I check my facts and don't post fiction.

Your facts are not fiction when you back them up with a document that we can verify them by. Otherwise, they are your opinion.

 

nonsense, you are preaching protectionism, just not a formal policy

are you a Chevy salesman?

 

Worthless document: http://freetrade.org/pubs/pas/tpa-002.html

My first example that this document has no cause-effect relationship is "Figure 1" or "The Trade Balance and U.S. Recessions" The author suggests that to cut the deficit we should create a recession. Presumably, he also believes that periods of growth are caused by deep trade deficits. However, the two have nothing to do with each other other than people have more disposable income during times of growth, and this additional income causes the increase the trade deficit. However, it in no way means that to get growth we should increase the trade deficit!!

My second example that this document has no cause-effect relationship is Table 1 "America's Top 10 Bilateral Deficits and Surpluses 1997" The author says that many of the surplus trade countries are the higher protectionist countries. LOL, what do you expect. If a country has a large trade deficit, it will naturally create barriers to our products to reduce their own trade deficit. Once again, the author has the cart before the horse.

My third example of this authors mistaken cause-effect relationship is "Figure 2, The Trade Balance and Industrial Production". This author suggests that because production has increased steadily while the trade deficit has blossomed, that we can say that domestic production has nothing to do with the trade deficit. We cannot make this inference from these graphs because we have no idea what would have happened with a lower trade deficit. The only thing this graph shows is that both production and trade deficits are affected by recession. That we already know.

Now the really ridiculous relationship is "Figure 3, The Trade Balance and Unemployment". This guy actually suggests that a higher trade deficit actually reduces unemployment. This is really BS. Both of these figures are directly determined by recessions!! When a recession comes about, both unemployment goes up and trade deficits go down. One does not cause the other as this author has suggested.

The next place where this author really loses it is "Exports Are Good, Imports Are Better". This guy suggests that cheap imports allow us to buy more goods. However, as history teaches us, real food prices have fallen over the many years due to efficiencies applied to farming. So we know that we can reduce the real costs of goods by just being more efficient in the production of these goods. Real cost lowering of goods does not mean we have to go off shore

Once again, I guess we have to admit.. It is better to buy from American companies

 

This document only says that the problems of loss of jobs cannot be totally attributed to imports. Of course we all know that. Job loss is also attributed to increase in efficiencies; which is probably a higher killer of jobs. LOL, but the document does say that in fact a very large number of jobs are directly attributed to imports. So it is clear that this document supports the idea that buying from American manufacturers is healthy for our economy