Detroit Vs Japan

Matt Macchiarolo wrote:

>>> But since labor costs are still so low in many countries, it's no wonder
>>> why businesses (and not just American businesses) are shifting
>>> production to those countries.
>>
>> And you view this as a good thing?
>
> No, but it is happening, and eventually there will be a paradigm shift in
> education in the US to adjust to it. In the late 19th century, while the
> US was shifting from a agricultural society to an industrial society,
> farming become more automated and many farmhands with a sixth-grade
> education found themselves out of work. The early 20th centrury saw a
> national priority to increase education for the labor force to make them
> more employable, hence high school attendance was made universal. Now we
> are on the cusp of another educational prioriy...a high school education
> won't be enough to compete globally, and two years minimum of post high
> school study will be necessarily universal in the next twenty years or so.

Education has nothing to do with it. Here's the problem: For the US to
compete globally, we need tangible goods to sell. Education does nothing to
give us those tangible goods to sell to the world. Someone has to actually
produce them. In the late 1980's, Pres. Bush declared that he wanted to
push the transition of the US to a service oriented society, which is the
last stage defined by Karl Marx in the evolution of a society's economy.
This has been the fundemental shift that has been happening since the early
1980's, where we've gradually gone to making more and more goods outside
the US. There has been a push to become more of a global marketplace and a
global economy. The problem with this is that you have to have something to
sell to the world. At first, you'd think that we'd sell our services of our
expertise. Well, the shift of computer related jobs to India has shown that
that type of work can be exported a lot easier than moving an entire
production plant. Now, once that knowledge has been gained by foreign
countries, what else do we have to sell to the world? If we've become a
society that is too expensive to employ, we then don't have any hard goods
to sell. We then face economic collapse. When it becomes too easy to
replace you with someone on another continent for a lot less, then we're
doomed.

The US is something like 1/3 the entire world consumer market, and roughly
the size of the entire european continent combined. However, if we keep
trying to cut costs by eliminating jobs by sending them outside our
borders, or replacing them with foreign immigrants who pay no taxes, and
the government subsidizing such action, we'll find ourselves in desperate
times. For too long, white collar and self-employed people have looked the
other way because it didn't affect them. Well, it's beginning to. Again,
they can ship white collar jobs outside the US far cheaper than they can
move a plant. If the current trend continues, you'll find company
accounting records kept in India, etc..

Self-employed people need to be worried too. As more and more production of
goods is outside the US, larger, more global companies are arising,
stamping out the mom-and-pops and small businesses out of the market
altogether. Witness Walmart. 80% of their goods are produced in foreign
countries, typically in sweat shops. That enables them to sell cheaper, and
runs smaller chains out. This is a disease that we all are catching because
we like to pay less. Again, this country is becoming more out for
themselves to a degree unprecedented. Everyone feels like they deserve
$100,000+ a year, but the next guy gets paid too much for what he does.
We're driving down our collective standard of living, as a result. This way
of thinking is a sinking ship...

> Big business loves this trend. Like all socioecononomic shifts, there will
> be some that will be left behind. You want to stay employed...the emphasis
> will be to stay employable.

Yeah, and like lemmings, we're following this trend...

And when all the tangible goods are made outside the US, accounting,
computer related positions, and just about all white collar work is
exported to India and management only needs a computer readout of the
reports? What then? Is it even possible to stay employable? Doing what?
When enough people can't find work, or cannot earn a decent enough living,
then the market for goods collapses, sending the economy down the toilet
with it to doomsday.

For this country to survive, we need people earning good livings. I don't
just mean a few with college educations, I mean the vast majority of
everyday people. Then, they pay lots of taxes, the government has money to
do its job, and the consumer market flourishes and fuels a booming economy.
Instead, we're trying to rid this country of good paying jobs by exporting
them somewhere else. I heard a local talk radio host claim that we export
low paying jobs and gain high paying jobs in the process. However, I don't
see those jobs lost by GM, Ford, and DC worker to Mexico as being low pay.

I'm telling you...this trend is dangerous for the economy in the long run.
It's good for corporate America, but bad for you and I.

> I see your point...I think a lot of it was in the gas crunch of the 70's
> people wanted smaller, fuel efficient cars, and the domestics really
> didn't have much to offer, while almost every Japanese car was small and
> fuel efficient, quality notwithstanding. That really opened the floodgates
> and the quality improvement perception came later as they built up market
> share and the domestics' quality stagnated through the early 80's.

