“7 out of 10 GM vehicles are now MADE IN CHINA”
Not the ones sold in the US. China’s the biggest auto market in the world, and GM’s had a long history there. Glad they’re successful.
Edit - and that statistic is wrong. About 1/3 of all GM vehicles are produced in China, as near as I can tell.
OK I will buy those figures… I still don’t like it. Do we send them the materials, parts…the steel? If not you can keep any vehicle made of Chineseum.
Blackbird
@HondaBlackbird China is currently the world’s largest steel and aluminum producer. They don’t need any of these materials from us.
Buick builds and sell more cars in China than in the US. IBM’s Vice President of Purchasing lives in CHINA.
The world is just evolving in its natural way. Four hundred years ago China was the world’s largest economy and the most scientifically developed. The US was just entering the industrial age then.
I’m just happy an American company is making money anywhere in the world. I don’t expect them to use metals produced in US plants because it is not cost effective. Auto body steel is a very sophisticated product and not every steel mill can make it. If the Chinese don’t manufacture the steel sheet themselves, thy probably buy it from a closer manufacturer in Japan.
I know that China makes its own steel and a lot of it…too much actually isn’t that a big problem for them at the moment? Is the steel any good? That is the question…and question I do.
If you think the world at large is evolving in its "natural’ way I would have to agree to disagree with you on that one. There are so many strings being pulled and backs to be scratched its not even funny…and dont get me started on the Wholesale Fear machine constantly running.
Doesn’t seem anything natural about it to be honest. But what do I know…I don’t follow these things too much…same as I dont watch much TV or watch the News…all bad news. I just spin wrenches and try to help people and be happy these days…I might be spinning wrenches for a Green energy company soon though…that could be exciting. I get to marry my computer degree with my mechanical ability for truck loads of cash…for me I couldn’t imagine anything better aside from the Powerball… LOL… We shall see
Blackbird
Wake up folks. And all the steel is subsidized by the government to undercut US steel producers. So they steal our trade secrets, undercut our US products, ignore our patents, and we happily build our plants in China to further the cause.
This goes back to the 90’s and the trade agreements that pretty much forced US companies to build plants in China and Mexico for sale back in the US at the cost of many many well paying jobs. And of course now the answer is to raise the minimum wages for those convenience store jobs and complain about the 1%ers. That’s the solution for the problem they created? Take a look at the youtube interview of Sir James Goldsmith and Charlie Rose back in 94. He’s dead now but most of his dire predictions came true as the President’s economic adviser vehemently called him nuts.
Yeah…what Bing said…
Blackbird
This goes back to the 90's and the trade agreements that pretty much forced US companies to build plants in China and Mexico for sale back in the US at the cost of many many well paying jobs.
There was no forcing going on. It was to increase profits companies. The easiest way to do this was to decrease labor costs. Since the Chinese worker earns less then 1/10th of the US worker…it was easy for manufacturers to move jobs to China and other lower paying countries.
Its all about money and greed ,altruism is a dying art .
Decisions of the few, should not be so easily able to affect the many, in my opinion. Collectively we think these people will make the right decisions to benefit our country’s Welfare, Jobs and Business interests. Instead kick backs and tax breaks for corporations go toward padding the pockets of the few decision makers. So for them…its a great deal and our economy and Job losses be damned.
That angers me like you have no idea. Isn’t that what our Congress was supposed to shield us from among other things? Seems personal wealth trumps all these days. Seems the folks in Washington all suffer from the same virus…it must be rather virulent as I cannot find anyone not similarly afflicted.
Boy I opened a can of worms on this one didn’t I ?
Blackbird
Well take the car industry ,every time time the govt mandates some new ,troublesome ,safety device of questionable value the car prices usually jump at least $500 ,making new cars increasingly unaffordable for the prolateriat and what what business did the Obama admin have in destroying or drying up the pool of old affordable used cars(didnt help the economy,what would have helped the economy would have been this,ditch the the S &Ls ,give each person their share of the bailout money and the economy would have surged for awhile) ,the uppercrust doesnt know or care how the working class lives.The mini payments offered now on autos ,makes people think they can afford the unaffordable .
