actually seen on the highway

Saw a guy in a Nissan car with a bumper sticker that said "buy made in America".

Nissan has factories in Mississippi and Tennessee.

My F-150 was made in Canada as was our Dodge Grand Caravan, the Ford Fusion in Mexico but our Honda Accord was made in Marysville Ohio.

Probably was made in America.

Several years ago, when Fords, Chevies, Dodges, and Toyotas were racing in NASCAR, the Toyotas were the only ones made in the U.S. Fords were made in Mexico, and Chevies and Dodges were made in Canada.

And Toyota trucks now in San Antonio, TX; in the USA, but only a couple hundred miles from the border and on a very busy interstate that will take you to Canada....NAFTA ring a bell? But that's not a reason for me to buy one. I wanted a local dealer and the only one within 30 miles was my made in Mexico Chevy dealer. Well at least the Chevy SUVs are made in a Dallas suburb.

Mark

Our 2012 Silverado was assembled in Detroit, Michigan. With 90% made in the USA components.

Volkswagen has a plant in Tennessee.

Assembled in America is very different from "made in America"

Assembly is less than 20 hrs. About $600 labor.

When America decided to outsource..we sent your college educated children's jobs overseas too...engineering, design, finance, accounting, tooling, production control..all overseas and the taxes, medicare and social security contributions with them.

American companies were slowly forced to get components made overseas in order to be cost competitive. Now all the vertically integrated jobs of suppliers.... are overseas too.

And your college educated kids are working at Starbucks...or Enterprise Rent a Car who advertises that they are the largest employer of college grads in America. Who'da thunk it?

Years ago the workers at a Pensylvania Volkswagen plant were on strike. Their picket signs read (No money....No Bunny) I gave my cousin a bad time about driving a VW Rabbit. He pointed out to me that the ones with rectangular headlights were made in USA, but the ones with round headlights were made in Germany.

Texas gave Toyota $300 million to build a plant there. It is Hard for free enterprise companies to compete with state subsidized businesses.

I have been through the Toyota plant in Princeton Indiana the steel comes just about 40 miles away made in Indiana.Electricals is made over here in Illinois,don't know how you could be made in the USA anymore than that. Vic

Honda has a factory making cars in Greensburg, Indiana. Every couple weeks the paychecks for 1000-1500 workers goes out into the local economy of community - restaurants, gas stations, new car dealers, furniture stores the list goes on. What does a foreign factory payroll for worker paychecks of one half million dollars a week do for a community ? Subaru does the same thing to the economy in Lafayette Indiana. Toyota does same thing to economy in Georgetown, Ky. Toyota also does this in Princeton, Indiana. Lots of cars with foreign brand names have factory complexes in US, boosting the economy in Midwestern US.

Okay I understand this bumper sticker. These foreign cars have been doing this since the late 70's. The Datsun 240Z, 260Z, 280Z cars where made in the U.S.A and sold only in the U.S.A. Not in Japan because the cars was to big for them. These cars are now in demand in Japan they are paying big money for these cars. The ideal is simple it is easy to ship parts over here and assemble them then sell them. They can make more of them over here than shipping them.Yes it is a good ideal morejobs for us.

How much did the state of Indiana have to subsidize them to build those plants? Was it about the same amount as the taxes lost when all the auto industry supplier jobs were lost in Anderson and Muncie and Indianapolis and small towns when the free trade plan moved auto parts manufacturing overseas?

About like thanking a guy that stole your chainsaw for selling it back to you at a bargain price.

The issue with made in USA vs not made in USA is not just where it is assembled. It is about where the WEALTH/CAPITAL money goes - ie. who owns the company. In the case of foreign owned manufacturers, that money goes to China/Japan/ whoever. True the local economy benefits but the US has become a consumer economy with no wealth or capital behind it. In the case of being made in the US by a US company with mostly US parts you are benefitting the US as a country by contributing to ITS wealth and capital.

(quoted from post at 10:10:18 11/11/14) The issue with made in USA vs not made in USA is not just where it is assembled. It is about where the WEALTH/CAPITAL money goes - ie. who owns the company. In the case of foreign owned manufacturers, that money goes to China/Japan/ whoever. True the local economy benefits but the US has become a consumer economy with no wealth or capital behind it. In the case of being made in the US by a US company with mostly US parts you are benefitting the US as a country by contributing to ITS wealth and capital.

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BINGO!!! You just hit the nail right square on the head!!

Agreed - and the most American made car with American made parts is the Toyota Camry followed by the Toyota Avalon. The Corvette and Dodge Viper are the next two American made cars with the most American made content.