Yes, it's like Ferrari, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes, etc... Look back into 1970's
at their products. They're far inferior in most ways to American
counterparts of the period. Ferrari's were beautiful cars with kit car
build quality. Mechanically they were unreliable. They weren't all that
impressive performance-wise either. Sure, the snobby will call their
performance "balanced", but a common Chevelle SS would outgun most Ferraris
in an acceleration contest. The one on Magnum PI had a 0-60 time of
something like 9 seconds! The original VW GTi was capable of that. Even the
Corvette during those poor performance years could go faster. Porsche never
even made a fast car until the 1978 911 Turbo was released, and its
performance would have been laughed at between 1967 to 1971. Have you even
seen a 70's era Bimmer or Benz? Most were nothing to look at... There was
nothing special about Mercedes vehicles back then, but somehow in the
1980's we began a love affair with them and that funded them to improve
their product to be where they are now. Same goes for Honda, Toyota, and
Datsun (Nissan). Our need for fuel efficiency provided them with the much
needed funds, combined with their ambitition, led to the admittedly good
products they have now. But back then, there was nothing special about
them. I remember reading an article about a Toyota 2000GT, where they were
so unreliable that the engine needed rebuilt every 60K or something like
that. They got the reliability later, after we funded it.


--

Registered Linux user #378193

You got it! The U.S.of A. must produce a product then sell more of
it to the world than we buy. That's what supports our dollar, like
everyone is selling life insurance, maybe a little litigation, and
doctors caring for the elderly are only services. Like our trade deficit
is marking the time we have until the end. No product, no economy it's
as simple as that!
God Bless America, ßill O|||||||O
http://www.billhughes.com/

Ruel Smith wrote:
>
> Education has nothing to do with it. Here's the problem: For the US to
> compete globally, we need tangible goods to sell. Education does nothing to
> give us those tangible goods to sell to the world. Someone has to actually
> produce them. In the late 1980's, Pres. Bush declared that he wanted to
> push the transition of the US to a service oriented society, which is the
> last stage defined by Karl Marx in the evolution of a society's economy.
> This has been the fundemental shift that has been happening since the early
> 1980's, where we've gradually gone to making more and more goods outside
> the US. There has been a push to become more of a global marketplace and a
> global economy. The problem with this is that you have to have something to
> sell to the world. At first, you'd think that we'd sell our services of our
> expertise. Well, the shift of computer related jobs to India has shown that
> that type of work can be exported a lot easier than moving an entire
> production plant. Now, once that knowledge has been gained by foreign
> countries, what else do we have to sell to the world? If we've become a
> society that is too expensive to employ, we then don't have any hard goods
> to sell. We then face economic collapse. When it becomes too easy to
> replace you with someone on another continent for a lot less, then we're
> doomed.
>
> The US is something like 1/3 the entire world consumer market, and roughly
> the size of the entire european continent combined. However, if we keep
> trying to cut costs by eliminating jobs by sending them outside our
> borders, or replacing them with foreign immigrants who pay no taxes, and
> the government subsidizing such action, we'll find ourselves in desperate
> times. For too long, white collar and self-employed people have looked the
> other way because it didn't affect them. Well, it's beginning to. Again,
> they can ship white collar jobs outside the US far cheaper than they can
> move a plant. If the current trend continues, you'll find company
> accounting records kept in India, etc..
>
> Self-employed people need to be worried too. As more and more production of
> goods is outside the US, larger, more global companies are arising,
> stamping out the mom-and-pops and small businesses out of the market
> altogether. Witness Walmart. 80% of their goods are produced in foreign
> countries, typically in sweat shops. That enables them to sell cheaper, and
> runs smaller chains out. This is a disease that we all are catching because
> we like to pay less. Again, this country is becoming more out for
> themselves to a degree unprecedented. Everyone feels like they deserve
> $100,000+ a year, but the next guy gets paid too much for what he does.
> We're driving down our collective standard of living, as a result. This way
> of thinking is a sinking ship...
>
> > Big business loves this trend. Like all socioecononomic shifts, there will
> > be some that will be left behind. You want to stay employed...the emphasis
> > will be to stay employable.
>
> Yeah, and like lemmings, we're following this trend...
>
> And when all the tangible goods are made outside the US, accounting,
> computer related positions, and just about all white collar work is
> exported to India and management only needs a computer readout of the
> reports? What then? Is it even possible to stay employable? Doing what?
> When enough people can't find work, or cannot earn a decent enough living,
> then the market for goods collapses, sending the economy down the toilet
> with it to doomsday.
>
> For this country to survive, we need people earning good livings. I don't
> just mean a few with college educations, I mean the vast majority of
> everyday people. Then, they pay lots of taxes, the government has money to
> do its job, and the consumer market flourishes and fuels a booming economy.
> Instead, we're trying to rid this country of good paying jobs by exporting
> them somewhere else. I heard a local talk radio host claim that we export
> low paying jobs and gain high paying jobs in the process. However, I don't
> see those jobs lost by GM, Ford, and DC worker to Mexico as being low pay.
>
> I'm telling you...this trend is dangerous for the economy in the long run.
> It's good for corporate America, but bad for you and I.
>
> > I see your point...I think a lot of it was in the gas crunch of the 70's
> > people wanted smaller, fuel efficient cars, and the domestics really
> > didn't have much to offer, while almost every Japanese car was small and
> > fuel efficient, quality notwithstanding. That really opened the floodgates
> > and the quality improvement perception came later as they built up market
> > share and the domestics' quality stagnated through the early 80's.
>
> Yes, it's like Ferrari, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes, etc... Look back into 1970's
> at their products. They're far inferior in most ways to American
> counterparts of the period. Ferrari's were beautiful cars with kit car
> build quality. Mechanically they were unreliable. They weren't all that
> impressive performance-wise either. Sure, the snobby will call their
> performance "balanced", but a common Chevelle SS would outgun most Ferraris
> in an acceleration contest. The one on Magnum PI had a 0-60 time of
> something like 9 seconds! The original VW GTi was capable of that. Even the
> Corvette during those poor performance years could go faster. Porsche never
> even made a fast car until the 1978 911 Turbo was released, and its
> performance would have been laughed at between 1967 to 1971. Have you even
> seen a 70's era Bimmer or Benz? Most were nothing to look at... There was
> nothing special about Mercedes vehicles back then, but somehow in the
> 1980's we began a love affair with them and that funded them to improve
> their product to be where they are now. Same goes for Honda, Toyota, and
> Datsun (Nissan). Our need for fuel efficiency provided them with the much
> needed funds, combined with their ambitition, led to the admittedly good
> products they have now. But back then, there was nothing special about
> them. I remember reading an article about a Toyota 2000GT, where they were
> so unreliable that the engine needed rebuilt every 60K or something like
> that. They got the reliability later, after we funded it.
>
> --
>
> Registered Linux user #378193

