2019 Ford Focus to Be Made in China

 
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warminmn
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Post by warminmn » Thu. Jun. 22, 2017 9:15 am

samhill wrote:It becomes very :? , we move our car production off shore & just about every foreign car maker now at least assembles their cars for here here. The workers get paid as well or almost as do the domestic workers & they adhere to all our laws so I can only guess where the big difference is! ;)
One of the differences is they lie about the quality of their steel. Its happened in road and bridge construction with chinese steel. They are getting better in that department though. And i'll take my chances on American made as much as I can.

Not related to sams post:
Greed, on both the part of the manufacturer and the buyer. Builder wants to make more money, even though they can make money here, they want more. Buyer cuz they want the cheapest they can get. So both parties are to blame.

We used to make so many electronics here, as Larry mentioned. It employed thousands, perhaps a million or more people, not just in building but in repair and building all the parts. Then the foreign market came in strong about the time solid state became the norm, we couldnt compete with their prices, Americans bought their junk at the cost of all the jobs here, the rest is history.

Cars are going the same route now. Automation is going to cost an awful lot of jobs too.

We'll see what happens politically to help on that regard. Tariffs may help if done correctly. Doing nothing sure isnt going to help.

 
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Post by samhill » Thu. Jun. 22, 2017 10:33 am

Don't know if they ever got the contract or not but when GMs Fisher Body in West Mifflin, Pa. shut down USS Edgar Thomson Works (which was right across the street) that made all their sheet metal had an over abundance of capacity & Korea wanted to pick it up for their Southern US Hyundai & Kia plants.
I also don't know if Chinese steel ever got their quality up but theirs was better than Russian at the time, at USS we got some of both & sold some to each, as a boiler maker I got to both burn & weld some of it & most was crap. In defense when China was gearing up for the Olympics we sold them every (off chemistry) slab we had on hand so they just might think the same of our steel.

 
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Post by Pacowy » Fri. Jun. 23, 2017 12:23 am

All else equal, I find it hard to fault customers for wanting low-cost cars, or producers for seeking low-cost methods of production. That's what happens in free markets. My $0.02 is that we developed unrealistic expectations in the mid-1900's, when the industrial capabilities of Germany, Japan and others had been devastated by war, China was not a major industrial producer and was largely isolated from the West, etc. With all of them plus others now able to compete effectively in world markets, we've found it's not as easy as it used to look to dominate industrial production, even in our domestic markets. Tariffs may sound good, but if all they are doing is compensating for the inefficiency of domestic production they undermine the purchasing power of U.S. consumers. In general, more aggressive R&D, innovation and retraining of displaced workers seem like they would be more effective than tariffs in rebuilding our competitiveness while protecting workers.

Mike


 
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Post by freetown fred » Fri. Jun. 23, 2017 6:08 am

Don't forget that most if not all of these Country's that are kickin our ass now tech & industry wise--WE gave most of that to them!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Be interesting to see what the tariff idea accomplishes--personally I'm not gonna project a bunch oh negativism on it!

 
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Post by CapeCoaler » Fri. Jun. 23, 2017 11:04 am

yep we rebuilt their MFG with the new stuff...
Gave them a leg up and they ran with it!!
We just need to refocus on innovation and tech...
Heavy MFG will always be there...
Just not US producing for the world... ;)

 
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Post by Pacowy » Fri. Jun. 23, 2017 1:12 pm

ff, I don't have a problem with tariffs that create/ensure a level playing field - e.g., where a foreign producer ducks environmental requirements a U.S. producer would need to satisfy. If, on a level playing field, U.S. producers are still so costly that they can't compete with foreign producers, I don't see how it's a good idea for the U.S. to sacrifice its standard of living to preserve noncompetitive methods of production, rather than find ways to earn the business through more effective competition.

Mike

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