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Feanor2
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Awwww. . . poor Toyota . . . . . 
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bbarrick8383
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I’m not worried about Toyota as a corporation. I’m not as narrow minded as liberals.Awwww. . . poor Toyota . . . . .
Do you think they may have had to fire a few people because a few people couldn’t figure out which pedal was the brake? Interesting that they waited till the heat had settled down to release this report.
I guess if Toyota employees were unionized it might have made a difference.
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Feanor2
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I am thinking of buying a GM for the first time in my life. I would consider it a big plus for my money to be supporting union jobs.
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bbarrick8383
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Do you think that maybe American jobs going overseas might have something to do with unions? Many of GM’s part’s are not made by American union employees. Should you not also think of American jobs, regardless of whether or not they are union? You can find out what car was made in what plant fairly easily, it usually says right there on the car. Toyota keeps many Americans employed as well, are they not as important?
manufacturing.net/News-GM-May-Export-China-Built-Cars-To-US-051309.aspx
If I were a union employee, I’d be a bit worried.
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Ponyguy
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This is my territory: I’m a self-professed American gear-head.
The issue of Americans having jobs, and union labor against non-union labor and all that rot is but a tiny facet of the many covering this jewel called “business.” Toyota, like any other business, is NOT in the business of selling automobiles; Toyota, like any other business, is in business to MAKE A PROFIT. And the owners care not where the profits come from, or how the profits arrive, just so long as they do arrive.
Americans are employed in the USA to create profits for their companies. Where do those profits end up? Oh, it’s nice that the foreign companies stoop to hire American workers, and pay them whatever the unemployed worker is willing to take… but the profits generated by that foreign company go back to that foreign country. If push comes to shove, and business goes into a tailspin, the American plants are the first to be fired or furloughed.
What this country ought to have is a reciprocal trade agreement with every country with which we trade. Our trade laws should exactly mirror the laws of the country with whom we consider trading. Our current foreign trade laws are overly beneficial to foreign traders, and quite punishing to American companies. Consider, for instance, photographic film (now a non-issue since camera film has been supplanted by electronic memory chips). Kodak was not allowed to sell its camera film in Japan, because Kodak would significantly impact sales of Japan’s domestic brand, Fuji. Look at the various shops at Tokyo’s Narita airport, and you couldn’t find Kodak film, even if you had to; however, check the shops at LAX, ORD, or JFK, and you could purchase all the Fuji or Kodak film you could carry. That is only a tiny, single almost insignificant product, but it is indicative of the way one other country erects barriers to sales of American products overseas. Automobile sales is but one more instance; Japan restricts importation of American cars with stiff tariffs, and extremely restrictive import regulations. Granted, American cars are generally too large for Japan’s narrow roads, and Japanese drivers sit on the right side of their cars, as opposed to the left side, as we do in the USA, so there is an inherent disadvantage. But the import tariffs and artificially restrictive “quality” inspections imposed on American products quickly make American goods priced out of the market. These artificial “market protection” practices are not unique to Japan, but Japan is among the worst offender.
Why do we allow this to exist? At first, American businessmen/women wanted to allow free importation of goods because American manufacturing companies could make bigger profits by having their manufacturing done with cheap, non-OSHA-regulated labor. American retailers weren’t concerned about the source of the goods they sold, they focused on profits. So, a trusted, well-established American company would prostitute their name to a foreign manufacturer, and sell a product made by cheap foreign labor under an established American brand name. But foreign companies were also free to sell their own cheaply-made products in the USA, and soon it became obvious to consumers that the brand name was really meaningless. Without customers, American companies are failing; the now-unemployed American employees were the main purchasers of their own products, but without their own support, the entire manufacturing system collapses like a huge castle of cards.
America, the “Land of Opportunity,” has really ceased to exist, largely because of the purchasing power of American business. Any American company that is currently prosperous likely owes much of its success to timely, covert investments in the members of the American Congress.
America is a victim of its own success; toward the end of World War II, American children were urged to study hard, go to school, go to college! Get a College Degree! Don’t lower yourself to digging ditches, and doing manual labor all your life! BE somebody! American children were, essentially, taught that manual labor was menial and degrading… and to be avoided. Everyone ought to have a College Degree, and be someone’s boss. Everyone should make a lot of money. Everyone should strive to ultimately drive a Cadillac. Alfred Sloane Jr. devised the General Motors product line so a young family would first purchase a Chevrolet. When he got a raise or a promotion, he certainly stepped up to a (more costly) Pontiac. The next step up the corporate ladder brought him into an Oldsmobile, followed by a Buick, then when he joined his company’s Board of Directors, he had finally earned his entitlement to a Cadillac. Everyone should ultimately be rich.
This sort of thinking is what is killing America. Everyone wants, wants and wants. Everyone expects to either be rich, or to be entitled. Nobody seems to want to actually get or allow calluses or blisters on their delicate hands… WORK is a bad word. A four-letter word. To be evaded and avoided.
We are dining on the roasted goose which had formerly laid golden eggs.
Unmitigated GREED has triumphed over the comatose American work ethic.
Alan Jackson said:
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bbarrick8383
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They are not paid whatever they are willing to take, they are paid based on what the local economy is like. For instance, if Toyota opened a plant here in OKlahoma, they would be expected to pay their employees starting out somewhere in the 15 to 25 dollar an hour range depending on the job. Which at 15 bucks an hour, that’s not bad for a young guy, and 25 is pretty nice for someone who has nothing but a high school diploma. As far as the American plants being fired first, do you think any American company that starts losing business is going to fire the American workers first or thier cheap Mexican labor at the new Mexican plant they built for cheaper labor? The fact is, in areas where Toyota built thier non-union plants the economies are doing just fine compared to that of Detroit which has the same unemployment rate of Haiti.
If you live in the Northeast or Western part of the country I could see how you would come to this conclusion. However, the Mid-West is a place where companies still go to do business. Namely Texas, but even Oklahoma has been attracting some new names over the past 10 years.
I agree, but not all of America has lost that hard working mentality yet.
Yes we are.
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