"L.W. (ßill) Hughes III" > wrote in message
...
> http://merrimack.nara.gov:80/cgi-bin...31/jfksnew.txt

"Your session has been closed"

__
Steve
..

"L.W. (ßill) Hughes III" > wrote in message
...
> You got it! The U.S.of A. must produce a product then sell more of
> it to the world than we buy. That's what supports our dollar, like
> everyone is selling life insurance, maybe a little litigation, and
> doctors caring for the elderly are only services. Like our trade deficit
> is marking the time we have until the end. No product, no economy it's
> as simple as that!

So W is bringing the Rapture?
__
Steve
..

Yes Armageddon has begun, via Afghanistan, and with the nuclear War
beginning in Syria, and Iran, we'll exterminate the near east, this my
Bible tells me so.
God Bless America, ßill O|||||||O
http://www.billhughes.com/

Stephen Cowell wrote:
>
> So W is bringing the Rapture?
> __
> Steve
> .

> For this country to survive, we need people earning good livings. I don't
> just mean a few with college educations, I mean the vast majority of
> everyday people. Then, they pay lots of taxes, the government has money to
> do its job, and the consumer market flourishes and fuels a booming
> economy. Instead, we're trying to rid this country of good paying jobs by
> exporting them somewhere else. I heard a local talk radio host claim that
> we export low paying jobs and gain high paying jobs in the process.
> However, I don't see those jobs lost by GM, Ford, and DC worker to Mexico
> as being low pay.>

Interesting to note that our domestic auto mfrs, particularly GM & Ford,
continue to lose market share (and, hence, jobs) to the Asians. GM, Ford &
DC have shed over 130,000 jobs since 2000. Over the same period, however,
the Asians & Europeans have continued to invest in the "high-cost" USA,
opening new plants and employing thousands of workers. Unfortunately, due to
the built-in inefficiencies of the UAW-bound domestics, they've only
replaced about 30,000 jobs over the same period of time. It should be no
mystery why the UAW has been unsuccessful in organizing the Asian plants,
they simply have nothing to offer the workers but lost income and eventual
unemployment.

> I'm telling you...this trend is dangerous for the economy in the long run.
> It's good for corporate America, but bad for you and I.<

Well, it's not even "Corporate America" any more, most of the companies are
so globally invested we don't even run them.

