So be it. At least we would've painfully rooted out the bullet, rather than negligently (and very expensively) applying a bandaid to only the wound which would continue to fester and bleed.
If all countries engage in subsidizing and bailout out their car companies, then it's no wonder car prices continue to rise.
Bull-pizzle.
If people want to form unions, let no government deny them.
Workers' rights are human rights.
I'm not sure how you can't say Toyota being protected by the Japanese government for decades wasn't a bad thing in the long run for the Japanese people. Free trade economists in Japan during that time were urging the Japanese government to adopt the theory of comparative advantage, let their auto industry fail, and trade in what they had a comparative advantage in: producing material like silk. That would have been a calamity for them.
For fledgling industries and countries I don't condemn protectionism. But GM, who was for a very long time the largest company in the world, should've been allowed to declare bankruptcy, which they did anyway.
Since GM is contesting with Toyota and Volkswagen for the world's largest manufacturer of automobiles and is currently #2 in the world, I fail to see how GM is not building the cars people want. While the American public is currently required to fund GM, we are not required to buy its products, so we must want them.GM did not build the cars people wanted. That is and was a management decision.
As the world's largest consumer market and source of a major fraction of profits for companies worldwide (e.g. roughly half of all automobile profits if memory serves), protectionism should work much better for the USA than for fledgling countries. What import tariff would you put up with to sell into the USA versus, say, South Korea or Vietnam or Argentina? The only market currently of equivalent importance would be the EU, with which we should be able to compete reasonably well without protections. Exempt the EU and a few other countries of relatively equal wealth or strategic importance - Canada, Australia, Japan, maybe South Korea and Mexico - and then tailor import tariffs to each country individually.We're in the mess that we're in because we let our industrial base dissolve in this country. At least you admit that protectionism can work in growing countries though.
We're in the mess that we're in because we let our industrial base dissolve in this country. At least you admit that protectionism can work in growing countries though.
Industrial base is going to dissolve when we're competing with developing countries with cheaper labor. I don't see anyway out of that. Companies are faced with the choice of paying more for labor and becoming uncompetitive, or outsourcing for cheaper labor to stay in business. That's my basic understanding of it.
As the world's largest consumer market and source of a major fraction of profits for companies worldwide (e.g. roughly half of all automobile profits if memory serves), protectionism should work much better for the USA than for fledgling countries. What import tariff would you put up with to sell into the USA versus, say, South Korea or Vietnam or Argentina? The only market currently of equivalent importance would be the EU, with which we should be able to compete reasonably well without protections. Exempt the EU and a few other countries of relatively equal wealth or strategic importance - Canada, Australia, Japan, maybe South Korea and Mexico - and then tailor import tariffs to each country individually.
Not only are WI unions bussing in violent supporters, they are bussing in palm trees:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RClJ6vK9x_4
I don't think Germany's success disproves the basic rule that people prefer to pay $5.00 for a sandwich instead of $6.00 for the same sandwich.
There is no particularly special technology needed to make a chainsaw. It's really just plastic and metal parts screwed together with old-fashioned nuts and bolts. The Chinese already make chainsaws. But that hasn't stopped German power-tool manufacturer Stihl from selling its made-in-Germany chainsaws around the world, even though its top-end models are among the priciest on the market. In fact, 86% of the products Stihl makes in its high-cost German factories are exported. How Stihl manages that says a lot about the impact a revived German economy is having on Europe and the world — both good and bad.
The family-owned firm, based near Stuttgart in Germany's south, could shift more production to its lower-wage factories in China and Brazil, but management is committed to manufacturing many of its most advanced products at home. In contrast to the American habit of outsourcing as much as possible, about half the parts in a German-made chainsaw — from the chain to the crankshaft — are produced in Stihl factories, and many of them are made in Germany. And instead of laying off staff during the Great Recession, as so many U.S. firms did, Stihl locked in highly trained talent by offering full-time workers an employment guarantee until 2015. Stihl even added specialists to its product-development team during the downturn. The result is high-quality products that command price tags big enough — professional Stihl chainsaws cost as much as $2,300 in Germany — to make manufacturing profitable even with the nation's high wages. U.S. companies "don't try hard enough to keep production inside the country," says Stihl chairman Bertram Kandziora.
