Right on, brother.....

 

You have no idea how close you might be to the truth...

I understand global economy, and I have no problem with the fact that the fuel injection and suspension on my Harley is made by Honda subsidiaries.

This just isn't what I expected to see the first time I popped the hood...



I guess I should be happy it at least has a Ford logo and part number.

 

Well said. If you want to know who will be the next economic power then you only need to look as far as who does the best job turning raw materials into goods. When you move manufacturing overseas you start a tidal wave of wealth and skills transfer. It begins with the labor force. Then the engineering core skills are transferred. And then the economic wealth and power. I'm thankful to be working at a company that makes product all over the world, yet is still investing heavily in domestic manufacturing and assembly.

 

You are so right. Many here are ignorant of the fact that the reason the USA ruled after WWII was not some kind of divine right, it was simply that we had all the manufacturing capacity. We proceeded to rebuild the world...

Then we tore it all down and voluntarily shipped it to China, in order to make the quarterly report look a bit better.

As to the service economy, well, we can't all make PowerPoint slides for each other. And service lately pretty much sucks everywhere...so I don't think that's working.

We need to build stuff.

 

As far as the global economy, there is so much more to it. There IS a global economy, but there are several levels of economy, right down to the local economy in my own house. We, the consumers, decide where things are manufactured by voting with our dollars. If the consumer refused to purchase imported products, corporations would not ship manufacturing overseas. But, the average Joe will go down to Wal-Mart and buy the Stanley Aladdin thermos thinking that it is made in the USA (it is made in China), because he thinks he is buying a domestic product. After all, it used to be made in the USA and the package has statements about what an American icon it is.

I look at the country of origin of everything I buy and I support governments and economies by choice. There are some things that I choose to buy (like my computer) that I just can't get made anywhere else, but for most things, if I don't support where it's made, I don't buy it. And I will buy things made locally, just to support the local economy.

That is me. I don't intend for this to be political. I spend my money the way I think is right and I encourage everyone else to spend their money as they see fit. I would just prefer not to hear people say there is nothing we can do about it. Many individuals, acting individually, can make a big difference. Know where your stuff is made and make a conscious choice as to how you spend your money.

 

That's a very good approach to buying things, but that's harder to do when buying a heavy duty pickup. To get the ball rolling the first thing that must be done is to mandate the manufacturers to list the foreign and domestic parts content as a percentage on the window sticker.

My '03 Ram window sticker lists the US and Canadian parts content, the country of origin for the engine and transmission, and the final assembly location, however my '09 Ford doesn't list anything in relation to parts content, only final assembly location.

My '03 Ram sticker lists the US/Canadian parts content as 81%.

 

I look at everything I buy for point of origin and do my best to buy USA products even if it costs more.

 

Just hope you don't need one of those "Made In China" parts in the future and its out of stock at the dealer. Will take a minimum of 6-8 weeks just to get the part made and shipped over here.

It angers me seeing how manufacturing is handled now days here in the U.S., its seems a lot of people want it to fail. I can't really blame people for not wanting to go into my field with the current rate of decline of US manufacturing.

I don't buy foreign parts when I can help it. I've witnessed the inferior quality myself too many times.

 

I do the same. I'll buy more for a USA product even if it's the same quality (but it tends to be a better product).

I also try to think of the final resting place of my dollars. Will they be given as a tip to a golf caddy here in the USA or an overseas golf course caddy. I want the money I spend on a truck to go in the pocket of a USA golf caddy (so the exec at the top of the heap, that owns the company that builds my truck for example spends my dollars here). A USA corporate owner is likely to spend his money here in the USA; hopefully on USA made products. If I spend my dollars on an overseas product, the owner of the company that made that product is probably buying his bread and milk from an overseas company.

I also think if I support USA companies they are likely to employ more workers to support production of their products, putting more USA workers to work. So, although I can understand why people buy Toyotas assembled in the USA, if we bought American cars/trucks those companies would have to increase their employment. I don't think the US auto worker loses out if we buy a USA-owned auto, since they'll end up getting hired to build them if the USA auto company has to ramp up production. And, the executives will be buying their bread and milk from a USA bread and milk company.

 

Ditto that. Also, when I worked in an auto related field I always asked parts vendors if they had a USA-made part. Radiators were kind of a key part actually, and there was almost always a USA-made radiator available for a few buck more. I don't know if that's still the case, but it was a few years ago. Ford likely could have had a domestic company build a radiator to their specs...unless there are no more USA-made radiators at all.

BTW, the worst for waiting on parts always seemed to be German car parts. Seems Germany uses a lot of German parts on their vehicles. VW, MB, etc always had huge wait times when parts needed to be ordered, and had to come from Germany.

 

Were I work we make metal stamping, wire forms, and assemblies that pretty much gets shipped everywhere. I think we even ship one part to china, maybe two. My point being is you have to stay competitive and have a wide customer base. Be on top of all the new innovations as much as you can afford to otherwise your doomed to join the ranks of never mores.

 

It's really to bad that everything is manufactured overseas. I was watching a show the other night on TV and they were showing all the empty factories in Detroit and all of the closed mom and pop businesses,it's pretty sad because as Americans we take allot of pride in producing a quality piece.

There were a few bike builders on saying they basically lost everything.

 

The east side of Detroit is decimated as far as any kind of business. Used to be the hot spot for all kinds of things. Hell, we lost half of our workforce over the last year but we are coming back.

 

You can't even buy a darn tomato made here anymore.lol

 

I'll sell you some in 6 months or so.