Know what burns me up? All those regulations in guise of “Being Green” we regulate the pants off of American companies and force them to relocate. Take energy and coal…America has the cleanest most advanced and conscientious methods of using coal for energy AND we have hundreds if not thousand years worth of the best coal on the planet her in PA…SO…what do we do? We over regulate those Expensive American companies and shut them down…only to shift the production of steel and energy over to China…Who is using stone age coal burning facilities to do the same job…and thus polluting the PANTS off of our beautiful planet. I guess if its no longer in our back yard ? Is that the theory? THAT is how you look out for the “environment” ? Letting someone else do the literal “Dirty Work” ?
Absolutely Asinine and a literal slap in the face of American workers, our expensive well designed infrastructure and facilities that were designed as Green as possible at great cost.
Basically a serious slap in the face all around. Yet we continue…
Rome fell shortly after over regulation and the devaluation of their “dollar”… Our demise is almost inevitable.
Blackbird
Do I detect another Trump supporter?
;-]
The world IS evolving in its natural way. Remember the 2nd law of thermodynamics; entropy. in nature, all systems are moving from a state of order to a state of chaos. Isn’t that what we see going on all around us? The political process, breaking down, the infrastructure, breaking down, the middle class, going away, countries descending into civil war and chaos, dangerous technology being disseminated to madmen . . .
I for one don’t believe Trump is going to wave his magic hair around and make the world right again. If anything, I think he’s going to pour a big can of gasoline on all of our brushfires. In times like this, we need a real leader, like an Eisenhower, a Roosevelt, a Lincoln, even a Kennedy. . . . but who do we have? Trump. . . Hillary. . . Cruz. . . Bernie. . . some Libertarian guy named Johnson I’ve never even heard of. . . . I’m just glad I never had kids.
@EdFrugal The world is not going to hell in a handbag. In the 20th century we had 2 ruinous World Wars and countless other expensive conflicts.
By and large we emerged better than when we started.
This century will test the limits to growth, both population and the earth’s carrying capacity. We need to make some fundamental changes in order to maintain a decent quality of life. The Chinese are discovering that mindless growth makes for a poor environment. They are making rapid changes for the better.
I’m optimistic that by and large common sense will prevail; the only real danger are rogue regimes like North Korea and to some extent Iran, and terrorists.
A friend of mine still lives in a house that was built with a fallout shelter, a 50s leftover.
We over regulate those Expensive American companies and shut them down...only to shift the production of steel and energy over to China....Who is using stone age coal burning facilities to do the same job....and thus polluting the PANTS off of our beautiful planet.Yup, gotta sit back and appreciate the irony of passing environmental laws SO stringent, that business simply goes elsewhere, at a net REDUCTION of ecological benefit. "The best is the enemy of the good enough." Like in my neighborhood, we never had a littering problem...until it "was decided" that TVs are too toxic for the landfills...so the garbagemen can't pick them up...so we wind up with dozens of TV carcasses by the side of the road, in vacant lots, etc. How is that an improvement over putting gthem in the landfills? (Oh, and good luck getting a cheap TV from Goodwill or StVdeP...they don't want them, now that they could be stuck unloading a dead TV at great cost.)
Simply myopic, “first-level” thinking…
Me? A Trump supporter? No I cant say that I am…in fact I support none of these idiots.
Voting should be renamed to “Lessening” Because at each election it seems the goal electing a new official to represent the people…we wind up choosing the Lesser of Evils…and this is recepie for disaster. Dont take my word for it though…
Blackbird
Whoa Ed…you definitely are making some sense.
DocNick… You might want to take a gander at this video… It is part of a larger documentary.
Now dont get me wrong…I spend very little time and energy in political matters…they seem well out of control enough without my input. I am not a political guy nor do I even discuss the subject much… What do they say the things we arent supposed to discuss again? I resemble that more than anything I think.
Blackbird
WOW…some people seem to believe everything they hear on Fox Entertainment.
If a Fox blonde is reporting something, it MUST be true :naughty: