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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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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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Replying to: british_rover (May 20, 2007 3:20 pm)  America is still tops at making plenty of "hard" stuff---construction equipment, hi-tech weaponry, aerospace, etc.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 20, 2007 3:24 pm) Levels of value added profitability... 1. Resource Based Mining, Lumber Oil/Gas Etc. The profit level here when measured as a percentage of investment is the lowest. These are already being moved out of the US for various reasons and this will just be accelerated as time moves on. 2. Resource Processing. We have already seen this happen with the US steel industry as it has nearly completly collapsed. Most of the steel mills left are mini mills that are recyling steel instead of making virgin steel. 3. Low Level Manufacturing. Small low tech devices like basic appliances, furniture construction materials and textiles. Again much of this industry has left the US. 3. Automobile manufacturing. Some has left the US although plenty is still here. I don't see this ever complety leaving the US but I can see it changing drasticly. and so on and so forth. The top level currently is phramaceuticals. The Profit potiential is huge but it requrires huge investment and huge risk. You can make the drugs any where, India and Brazil make many low cost drugs, but the development is limited to a few areas. |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 20, 2007 12:30 pm) 
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But perhaps it's possible. Honda and Toyota employ quite a few engineers and designers here in the U.S., and Detroit isn't getting any healthier economically. GM, however, seems to be getting back on track. I'll have to get back to everybody on this... In the meantime I'll bookmark it.
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