Author Topic: The Kerry's outsourcing overseas (Read 1986 times)

Toad · « **Reply #45 on:** August 03, 2004, 01:11:19 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by oboe
I asked in a different thread, but got no response: Why are many Hondas and Toyotas made in the USA? (Marysville, OH has a Honda plant and I think Toyota has one in Kentucky, and there are probably others-Nissan?). If the cost of manufacturing is cheaper elsewhere, why are these plants here?

Research VER under Reagan. That stands for "Voluntary Export Restrictions".

The interesting thing to note is that these "Voluntary Export Restrictions were pretty much forced on the Japanese auto makers.

Building the plants in the US allowed them to sell more cars here.

In short, it was simply protectionism that caused the plants to be built here.

Free trade, anyone?

oboe · « **Reply #46 on:** August 03, 2004, 01:24:59 PM »

Thanks, Toad. I'm surprised to see that this occurred during the Reagan adminstration. I had guessed powerful auto unions had something to do with it but may be wrong.

Anyway, it seems to have worked out, has it not? The US customer gets his Japanese import, while the US retains workers skilled in auto manufacturing. By Shuckins logic, Honda and Toyota should've had to raise prices, watched their sales fall, then lay off workers. So could this be a protectionism success story?

AWMac · « **Reply #47 on:** August 03, 2004, 01:28:42 PM »

Dammmm ...... an I created the Tomato... I should have gotten a patent...

Well, time is not lost... I got this stuff off a moldy bread fungus that cures ..umm welll... I'll just call it.

"Clap On?, Clap Off"

Think it'll spread?

Sorry all I'm just coming off some serious meds for a back fracture. Where in the Hell did July go to?

Fells good to be ... ummm Back?

demaw1 · « **Reply #48 on:** August 03, 2004, 03:05:06 PM »

Sceadu........appalling...... ..

My dear Sceadu, I find it appalling that you would compare yourself to a lemming. It was my belief that your writing showed a higher level of education,perhaps an elite professor from a well known collage. I am sure many found them to be desideratum, and they certainaly were not desultory.

I had hoped for at least one contrariwise idea of capitalism for balance. I suppose that would not be desideratum to accomplish your intent. After the fall of communism I understood the works of kroptkin and von Mises to be kaput.

I do hope your next post will be of a interdisciplinary nature,yet either way I eagerly await there posting

TheDudeDVant · « **Reply #49 on:** August 03, 2004, 03:18:01 PM »

Making laws that prevent American cooperations from outsourcing work or sending their manufacturing business abroad is not the point made by Sceadu and others. Rather, remove the laws in the tax code that would allow said cooperations from taking advantage of loop holes in the system should they choose to move their business outside the US..

Honda and Toyota are perfect examples of what is being preached by American cooperations of competition and rising labor cost not always being perfect truth. Just recently Toyota opened a new plant building Toyota engines here in Alabama.. Both are thriving companies on the world market. For many years the #1 built American car was the Honda Accord.

Its a shame really but our cooperate capitalist have bought and paid for our government many times over and have entirely too much influence over laws and tax codes. Producing laws that forbid American cooperations from outsourcing is not the answer, but at the same time, keeping laws in place that make it easy with the same tax breaks/incentives as business in the homeland is certainly not the answer either..

demaw1 · « **Reply #50 on:** August 03, 2004, 04:54:59 PM »

Dude de vant.....consider this...

Sceadu would want to do that and more much more.That type of doctrine and writing always is full of nuances.[ NO I WONT, say anything more about ,wont explain nothing and I will say it for some of you....I am a moron that knows nothing and get everything from comic books]

Are corporations evil ,no,are they greedy ,yes as are all insitutions,and yes even you and me.

Does anyone remember what happen to the luxury boat industry after the dems taxed hell out of them.We had one of the largest boat building industry around. Above avg pay for even just a high school ed. 2 years later we only had 1 boat builder left. After all the hoop la on pasing of bill ,it was quietly repealed.Oh ya Italy sends her thinks, industry never came back as it was.

Im,just saying be carefull it is not as easy to mess with as you think. And like it or not a lot of you make a living working for the corps.

Sceadu · « **Reply #51 on:** August 04, 2004, 06:59:07 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by demaw1
Sceadu........appalling........

My dear Sceadu, I find it appalling that you would compare yourself to a lemming. It was my belief that your writing showed a higher level of education,perhaps an elite professor from a well known collage. I am sure many found them to be desideratum, and they certainaly were not desultory.

I had hoped for at least one contrariwise idea of capitalism for balance. I suppose that would not be desideratum to accomplish your intent. After the fall of communism I understood the works of kroptkin and von Mises to be kaput.

I do hope your next post will be of a interdisciplinary nature,yet either way I eagerly await there posting

demaw1, how sad that you didn't understand my post.

