then the screw-off/screw-up UAW will have to kiss itself and its overpaid membership goodbye

 

Not that that is a bad thing.

 

輕武裝快艦

Come on, get the asian tattoo...Everybodys doing it!

 

I really don't think that you have to worry about any asian country taking over the big 3. Do you remember back in the 80's when the Japanese bought half of the commercial property in Manhattan including Rockeffeler Center? Less than 10 years later they'd sold it all back at a trememdous loss.

 

I bet half of you shop at Wallmart and voted Dubya.

You can't blame the asians for beating us at a game we tought them, they're just doing what they're good at, and the 'free market' does the rest. It's your govt you need to question, and those greedy $%^&ers that run the corporations that don't give a f about the likes of me and you.

America will recover

 

The Pontiac Vibe, for one, is a re-badged Toyota Matrix. I think it's built in the Northern California plant co-owned by "Big T" and "Little G" that used to make "Novas" and "Geos" that were also 99% Toyota-content Chevys.

 

So long as asian manufacturers can make a car of comparable worth for cheaper (however illusory this statment may be) our domestic manufacturing will steadily loose steam. Unless we can limit the number of imports we buy to the number of exports we sell its not going to change. Anybody with any sense can look at nafta and how asian MFG companies handle business and see this coming. I grew up very poor where the concept of a car that cost over 10k was near ridiculous. My father was a mechanic and engine builder for over 40 years. My experience working under him left me with one major outlook on cars. Anything that reduces maintainability of an automobile is an attempt to steal from you and institutionalize the auto industry. When you implement design decisions with the explicit purpose of removing peoples ability to work on the car you are just trying to get more money. Cars are throw away cars now. The average joe mechanic is terrified of rebuilding a LS engine, and most 4 cylinder cars are out of the question.

The only way to remedy the problem in the meantime would be to count the man hours and mfg costs of all imported goods and if our labor is on avg 60 dollars an hour and theirs is 25, tax the automobile 35 dollars for every hour of labor to mfg it.

People are also about to learn the ultimate lesson about credit. The money does not exist. If you cant save up enough to buy some thing outright, it should not be purchased. Cars and houses are the only real exceptions to this. People in this generation need to live without credit for a good while to really understand worth. It has overinflated the price of everything by making people think it is feasible to own overpriced things.

Sorry to get on a rant. My 2 cents.