Letter to the Editor
Buy American
Published Sunday, November 16, 2008
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To the editor:
In 1991, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner about U.S. exports and foreign imports and the U.S. economy potentially failing. Verbatim, I wrote, “export jobs, import goods (Made in China) = bankrupt America.” Today’s U.S. economic state is ample proof of that export/import equation.
Currently, the U.S. auto industry is failing. Why is the U.S. buying imported cars?
The largest transfer of U.S. wealth is to Saudi Arabia. Why does the U.S. import oil?
U.S. manufactured toys. Why buy toy “junk” made in China?
Granted, “Made in China” and “Made in Mexico” may be cheaper, but who do we want to support? Do we support cheap labor, no benefits? Do we support China, Mexico or the U.S.A.? It’s our choice.
The U.S. consumer, shopper, sends the greatest message every time we shop.
In 1991, I made the effort to buy “Made in America.” I later made a choice to try the new global approach and ignored my own advice. Today, I’m proud to say I’m choosing to buy “Made in America,” again.
Community Discussion
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Well maybe if the US built better cars people would buy them more. I'm sure not going to spend $25,000 on a piece of crap that's gonna bust a year after going off the lot.
Fourchords- you can get an american built car that will compare with whatever you have in your driveway right now. Toyota car? try a focus or a fusion. Their small truck? Try a ranger or one of the chevy small club cabs; the ranger has the best gas mileage for vehicles its size (yes, they build the mazda too at the same plant). The drive to push american vehicles for better fuel economy was in the 1990's and for the most part the market has adjusted that way. Go back out and shop some more, you might be surprised.
Anyone notice about the beef at Fred's saying it may have come from New Zealand, Mexico or Canada? On the same package? If you did and that made you say 'huh?' go grab a bag of gummy bears that may have been made a plant that also processes everything from peanuts to seeweed and may have come from a list of about eight countries. That blew me away!
Buy "Made in America" if you want, but don't ruin our economy by promoting restrictive trade policies.
Is an American car a Ford assembled in Mexico, or a Toyota assembled in Alabama? The line has been blurred over the past few decades.
I've always been a union member, but the UAW seems to be consuming the auto industry from within. I don't like the idea of the auto industry getting bailed out, taxpayers paying for UAW contracts, or the government being in the auto industry. But then, I don't like anything about the Paulsen bailout.
We should buy the products we make here at home but that is very difficult. If you make a conscious effort to buy American made products you will have to search far and wide to complete your shopping list. Currently and for the immediate future America is a service nation. This cannot go on forever; we need to have manufacturing jobs to create real wealth. As fare as bailouts go we should not be involved in keeping subpar companies afloat. Let them die off; replacements will not be far behind.
Lets see union auto workers for the Big Three make $74 an hour plus benefits. Non union auto workers in the US make $43 an hour plus benefits. There is an auto industry in the US that continues to make cars, have you forgotten foreign companies make cars in the US. These companies are not asking to be bailed out by the government. They make a product Americans buy, so when you buy that foreign car the company may be foreign but it is made in the US. The Big three are the ones who are in trouble because of their lack of making an auto Americans want, poor labor contracts and mis management. Maybe the natural course should take place and let the destruction of the big three happen, so new industries can step forward with a better product that consumers will buy.
american workers are far to greedy. that will change when there becomes fewer and fewer jobs.
lol I guess America produces crappola?
I bought a GMC Sonoma in 1996/97; the Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) failed 6 or 7 times in the first three years I had the car. Granted the first couple of years were brutally cold (sustained periods of -40 or colder) and usually when the ABS failed, it simply meant that I still had brakes if I could remember my cold weather driving skills (like 'pumping' the brakes). In each instance however, it took nearly two weeks to get an appointment for them to repair it.
On one of those occasions, the brakes would "lock up" all together. One one occasion that my brakes failed to work, there was about half an inch play and the brake pedal wouldn't depress any further. I was in a parking lot, headed for the exit to a major street (with cars coming) and a brake that was not working at all. I turned the wheel to head for a snow berm that someone had pushed up after plowing the parking lot trying to psych myself to hit the snow pile at about 15 or 20 miles an hour when the brakes "unlocked" and I was able to stop short of plowing into the snow pile.
In 2003 the engine just died in the middle of College road one morning on the way to work. When I had it towed to the dealer they couldn't diagnose what was wrong with it until it did the same thing to them (died in the middle of a test drive) and then refused to start again. That went on for a couple of months.