(Watch TIME's video "Global Business Tips: Germany.")
Stihl defines how Germany resurrected its economy — and how the U.S. might too. The small, often family-owned enterprises that make up the backbone of German manufacturing have historically specialized in the unsexy side of the industrial spectrum: not smart phones or iPads but machinery and other heavy equipment, metal bashing infused with sound technology and disciplined engineering. But in recent years, German firms, aided by farsighted government reforms, have turned that into an art form, forging the most competitive industrial sector of any advanced economy. The proof is a boom in exports, which jumped 18.5% in 2010, that is the envy of the developed world.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2053595,00.html#ixzz1FTYX1na1
That surge has carried Germany out of the Great Recession more quickly than most major industrialized countries. GDP rose 3.6% in 2010, compared with 2.9% in the U.S. While joblessness in the U.S. and much of Europe has spiked to levels not seen in decades, unemployment in Germany has declined during the crisis, to an estimated 6.9% in 2010 from 8.6% in 2007, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). "Germany is in a very competitive position today, more than ever," proclaims Stéphane Garelli, director of the World Competitiveness Center at the Swiss business school IMD
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2053595,00.html#ixzz1FTYgAlMU
German exports to China surged 45% in the first 10 months of 2010. In fact, Germany is the only major industrialized country other than Japan in which exports are playing a significantly larger role in the economy — 41% of GDP in 2009, from 33% in 2000.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2053595,00.html#ixzz1FTYvMvT0
That's because Germans don't think they way Americans do:
Hmmm, yes, it could never be profitable for a rich nation to export to a developing one, OH FUCKING WAIT:
Send all free trade morons to GITMO and lets start rebuilding this nation.
If you saw a Stihl chainsaw on sale for $2300 at one store, and a Stihl chainsaw at another store for $2100, which would you buy?
As the world's largest consumer market and source of a major fraction of profits for companies worldwide (e.g. roughly half of all automobile profits if memory serves), protectionism should work much better for the USA than for fledgling countries. What import tariff would you put up with to sell into the USA versus, say, South Korea or Vietnam or Argentina? The only market currently of equivalent importance would be the EU, with which we should be able to compete reasonably well without protections. Exempt the EU and a few other countries of relatively equal wealth or strategic importance - Canada, Australia, Japan, maybe South Korea and Mexico - and then tailor import tariffs to each country individually.
That has to be the worst analogy ever. Why don't you ask why a company/country producing 'overpriced' goods is prospering with exports to rich and poor countries alike? Shouldn't the fact that their goods are so expensive mean that they should get their asses kicked by cheaper alternatives? After all, China produces Chainsaws too.
I'm not talking about Stihl versus its lesser quality competition.
Two competing products of exactly equal quality. One is more expensive than the other. Which would you buy?
Maybe that question is irrelevant because there are different market segments and low wage countries focus more on price while others do not?
Also there are some goods were demand goes up when the price RISES.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
I wouldn't be surprised if many of Germany's automotive products have this characteristic (BMW/Mercedes)
Will you give an answer?
Why? The question is irrelevant, it has no basis in reality and is completely hypothetical, as evidenced by Germany's increased exports to China.
Discriminating between two equal products of different price has no basis in reality?
There are only three possible answers. You buy the expensive one, you buy the cheaper one, or you don't know. Which is it?
If China is producing all the cheap goods and Germany is producing all the expensive ones, then yes, the question is irrelevant. If your question had a basis in reality, then Not only should Germany's exports to china NOT be rising, but China should be attacking Germany's overpriced market with ease.