The most "American made" trucks with American made parts are the F150, followed by the Honda and Toyota minivans then the Toyota Tundra.

Actually the 2012 Silverado has only 62% of its parts coming from the US.


http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2012/03/what-percentage-of-your-truck-is-made-in-america.html

Actually if you look it up Texas gave Toyota nothing in terms of dollars. What it did was agree not to charge property tax on the 2.2 billion dollar investment Toyota was about to make. What Texas gave up was the collection of property taxes of a few thousand a year (that much?) on an open field if Toyota did not build. If Ford or Fiat decided to build there I'm sure they would get the same (or better) break.

Very little "money" flows back to the nation of origin in a situation like this. While there are "book" profits billions of dollars have to be rolled back into the American entity through capital reinvestment to keep it solvent and functioning. In terms of real after tax dollars and reinvestment the capital return to the home nation is tiny.

It is not like the drug trade where billions of tax free dollars a flying to foreign nations in the holds of airplanes.

Anybody remember Pearl Harbor?
When the next world war hits,are these Toyota,Nissan
Honda plants going to convert to making war materials?
I really doubt it.

Steve A W

Then why would the foreign companies be so interested, focused and intent on doing it?

Toyota built 10 plants in the USA with no hope of a return on investment?

The foreign auto makers have already received a big slice of our government’s pie. Tennessee gave VW $285,000 per job to locate a plant in their state. Toyota got $300,000,000 to build a new plant in Texas, or $150,000 per job. Alabama paid $110,000 per job to Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda.’ Wall street Journal 12-18-08 The state total in foreign auto incentives is now estimated to be over $4 billion.

The steel is probably bought here in the USA, but doubtful it is made here. Probably Argentina or Japanese steel, or worse yet China.

Don't know the amount of the Indiana tax subsidy, but they did subsidize the factory ,lets say 50 million. In 1 year of total factory payroll for all employees there would be 26 million returned to the workers receiving paychecks, and spending that money mostly in Indiana because the employees live here in State. So Indiana gets their investment back in 2 years. This doesn't account for Indiana taxes paid to the State by the workers, This doesn't account for additional jobs involved in moving finished product out of the factory daily or jobs involved in supplying raw material to the factory such as steel. I used 1000 workers in this example and a lot more than that work at this local factory.

(quoted from post at 10:46:44 11/11/14) Actually the 2012 Silverado has only 62% of its parts coming from the US.


http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2012/03/what-percentage-of-your-truck-is-made-in-america.html

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My source is directly from the window sticker. What is your source?

This has been my view on this too. When I bought my
Volvo truck I did so because I had heard that Ford
had bought Volvo, but after, I did some more
research and found that Ford had only bought the
cars portion of Volvo and had since sold it and
after a couple more sales Volvo is once again a
swedish owned company. Had I known that I wouldn't
have bought a Volvo.

My point was...over the last 30 years...Indiana just traded auto supplier jobs in Anderson and Muncie and Indianapolis working for American auto companies, for jobs in Princeton and Layfayette, and Greenburg working for foreign companies...netzero for Indiana, but a huge loss for America overall.

(quoted from post at 13:06:19 11/11/14) How much did the state of Indiana have to subsidize them to build those plants? Was it about the same amount as the taxes lost when all the auto industry supplier jobs were lost in Anderson and Muncie and Indianapolis and small towns when the free trade plan moved auto parts manufacturing overseas?

About like thanking a guy that stole your chainsaw for selling it back to you at a bargain price.

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Hey it is all about the corporations making more money, not the workers.

(quoted from post at 08:22:07 11/11/14) Assembled in America is very different from "made in America"

Assembly is less than 20 hrs. About $600 labor.

When America decided to outsource..we sent your college educated children's jobs overseas too...engineering, design, finance, accounting, tooling, production control..all overseas and the taxes, medicare and social security contributions with them.

American companies were slowly forced to get components made overseas in order to be cost competitive. Now all the vertically integrated jobs of suppliers.... are overseas too.

And your college educated kids are working at Starbucks...or Enterprise Rent a Car who advertises that they are the largest employer of college grads in America. Who'da thunk it?

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My son is a big shot with Mosaic Fertilizer out of Minneapolis. He has a BS from MU, his Masters from Purdue, and his MBA from Purdue. A $750,000 house and two Mercedes in the garage. His wife does buy a lot of Starbucks coffee though.

Gene

And the so-called U.S. car companies make vehicles in Mexico with parts from Asia. So who's kidding who?

Yea well I guess no one in a foreign country has to worry about GM's profits going back to the USA since there aren't any.Actually anyone can buy shares of almost any company so who actually 'owns' a company as in who the shareholders are is anyone's guess and it changes all the time.Chinese own big portions of many "American" companies.