I mentioned one day that I was 'disappointed' in among other things, the fact that the ABS had failed 6 or 7 times and the technician replied, "I don't remember the brakes going out that many times..." so he checked his computer log and told me, "Our records don't show the ABS going out that many times." Later I went through my service receipts and found one marked, "Customer says there is a warning light on the Panel" (NOT ABS DOESN'T WORK).
I'd love to "Buy American" but I will not buy another American made car or truck - they have a history of "dying in the middle of the road while I'm driving". My "foreign made" car and truck have never done that to me! If I had to say whose fault it was, I'd guess 50/50 Dealer/Manufacturer but I don't care - I'll not buy another American Made POS!
I can say my American cars seem to hold up as well as any with the Japanese label. I am just not sure how American my "american" cars really are.
I have a Chysler Voyager just coming up on 90000 miles and I have never had any problems with it at all. As far as price goes - it was the cheapest Van I could get my hands on at the time.
I have also owned Ford's too and I will vouch for their products as well.
It seems the vehicles these days hold up very well no matter what the brand.
As far as Alaskan conditions go the only complaints I have heard is from some diesel pick up owners and that has to do with the timing of the switch from #2 to #1 at the pumps.
I have also heard that Nissan cars do not do very well in our winters, and that is according to car rental agencies in Fairbanks.
Better yet, buy Made in Alaska. We have the resources to manufacture and right here in Alaska. If our state government officials really want to help Alaska they would support developing Alaskan companies.
I've been hearing how there is a shortage of ammo, guns, etc. Why not start a manufacturing plant right here. We need to support Alaska. When push comes to shove the states are going to have to start supporting themselves. Alaska will be the last place they ship anything when things really get tough.
alaskastoryteller,
Yep, especially guns, ammunition, and ammunition components...
While I think that GM builds nothing but rolling turds, Ford a bit better and Chrysler reliability has apparently gone down the toilet, their loss of market share is the fault of nobody but themselves. I HATE the idea of bailing out inept execs who went for the quick SUV buck over the last 10 years in the face of rising gas prices.
That being said, to let the American auto manufacturing industry die would be tragic, IMHO. So, fine. If GM (Ford and Chrysler) wants a bailout there will be stipulations. Manufacturers should be REQUIRED to pursue higher fuel efficiency, clean diesel technology and hybrid technology.
Is that government control of private industry? Nope. GM, Ford and Chrysler can turn down that money and fix things their own way, if they want...
Freedarfur, $74 dollars per hr plus benifits,
I don't believe it. Please provide some supportive evidence on these wages & benifits.
JoeParks - Those were the numbers given in a story on CBS news last night... You can probably find the video at their site. I too thought that sounded high and it makes me wonder if they rolled wages and benefits into that number. They didn't say...
Free-of-facts-Darfur:
See here:
http://www.uaw.org/barg/07fact/fact02.ph...
In 2006 a typical UAW skilled tradesman at GM earned $32.32/hr.
$74 would have to include all benefits, insurance, the pension, everything, to be more than double the actual hourly wage. I still think that's high, as most workers don't get $40 in benefits on a $30 wage.
Maybe the folks that like those foreign made car & trucks could go live where they are made , and really help those foreigners out plus save the freight . And make all that big money they pay those people .
The global economy means that even 'American' cars are partially built by foreigners in foreign lands. To simply 'buy American' is too simplistic a solution. Not that it is a bad idea, but there were reasons that foreign automakers made inroads in selling vehicles here.
Basically the Detroit automakers were too short sighted (concentrating on more profitable gas guzzlers) and I for one want a vehicle that gets better gas mileage (thereby reducing oil imports) than Detroit was providing.
Barks,
I was born in this country. I've been to other countries (courtesy of the United States Army) and I like this country better. The first five or six vehicles I owned were American made (at least, that's what they said) and so too were a couple that I purchased after the first Toyota I ever owned. Every single American made vehicle I've ever owned had problems that I don't think they should have had (or that I should have had to pay to repair).
American Car Manufacturers are responsible for the shoddy workmanship of American cars, not me, I have no intention to going anywhere else. I'd still like to "Buy American" but I don't think they'll ever manage to build a "Superior American Product" again in my lifetime. If they would file bankrupsy, sell (or abandon) their plants in the northeast and move to states where they can rebuild without having to bow down to the Unions (or stand up to the Unions) they may rebuild themselves. One day the American Automobile Manufacturers may offer a competitive product that is All-American (with all American made parts and all American made 'assemblies' and assembled in the United States) that Americans would prefer because they are better and safer and more economical to drive).
