Ford & GM Imploding - Now What?

[duke600]

The US will keep its competitive edge of the world by engaging in innovative business and ideas. If we are busy manufacturing products on an assembly line we can't innovate. Take Microsoft for example.

Yes, look at microsoft who is building huge research and development centers in India and China. Engineering jobs are going overseas. There are millions of people in third world countries graduating with engineering degrees who can design stuff at a fraction of the cost.

As long as the USA is the innovator we will stay ahead. We will be the first country in World History to dominate not by conquering but by innovating.

Technologically the USA lags behind other countries. We aren't the worlds innovator but rather the worlds consumer.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

The problem is the Chinese, North Koreans, Iranians, and a lot of other "people" in the world do not control their government. "Their" government controls them.

I think you are just trying fit your politics into the situation. You aren't going to change the world...overnight, but you can buy some cheap stuff Made In China...probably alot of it...

I think the long term goal is not get China on the hyperconsumption plan. This will dilute and eliminate communism....

As far as Iran and N. Korea, it will take alot longer....

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Yes, look at microsoft who is building huge research and development centers in India and China. Engineering jobs are going overseas. There are millions of people in third world countries graduating with engineering degrees who can design stuff at a fraction of the cost.


Technologically the USA lags behind other countries. We aren't the worlds innovator but rather the worlds consumer.

Nonetheless, Microsoft is still a US company in control. The whole idea is to close the gap between the Haves and Have Nots in the world. Is the current disparity, globally, between rich and poor ok?

Look at it this way... if most 18-45 aged Middle Eastern men where employed and had discretionary income and lived in fun instead of fear...they wouldn't be so pissed off!

We are the worlds consumer... If everyone would reduce their consumption and turn that energy and resource (money) into betterment, we would be........well...better off.

So, what we should be doing is looking for ways to innovate. Get out of our mindless hourly labor jobs and start a small business.......

Flying Jets is a lot of Fun.....

 

[cargopod]

my toyota is more American made than my ford..

 

[pilotyip]

cargopod that may be true, but the money does not flow to American retireees or their familes, it goes back to Japan as profit for Toyota Corp to be invested in Japan.

 

[duke600]

We are the worlds consumer... If everyone would reduce their consumption and turn that energy and resource (money) into betterment, we would be........well...better off.

So where is our consumer spending money coming from if the jobs are going overseas?

It's not our money we are spending. It's borrowed money from foriegn investments. They are financing our spending spree.

Some of consumer spending comes from housing refinance which is only a gain on paper. Some parts of the country are seeing house prices go down. I've seen house prices in washington DC go down 20%.

 

[I.P. Freley]

cargopod that may be true, but the money does not flow to American retireees or their familes, it goes back to Japan as profit for Toyota Corp to be invested in Japan.

And it also goes back to Japan as profit for Toyota that gets invested in US design facilities and US manufacturing facilities. The money also flows to the dealers who sold the car, the manufacturers who built subassemblies and parts for the US-made cars, the people who service that car at the dealership or local repair shop, etc. It's not like a $30k car sold off the lot means that Toyota pockets twenty grand of that and Americans get screwed.

And as for the individual who claims that American-branded cars are "completely out of touch, twenty years behind"... That kind of thinking is, uhhh, completely out of touch, twenty years behind. It may be fashionable to think of American cars that way, but repeating the same tired dogma over and over doesn't mean that it's true. American cars are not the equal of the Japanese competition in most cases, but increasingly they are nipping right at the heels of those cars. I'll allow you five years behind the times, at most, but this isn't 1985 and to make the blanket statement that all those Fords, Chevys and Dodges are decades behind other comparable imports is just plain wrongheaded.

Don't believe me? Go drive a Chevy Cobalt, a Ford Fusion or a Dodge Charger and maybe you'll start to get the idea. Sure, the last two are based upon designs that debuted on foreign-branded platforms, but these are examples of autos that are right up there in style, performance and quality with the competition. As for trucks, most American-branded truck lines still are the standard-bearer in their classes... And more than half of all new vehicles sold are trucks, so this is no little part of the market.

As for the comment from earlier still in this thread, that the Chinese will be introducing high-quality cars in this country in two years, you are absolutely off your chump if you think that the Chinese cars headed this way will be "high-quality". The automotive cognoscenti have seen and driven some of these cars, and high-quality is simply not a term that applies. They'll be on about the same level that the Korean cars of the mid-80's were, which is none too good. Figure it'll take at least a decade for the Chinese to catch up to the even the Koreans, probably more... Yes the cars will be cheap, and there's always a market for cheap cars (early Korean, Yugo, etc.), but do you REMEMBER the original Hyundai Excel? If you do, I feel sorry for you. Must be tough having that nightmare.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

So where is our consumer spending money coming from if the jobs are going overseas?

Credit