It used to be that most of the citizens of this country took pride in America. They purchesed American made products, supported and cared for there fellow americans. Today the Avg. American only cares about THEMSELVES! "What ever is best for ME...whatever is cheepest for ME.... " type attitudes. I try my hardest to be a true American. I have never bought or never will buy a foreign car. Why? Because I hope I can help put bread and butter on the table of one of my neighbors, and in turn that family will be able to afford to spend money at my business. If an American made product is available, I will purchase it regardless of the cost difference. And no, I have never walked into a Wal-mart owned store either. I am not looking forward to the future, America at this pace will not be a nice place to be, unless you are RICH!
Most of the gas shortages is because of China. The Chineese are using more oil then ever before. There is now more worldwide demand for oil, so the cost will go up. Again we can thank our government for letting there products into this country, and the "greedy American" trying to save a buck buying there junk. China's economy is thriving, thanks in part to Americans. Stop buying there crap and maybe the price of gas might drop, and our economy might get better.
You may get a few bucks more on your Honda / Toyota trade in, or maybe 2 -3 MPG more then a comparable american car. But how is the value of your home doing? For most people it has dropped at least 10% in the past couple years. The biggest reason is because most of our decent paying jobs have gone overseas, and people can't afford to purchase a nice house in a nice neighborhood working at Wal-Mart or the local restaurant. It will only get worse before it gets better (if ever).
This post is full of
non sequitur statements, outdated perspectives and general fallacies. It is difficult to know where to start.
It used to be that most of the citizens of this country took pride in America. They purchesed American made products, supported and cared for there fellow americans. Today the Avg. American only cares about THEMSELVES! "What ever is best for ME...whatever is cheepest for ME.... " type attitudes. I try my hardest to be a true American. I have never bought or never will buy a foreign car. Why? Because I hope I can help put bread and butter on the table of one of my neighbors, and in turn that family will be able to afford to spend money at my business. If an American made product is available, I will purchase it regardless of the cost difference. And no, I have never walked into a Wal-mart owned store either. I am not looking forward to the future, America at this pace will not be a nice place to be, unless you are RICH!
What is needed here seems to be a little historical perspective...In these "good old days" (whenever that was), Americans did not have the market options that they do now. The best products usually were American, because of the size and shape of our industrial infrastructure. In the post-WWII world, the USA alone had the industrial infrastructure and ability to manufacture and distribute quality products. "Made in the USA" brought a feeling of pride because the alternatives were either low-quality or non-existent. But as in all previous eras of history, that world changed. Consumers now have an abundance of choices, yet prices are, as they always were, a major factor in buying decisions.
In other words, people were proud to buy American when the availaibility of high quality, low cost products made it easy to buy American. While it sounds nice to imply that Mr. & Mrs. Suburbia of fifty years ago would STILL have purchased American products, even if comparable alternatives were available at lower prices, simply because it made them feel patriotic, I am not entirely sure that is true. It might have occurred briefly as part of a postwar euphoria, but the simple reality is that folks raised during the Great Depression (actually, most anyone before the 1980's) were much more frugal in their spending habits than consumers today. Over time they tended to gravitate toward the most economic options. As they settled into the postwar world, it is quite reasonable to believe that they, too, would have ultimately have chosen cheaper products, even those not made in the USA, if said products were abundantly and consistently available. Cold, harsh economics may well have trumped their purported patriotism, over time.
Most of the gas shortages is because of China. The Chineese are using more oil then ever before. There is now more worldwide demand for oil, so the cost will go up. Again we can thank our government for letting there products into this country, and the "greedy American" trying to save a buck buying there junk. China's economy is thriving, thanks in part to Americans. Stop buying there crap and maybe the price of gas might drop, and our economy might get better.