Ummmm, Barks?
Most of the 'foreign' cars bought in America are made in America. How about you! Do you buy Fords and GMs that are built in Canada or Mexico? Perhaps it is you who need to move.
The Big Three have been profitminded and shortsighted for the last 40 years. In the 70's, Nissan and Honda began to make inroads into the US because of the '73 oil embargo because the Big Three were not producing fuel efficient vehicles. The Big Three came out with crap cars to try to compete and continued to produce crap cars basically until the early 90's. I got into the car business here in 1989 and although I wanted to sell American, the best vehicles on the market at that time were imports, and none of the domestic stores in town were hiring. I justified selling them because the Honda's that I sold were being built predominatly in Ohio by American workers and the Nissans that I sold were primarily built in Tennessee by American workers. So every time I sold a car that necessitated the building of another one, I was feeding American families. In 1993 I started selling GM products and realized that although they still had a ways to go, they were almost comparable with the imports that I had been selling. By the year 2000, I felt comfortable recommending an American product to my family members to spend their hard earned money on for the first time because in my learned opinion, most of them were equivalent to the imports. Mostly because the Japanese had begun to do what the Big Three had done, reduce innovation for profit. I still feel that way. Can you get a bad vehicle, sure you can and it doesn't matter whether is import or domestic. Look at Consumer Reports and see how many concerns there are for each manufacturer during the early ownership experience. There is not that much difference any more between import and domestic. At least there wasn't in 2004 when I left the sales side of the dealership for the service side. I have not been involoved with the sales side for awhile now, but I have heard that certain new Dodge models and certain new GM models have had issues in the last few years as the Big Three have once again tried to balance economy with the power and luxuries that Americans want and have been paying good money to get. Those of you who say that the Big Three have not been making vehicles that America wants please explain to me why for several recent years the Ford F150 has been the number one selling VEHICLE in the country?
Now, instead of the Big Three balancing their R and D between better efficiency in their big high powered vehicles with a vision to the future and smaller more efficient and alternative energy vehicles while they were making billions selling trucks and SUV's, they have once again been short sighted and now find themselves in BIG trouble. It is nobody's fault but their own and imo as much as it would devestate our country, I say let them fail and restructure and hopefully learn their lessons from the ashes. America will end up with basically one, possibly two, large manufacturers building vehicles that America wants and will buy. Of course, it will put us into a huge depression as the fallout will create unimaginable economical deveatation and this country will change as it did in the 30's and come back stronger for it on the other side. Taking taxpayer money to pay the greedy and foolish Big Three makes no more sense than taking taxpayer money to bail out the greedy housing or banking/investment hucksters who have fleeced people who couldn't calculate a budget or realize that they were involoving themselves in quick money schemes that were destined to eventually fail. I understand WHY they are doing it, I just don't agree with it. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, and if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. America's greed and consumerism has created the problem that we have today and America has to pay its dues. Do I like it, am I happy about it...no. Did I see it coming 15 years ago...yes.
As to "buying American" it is a nice sentiment, but no longer valid. We live in a global economy now and American greed and power has taken away the possiblity to for our citizens to live by just buying American. What are you going to do for fuel? Oil comes from overseas. Food? Much of it imported. Vehicles? Even if they are manufactured in the US much of the components are outsourced from araound the world. Electronics? Forget about it. Furniture and builing materials? Outsourced wood products. Clothing? Imported.
Just about anything that we use in this country today has at least componentry that comes from somewhere else and pays families in those countries instead of our own. Why? Greed...pure and simple. Big business greed and/or government greed, but greed just the same. We went from a country of goods to a country of money and now we are going to pay the price for our greed. Hate it, but that is just the way it is.
I heard the figure of $74.00 an hour for vested UAW workers after all costs were factored in on PBS the other night during a very heated conversation on one of the panel shows. The panel was discussing the potential bailouts.
That 74 an hour "plus benefits" is total BS. Freedarfur, if you are going to continue to make unsubstantiated claims your reputation as a BS'er is going to climb and no one is going to take you seriously any longer..
Interesting subject, this whole made in China thing. I have watched things like power tools start to go to manufacturing plants in China for a while, but there were always a few holdouts. The