Why aren't we bailing out American automakers like Toyota?

[AtmaWeapon]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/12/american.cars/index.html


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.


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.

My first job was a mishmash of software development and "oh no we're understaffed" IT work for a Japanese parts manufacturer. This Japanese company made practically every electronic part from instrument clusters to cables to alternators for major foreign brands like Harley Davidson, Ford, and Chrysler. Sure, it's American labor, but you're still sending profits to glorious Nippon. Don't get fooled.

Think twice when "buying American". Nissan's got a plant in Mississippi. Why not support a company where most of the labor and parts originate in the US like Nissan rather than Chrysler, who could practically relocate their HQ to Mexico? Let's bail out the real American automakers.

[phattonez]

The "real" American automakers don't need to be bailed out. Quite a nice piece of irony.

The UAW is running scared now.

[Beldaran]

http://www.forrestkyle.com/IMAGE.jpeg

[rock_nog]

To be fair, some of the car industry's recent woes come from credit freezes leading to dealerships being shut down - which itself was a result of the goddamn financial crisis and goddamnit I feel so utterly stupid for giving the banks any slack whatsoever simply because the bailout was beyond my control anyway so I'd figure I'd give them a chance and they completely blew it and what's worse is it was their own stupid mistakes that got them into this mess in the first place because who in their right goddamn mind decides to sell high risk mortgages as investments anyway!?

Sorry, I blacked out there for a second, what were we talking about?

[phattonez]

I protest to a Ford car being on the center image. If anything, they've been the most responsible of the 3 and can survive the longest without federal money.

[The_Amaster]

Agreed. From what I've heard, whilel the other two are just asking for money, Ford is stable enough to be working on some kind of credit situation.

[Toolie]

From the exact same source:


The Center for Automotive Research says Detroit's Big Three employed almost 240,000 people in the U.S. at the end of 2007. Foreign makers had about 113,00 U.S. employees at the time.

The key difference in how the Big Three and foreign brands support jobs in the U.S. comes outside the factories, according to a 2006 study by the Level Field Institute, a group formed by Big Three retirees in Washington.

"What's driving the difference in jobs ... is investment in research, design, engineering and management," Level Field President Jim Doyle said in a statement on the 2006 study.

The Center for Automotive Research said the Big Three had 24,000 engineers on U.S. payrolls in 2007. The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said its member companies had 3,500 U.S. research and development employees in 2007.

Level Field found that every 1,000 vehicles sold by Detroit's Big Three in the U.S. support more than twice as many jobs as 1,000 vehicles sold by foreign nameplates.

You've made a fatal jump in logic when you stated:


Why not support a company where most of the labor and parts originate in the US like Nissan rather than Chrysler, who could practically relocate their HQ to Mexico? Let's bail out the real American automakers.

According to your source, you would be right on the parts, but definitely wrong on the labor. If an "American" company is defined by the number of people that receive paychecks from said company, then I think it's clear that the Big Three are more "American" than foreign automakers.


Perhaps you can attribute my nitpicking to my frequent cruising the Straight Dope (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/), but I'm in a never ending quest to fight ignorance.

[AtmaWeapon]

There's still a regiment of people (particularly in undereducated segments of society) that will shun you from their social circle or at least ridicule you if you don't "buy American". They refuse to buy anything other than an "American" car and treat the notion of driving an "import" as blasphemy. I find this attitude quite ignorant when faced with the notion that more of the parts in a foreign car originate in America and its point of assembly is in America as well.

Building a car is not done in one factory. There are literally hundreds of satellite industries that arrive when a car factory is built. I know this because of the "oops we failed let's get a car factory for ourself" reporting that the Mississippi government did when Alabama started raking in cash from the BMW plant we could have attracted but decided wasn't worth it. I can't recall the exact number, but within months of the factory's groundbreaking roughly 100 new businesses opened shop in Alabama because they were suppliers and distributors for the factory. These are all American businesses too, and the CNN article did not mention how many of the big 3's raw materials distributors and small part assemblers were in the US.

I can take a guess though. Like I said, the company I worked for made practically every electronic part for cars. Instrument clusters, cables, alternators, spark plugs, stick coils, ECUs, you name it. Plenty of Ford, Lincoln, and Harley Davidson parts are assembled right here in the US, though it did seem like there were more Toyota assembly lines than the others (this may have to do with the nature of the manufacturing process though; lines changed purpose fairly often.) On the other hand, there wasn't a single Chrysler part built in America: that was the Mexico plant's job. The Chrysler cars are assembled in Mexico as well. If you were a wagering man, would you guess that the other parts manufacturers for Chrysler are in Mexico or the US, taking into account that shipping across the border involves extra paperwork and cost and that basically nothing Chrysler is assembled in the US?

The "Hey Toyota is more American than the big 3" part of my argument is hyperbole, and you rightly called me out on it. Though calling me out on that is like saying phrases like "no pun intended", because it's akin to saying, "With my huge superior intellect, I was able to detect this usage of hyperbole that none of you simpletons would be able to detect. You can send blowjobs and money to me at this address..."

My core point, and one that still rests on the facts, is that the concept of an American car really doesn't exist these days, and many Toyotas have more parts built wholly by American labor in them than so-called American cars, to the extent that I halfway expect to start seeing Chryslers on the side of the road taking siestas every day.