(quoted from post at 10:18:25 11/11/14)

(quoted from post at 10:10:18 11/11/14) The issue with made in USA vs not made in USA is not just where it is assembled. It is about where the WEALTH/CAPITAL money goes - ie. who owns the company. In the case of foreign owned manufacturers, that money goes to China/Japan/ whoever. True the local economy benefits but the US has become a consumer economy with no wealth or capital behind it. In the case of being made in the US by a US company with mostly US parts you are benefitting the US as a country by contributing to ITS wealth and capital.

Click to expand...

BINGO!!! You just hit the nail right square on the head!!

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Yeah, but it's an unsustainable business model.

If all you do is circulate the money around and around in the USA, there is no growth. Just like a game of Monopoly, eventually one person ends up owning everything and the rest are poor broke peasants beholden to the lord of the land. I'm not talking about what we have now, no-no. Many times worse. Medieval times worse.

Buy whatever you want, but PRODUCE American and SELL American. We've got a budding market for "premium" American products in China, India, Africa. They want to dress like Americans, act like Americans, have American things. With all the jobs over there they have the money to spend on it too. Lots of opportunity there. You just need to get off your butt and do something about it.

Wonderful, happy for him. Just wish more kids had an opportunity (like he and I did) when they get out of college.

What free enterprise companies are we talking about.
Wal-Mart; Bass-Pro; Cabela's; just to name a few will not open a store unless there is some tax subsidy involved.

Japanese cars are not made in the us, they are assembled in the us. Parts are shipped here in collapsible crates, they collapse them when they are empty and send em back to japan to be refilled. It's a fact.

Only thing I can say is foreign competition sure improved the quality of vehicles. I bought a lot of American made GM and Ford junk back in the 60s 70s & 80s. It was also warranted until you got home.

There are parts to the Nissan cars made in the US. Unipress in Portland TN for example makes unibody parts and employs several hundred people. There are other tier 1 companies in the US also.

Ford's Transit van is built in Europe. They ship them over here, gut them, and put an American interior in it, or convert it to a panel van. Refinish it and then send it out to the dealers. Something about tax laws, it's cheaper to do it that way than to build it ready for sale the first time.

"With 90% made in the USA components"

I'd like to know where that figure came from so I can show it off.
The last ones I saw showed most vehicles well below that.
Unfortunately, statistics can be skewed and often are for promotional purposes.

[b:968b9bd66b]Most American Made Cars[/b:968b9bd66b]

And that is a real case of government stupidity...embracing a new store to the detriment of the existing merchants. Let them compete..but straight up...no freebees.

Why would they not make equipment for a US war effort if ordered to by the US government ?? Ever hear of GM's Opel brand made in Germany. They built engines and other things for the German army in WW2.

(quoted from post at 10:06:09 11/11/14) The Datsun 240Z, 260Z, 280Z cars where made in the U.S.A and sold only in the U.S.A. Not in Japan because the cars was to big for them.

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Where in the world did you get that notion? That part of your post is [u:2277453672]totally[/u:2277453672] untrue.
BillL

Jon
Really boggles the mind when we try to keep up with who owns who, doesn't it?
Drove Volvos the last 9 years before I retired. Volvo bought Autocar, White, & GMC heavy trucks back in early 80's, had to keep the White/GMC logos til about 96 as part of the deal. The 95 I drove still was old style with White/GMC logo, but the 98 was new style cab without logo. Haven't seen one for a while, but 10 years or so ago they still sold volvo cabs with the Autocar logo on grille.
Around 98 or so they bought Mack from Renault. Upset a lot of Mack drivers when we told them that their Bulldogs were really French Poodles.
Lost track of Volvo cars, thought they were still part of Ford. Ford also owned Jaguar for a while.
Don't know who owns Frateshaker now. For a while they were Chrysler owned. When they bought Ford heavy they dropped the Ford name & resurrected the Sterling name.
AFIK, Navistar by IHC is the only heavy rig still under the original company ownership. Had to have a new name as part of the split off of the farm equip line.
Now I have you really confused. Will have to meet for coffee some time. I live about 10 miles east of you, on the other lake.
Willie

In a perfect world we would all buy made in the USA. The way I look at it some of the biggest buyers of beef and other farm products are overseas. It's good business to buy from your customers. Granted I would prefer that I could find more American made. Unfortunately made in the USA doesn't have the same meaning that it used to. The quality isn't any better and in some cases isn't as good. Government over regulation has caused companies to cut quality to overcome the cost of those regulations.