This claim ignores virtually every business and marketing paradigm, in favor of feel-good Detroit propaganda. I like the way that the Chinese get blamed for high gas prices in this analysis, depite the fact that our own nation consumes more fuel than a good portion of the world combined. I am not a Keynesian economist, nor do I buy into the "America takes more than its fair share" rhetoric of the left. But neither can I pretend that everything is the fault of increased Chinese consumption, when there are many geopolitical factors, including not only China, but ongoing tensions in the Middle East and Africa, storm cycles along the Gulf Coast, a failing U.S. mortgage industry, and increased U.S. consumption, largely from SUV's, but also from a growing population. The OP's commentary stands out as little more than an infomercial from the U.S. auto industry, during a week that it needs to divert attention away from its own labor woes.
This type of argument was common in the seventies and eighties, when Japanese cars were first coming into this country in large numbers. Lee Iaccoca used briefly it to his advantage (I followed his lead and made sure to buy a 1984 Chrysler, because my family was very pro-American), but by the early nineties Americans were realizing that their Hondas and Toyotas were lasting much longer, were more fuel-economical (and not just the smaller models), were recalled less frequently and were generally more reliable. Moreover, as has been pointed out here, many foreign cars are now being made in the USA, and we have American cars being manufactured in Canada and Mexico. So the old Detroit "buy American" compaign is 25 years out of date.
You may get a few bucks more on your Honda / Toyota trade in, or maybe 2 -3 MPG more then a comparable american car. But how is the value of your home doing? For most people it has dropped at least 10% in the past couple years. The biggest reason is because most of our decent paying jobs have gone overseas, and people can't afford to purchase a nice house in a nice neighborhood working at Wal-Mart or the local restaurant. It will only get worse before it gets better (if ever).
One gets several thousand dollars, rather than "a few bucks more" on Honda/Toyota trade-ins. One typically gets 8-14 miles more, rather than 2-3, MPG on a Honda or Toyota, plus a greater chance that said vehicle takes regular fuel. One notices the way that considerable differences in fuel economy and trade-in value amounts are footnoted or otherwise brushed aside, as if they were of minor importance, whereas every survey shows that these are among the top reasons for consumer's preferences for those Accords, Civics, Camrys and Corollas.
As for the value of homes, the above remarks are even harder to fathom. Real estate prices in this country have dipped over the past 12-18 months for the first time in many years. Having said that, until this recent, relatively modest dip (nowhere near 10% in most regions), most homes in this country appreciated at an astonishing rate over the past two decades; indeed, the increases of 1998-2005, particularly during 2003-2005, were the last before the proverbial bubble burst. Even with the recent drop, one would be extremely hard-pressed to find many homes whose value today is less than they were ten years go. The most basic internet research on housing prices over the past ten years will bear this out. No major ecomonic analysis anywhere claims otherwise.
The biggest reason is because most of our decent paying jobs have gone overseas, and people can't afford to purchase a nice house in a nice neighborhood working at Wal-Mart or the local restaurant. It will only get worse before it gets better (if ever).
That's funny--all the news reports seem to be reporting the collapse of mortgage corporations precisely because SO MANY folks were buying homes, especially new homes, including many people who should not have qualified for loans. Part of why new housing stayed affordable was the use of cheap labor, often illegally, from immigrants, but, of course new, "creative financing options" were also responsible, especially since most people's homes today are much larger than those of the previous generation. Only in the past 18 months, when property taxes in many communities and, in Florida, Texas and along the Gilf Coast, insurance rates, skyrocketed, did people begin to question the wisdom of their mega-investments.
In other words, the housing market was in fairly robust health until after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, at which time the bubble burst (in a series of events reminiscent of the Florida real estate boom in the 1920's ending with the 1926 hurricane in Miami). But for eight-plus of the past ten years, people were riding high, and their home values are still much higher than they were in the 1990's, which is why the property taxes hurt now.
In short, while I am a veteran and a proud supporter of this country in every way, let us not be subjected to 1970's "Buy American" rhetoric when the U.S. and world markets have changed so dramatically since that time. The Detroit auto industry is one of the few that still occasionally float these balloons. I am not a great lover of globalization; I bemoan the lack of American manufacturing infrastructure and wonder what can be done to reclaim it. However, I also recognize that union-inspired flag-waving alone will not do it, least of all from an industry whose historic greed, both from management and organized labor, had much to do with its own demise.