First off, Kropotkin and von Mises are at opposite ends of the economic spectrum, so please explain your comment regarding the fall of communism. In fact, von Mises is most well-known for writing a scathing debunking of socialism. But then, you'd know that if you knew much of anything. Nice post, though. Do you have no idea of who Smith and Keynes and von Mises are? How about Mikhail Bakunin or Pyotr Kropotkin or Proudhon?

Too funny. Do you understand the term non sequitur, sport?

Sceadu · « **Reply #52 on:** August 04, 2004, 07:16:18 AM »

While I'm on the subject of corporations, I'd like to point out a little known fact of U.S. history. During the writing of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson (you know who those two are, right, demaw1?) proposed an 11th amendment. The proposed amendment would have severely restricted corporations. It would have made it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, to exist more than one generation, to attempt to influence the political process by monetary or any other means and many other restrictions besides. The amendment failed. Not because it wasn't popular; but because the other delegates considered it redundant since all of the states already had similar laws on their books. Within 100 years, all of those laws disappeared, through backdoor lobbying by corporations. By the time of the Civil War, the state laws which made the proposed 11th amendment redundant were all gone.

Toad · « **Reply #53 on:** August 04, 2004, 08:33:03 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by oboe
So could this be a protectionism success story?

Probably not. Protectionism is essentially defending what the market would view as inefficiency.

As for the plants here, don't forget that Honda, Toyo, et al lobbied for and got HUGE tax abatements and other incentives to locate in those places. Since these "gifts" are not given to all, they can be viewed as subsidies.

So once again, this not a "free trade" example.

I suggest to you that a car company from other than Japan that is not offered these "gifts" will view that as an playing field that is most certainly not "level" as both of our candidates espouse.

oboe · « **Reply #54 on:** August 05, 2004, 07:38:58 AM »

I'm not sure anyone is trying to characterize the domestic Honda and Toyota plants (I think Merecedes SUVs are built now in NC also) as free trade. I agree with you, it's not an example of free trade. But on the whole, it has been more beneficial than not, wouldn't you say?

My research on Reagan and VERs lead to this article, which claims Reagan, by his actions, was the most protectionist President since Herbert Hoover:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa107.html
I am surprised to learn this, I always thought of Reagan as a free trader.

Toad · « **Reply #55 on:** August 05, 2004, 09:56:55 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by oboe
. But on the whole, it has been more beneficial than not, wouldn't you say?

Beneficial to whom? Generally, any sort of protectionism means higher prices for consumers.

If, for example, these plants had not been built, would the US makers become more competitive, selling cars for less in order to survive? Would that have put further downward pressure on the price of Japanese imports?

As for the plants and their actual cost per job, this article is a good place to get an overview of some of the issues:

CASE: ALABAMA AND THE MERCEDES-BENZ PLANT

Quote

The incentive package involves $77.5 million to improve water, sewer, gas, and electrical services, $92.2 million to improve and develop the factory site, and $60 million to train Mercedes-Benz employees, suppliers, and workers in related industries. Mercedes-Benz also will receive tax breaks, including an exemption from all property taxes for 20 years. Total cost of the package could be as high as $300 million, which comes to $200,000 per direct job created

oboe · « **Reply #56 on:** August 05, 2004, 12:51:53 PM »

Beneficial to the US auto workers who go jobs at the plants, beneficial to the local economies and governments who benefit from employed workers in their districts, beneficial to Honda and Toyota buyers, and beneficial to Honda and Toyota themselves.

If these plants had not been built, Toyotas and Hondas would have been limited in their imports, thus driving their prices higher. Making their competitors' products more expensive does not provide US auto manufacturers with the incentive to produce better or less expensive cars- I would think it has the opposite effect. It's just a nice break from competition and reason for them to keep doing business as usual.

Can't speak to any incentives which may have been offered to Honda or Toyota, although I suspect they were more motivated by pressure from the VER, and I doubt Mercedes' position of a few years ago is comparable - they are in completely different industry segments.

I think incentives are useful but local governments have to be careful. I live near the town that gave all sorts of tax breaks and incentives to the reborn Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle company, which was using the resurgent popularity of Harley-type cruisers to start up again. Short story, bad management sunk the company (by the looks of the manufacturing plant they built, they spent a great deal of their money on architecture and lawncare- it was the most palatial manufacturing plant I've ever seen) and left the local governments holding the bag.

Back to free trade, I'm beginning to doubt there really IS such a thing as free trade.

Toad · « **Reply #57 on:** August 05, 2004, 01:02:24 PM »

More beneficial to US workers than restricting the Japanese imports and NOT allowing them to get around the deal by opening US factories? After all, perhaps more US "Big Three" workers would have stayed employed / earned more with a more straight forward form of protectionism than VER.

I think you see the point.

It's still protectionism of one sort or another. Which is why I usually LOL when either Bush or Kerry start spouting about free trade and keeping US jobs at home all in the same speech (or even paragraph).