(quoted from post at 10:18:29 11/11/14) My F-150 was made in Canada as was our Dodge Grand Caravan, the Ford Fusion in Mexico but our Honda Accord was made in Marysville Ohio.

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So what is wrong with a vehicle or components made in Canada ? It's not like we are some foreign country.

Not with Hondas. The Assembly plant is fairly close to me and then there are dozens of other parts plants located all around me. All the honda suppliers around make Ford that also has an engine plant 20 mile from me look like a midgit, probably 15 or more people working for Honda for every one working for Ford here in Ohio.

Because there is a return on investment - what else can they do with their money? They are looking at being locked out the largest carmarket on earth if they don't.

I listed it. There isn't a car built in the US that has 90% US sourced parts.

Did they give them money - actually write them a check? Or was it property and sales tax breaks on the new construction?

If they are going to spend 2 BILLION on a new plant the sales tax break alone is around $140 million. Giving them a 50% property tax break for a decade is in the 10s of millions a year.

Please send me some of your money, what else can you do with it? You don't want to be locked out of Kentucky do you?

They 240-280's were marketed in Japan under the "Fairlady Z" badge. I drove one in Yokouska in 1973.

Not foreign, just "odd". LOL

Our healthcare and murder stats are rather odd compared to the U.S.

Okay I understand the various economic rational for the buy american sentiment. We can not debate that the competition has made all cars better "Foreign" or "Domestic" A lot of the points made here are valid, some are not. The new business model for auto manufacturers is outsourcing parts- meaning someone else makes a lot of the parts they assemble cars with. I believe a lot of that is from the things that the UAW has negotiated in their contracts in wages, benefits and work rules. They priced themselves out of the market. We also have to talk about mature markets, differential product demands and globalization. The mature market business theory is that once a market for a manufactured product is mature the number of manufacturers will decline until there are only a few left. his is driven by basic free market economic theory, the fewer manufacturers will apportion development and tooling costs over greater numbers of units allowing better pricing or more proffit. This leads to what is known as "Economies of scale" Differential product demands- this occurs when the consumer in an economy wants a product different than consumers in other economies. We had this in the US for a while when the US consumer wanted large body on frame rear wheel drive V-8 powered automobiles that weren't particularly fast or handled all that well. Since no one else wanted cars like that our manufacturers tended to have our market to themselves. Look in the 60's the US cars that did well overseas, especially in developing markets were our compacts (Falcon, Dart/Valiant, Chevy II, Nova American) or the intermediates (Fairlane, Malibu, Belvidere, Coronet, Classic/Rebel). Similar situations occurred in foreign countries, most of the British empire drove British cars both by trade regulation and Britain's instance or right hand drive cars. Japan Italy and France had regulations or taxing strategies and road layouts that caused smaller cars and smaller engines to be in demand making home market automobiles more attractive in their markets. In the 50's some demand for smaller cars hit the US, some US companies (AMC and Studebaker) developed smaller models, imports also started arriving here in bigger numbers, by the 60's the big 3 had all had smaller cars, most were still bigger than imports because they used components from the bigger cars to keep production costs down. The US automakers weren't to worried, they felt the percentage of smaller cars wouldn't grow that much and believed smaller cars had smaller profits. Then the US hit the 1970's gasoline became expensive and the product development model of the big 3 (bigger cars, bigger engines) fell out of favor, the demand for smaller cars with smaller engines made many foreign makers attractive and some offered what was perceived or actually was better quality. With some of the barriers down it would only seem natural that globalization would occur, meaning the handful of manufacturers would become global entities. Some of the early stages of automotive globalization was lead by the US companies, Ford had overseas divisions that made product specifically for foreign markets in Germany the Tanus and Zephyer in England The Perfect and Anglia. With Ford it was interesting to note that Ford Motor Company was privately held by a few members of the Ford family, but the overseas operations were public companies with much of the stock held by individuals outside of the Ford family. This was originally set up to allow individuals and organizations of the home countries to hold stock in the companies making cars in their homeland. Some of that "overseas" stock ended up in the hands of US investors as it was the only way they could get stock in any Ford company. GM had Opel (German) Vauxhall (English) and Holden (Australian). It only seems to reason ans the globalization ans consolidation of auto manufacturers occurred not all would be US based.

As for me our Honda is 24 years old next month and has 284,000 miles on it. It has needed fewer repairs that either the Dodge or the Ford and traveled more miles than the Ford and about 1/2 as much as the Dodge but used 1/3 of the repairs the Dodge did, yet it's 3 times as old with 3 times the mileage on it. Purchasing and driving a Honda has turned out to be something that was in MY best interest, the darn thing runs, runs cheaply and probably won't die until the body rusts away.