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Automotive News & Views Does America Even Need Its Own Automakers?
1788 messages, Last post on Mar 03, 2009 at 2:18 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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NOTE: This is a *longterm* thought exercise. Some people think the Big Three are all headed for bankruptcy--at least a Chapter 11. Could we plan ahead rather than watch the whole thing collapse and have to patch it up with government subsidy, or the court system, or dismantling by corporate raiders? Couldn't Americans just buy their cars from someone else who can do the job better? We seem to be doing that more and more each year anyway. Foreign companies could build them here of course,(as they do now) so jobs and benefits might not be eliminated. America doesn't have to build everything of its own. It seems not to need a domestic camera industry for instance. So, do we plan ahead or do we let stubborn pride force us to watch the whole industry sink into decay (e.g., like it did in Great Britain in the motorcycle and car business). Kurt Vonnegut thought that the US government needs a "Secretary of the Future". Should we put him/her on this problem right away? MrShiftright Visiting Host |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 20, 2007 8:42 am)
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Replying to: steve_ (May 20, 2007 12:00 pm) Same people who build them now. General Dynamics and AM General. They don't make cars. MrShiftright Visiting Host
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I need to think about this for a while but I can see this happening for sure.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 20, 2007 12:30 pm) Let me think about this one.... |
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Replying to: british_rover (May 20, 2007 2:02 pm) Well maybe we can look at it this way as time marches on: inventor of the car: Germany (1880s) developer and perfector of the car: France (1890s--1910) producer of cars and trucks for the western world: United States (1910--1975) producer of cars for the global economy: Japan/Asia (1975--to the future) |
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that last sentence in your above post should make all of our stomachs turn and/or ache a little bit. Mine just did as I was a Ford man up until 1999. Gonna have to think on this one some more, as everyone else has said. 
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 20, 2007 8:42 am) So then what would it even mean to say that the US had no domestic automaker? Suppose Toyota were to buy GM and Honda were to buy Ford (and Daimler had not sold Chrysler). The foreign owners could still employ not only the factory workers, but also the corporate level Engineers, etc. The makes could even be maintained as divisions...eg, the Chevy division of Toyota. Would the US economy lose anything more than a few overepaid executives in this scenario? |
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| My computer crashed and I lost my post grrrahasdjkfhlaskhdflaksdf | |
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My junior year of college I took a World Politics and Economy Class taught by Edward Weisband easily one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. One of the themes from the class was that countries would become more and more specialized just like people and companies. As the global economy becomes more integrated countries will specialize in industries that they have natural advantages in. Also the more established industrial countries will specialize in industries with the highest level of value added profitability. We are in the transition phase right now in the US of coming from an industrial based economy to an information based economy. In the next dozen years or so the US could very well loose much of its lower tech industrial and assembly jobs.
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