Back in the late '90's the Ford division I worked for was paying a bunch of
individual systems consultants as much as $175 an hour to write code as part
of a giant "mainframe to client server conversion", common among older
companies all over the world at the time. There was also the old "Y2K"
fiasco that had to be dealt with. Along came Satyam, and Indian company, who
we found could do much more work, and only cost about $20 an hour. The
decision to farm it all out to them was a no-brainer.

"L.W. (ßill) Hughes III" > wrote in message
...
> Stephen Cowell wrote:
> >
> > So W is bringing the Rapture?

> Yes Armageddon has begun, via Afghanistan, and with the nuclear War
> beginning in Syria, and Iran, we'll exterminate the near east, this my
> Bible tells me so.

It also tells you to kill witches... have you done
this lately?

Jeez... no wonder we're scared of the current admin....
it's bent on fulfilling Biblical prophecies!
__
Steve
..

Witches are something Salem dreamed up. Most of my ancestors were
pagan, anyway. I just want to use the Bible card to thump the near and
far east. I believe Bush has permission to use the bomb. Let's do it!
God Bless America, ßill O|||||||O
http://www.billhughes.com/

Stephen Cowell wrote:
>
> It also tells you to kill witches... have you done
> this lately?
>
> Jeez... no wonder we're scared of the current admin....
> it's bent on fulfilling Biblical prophecies!
> __
> Steve
> .

In my small community where the major employers are a surface coal
mine, a coal-fired power plant, and two natural gas processing plants,
several real men (and real women) drive Toyota trucks for work and
pleasure, both full-size and smaller-size, even though the nearest
Toyota dealership (and warranty service) is a 2 1/2 hour drive away. I
am also seeing more Nissan trucks than I used to see with the nearest
Nissan dealer being 80 miles away. These are people who use their
trucks as trucks and regularly use 4WD to get to their favorite
hunting, fishing or camping spot or just to see the backcountry. I
asked a real truck owner why he recently bought a Toyota Tundra and he
told me that he had driven two Toyota cars to 200,000 miles without any
problems and with nothing more than regular maintenance while his last
Ford truck needed an engine at 95,000 miles and the interior and body
started to deteriorate at 65,000 miles. I am currently thinking about
buying a full-sized truck that I will equip with a pop-up camper and
will use to tow the Jeep on the six hour trip to Moab. I have never
owned a Toyota or Nissan or any other Japanese vehicle, but I will
certainly consider them as I shop around. Currently we own a 1997
Buick bought used, a 1998 Volvo bought used and a 1998 TJ bought new.
None have been trouble free but none have needed major repairs (engine,
transmission, air conditioning) either. Overall, I think the Buick has
been the best of the lot. Just my thoughts and observations.

Jeff Strickland wrote:
> Real Truck Owners wouldn't be caught dead in a Japanese pick up truck. I
> suspect the Japanese trucks will sell OK in California, in the cities, but
> out in the country where trucks are trucks and men are men, the domestics
> will rein supreme for a long time to come.
>
>
>
>
> "Brian Foster" > wrote in message
> .. .
> > Very interesting show on Discovery Times channel last night. Detailed how
> > Japanese auto makers are really going hard after full size pick up truck
> > market. Nissan Titan is making big inroads and so is Honda. Japanese had
> > hard time understanding that Americans just don't like little trucks as
> much
> > as we like big trucks. Looks like they finally "got it" and now Detroit is
> > feeling the pain. PU Truck are some of the most profitable vehicles made
> by
> > Detroit.
> >
> > My own observation: When it comes to innovation the USA has everyone beat.
> > When it comes to refinement that's where we get caught and sometimes
> > surpassed by Japan and Europe to a lesser extent.
> >
> > We can make a Ford Mustang, A Jeep, Dodge Caravan, or a full size PU
> truck
> > but then we seem to get complacent and stop the developing and refinement.
> > That's where the Japanese really get going and make up ground.
> >
> > Ford & Gm bonds at junk status, not good. Auto industry is so resistant to
> > change and so slow to react to market forces. UAW not helping the issue
> > either.
> >
> > Interesting show if you get a chance to see it. Car designers are very
> > different people. Very artsy. They need engineers to keep them in reality
>
> >
> >

What a troll! No coal mining Company, would every use a toyota:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...&btnG= Search
And my Ford has over three hundred and fifty thousand miles and the
heads have never been off: http://www.billhughes.com/smog.jpg
God Bless America, ßill O|||||||O


Scotty wrote:
><snip BS>