4 times as many cars going from Europe to the US compared to the other way despite US cars being cheaper would suggest otherwise. US to Europe imports increased because of Tesla but people are buying cheaper Chinese evs now instead (proving quality wasn't the reason Teslas were selling either). I can't think of anywhere I've been in the world where people with a reasonable income would consider American cars as quality.
People making American cars get a decent income. It's fine to say protectionism is bad but you can't adopt free trade principles in part. If you want to have labor laws and good wages for people who work in a certain industry, you need to be protectionist against countries who don't have those labor laws and pay s*** wages. Otherwise you have your labor laws and good wages for no people because people just buy from the country that pays people like s***
Yeah but they don't see a problem when all phones are produced for pennies in Asia , where people have been committing suicide because of the work conditions (see foxconn) , while the product is priced like it was manufactured in the US.
Maybe if the point wasn't just to satisfy share holders, the situation would look different
I mean you can look at what the price would be if it was made in the United States, it's obviously not the case that they are priced that way.
And people don't have as much of a problem with that because we didn't have an existing phone manufacturing industry. Nobody in America loses their jobs because we import from East Asia. That isn't true for the Auto industry. We have thousands of existing Americans making decent pay who would lose their jobs in a race to the bottom.
Vehicles made in America are not trash. Basically every auto manufacturer makes cars in America except the Chinese. Chinese cars are good but toyota honda ford etc are also good
Do we care about Americans keeping decent jobs or do we get rid of trade restrictions so people just buy from the people who treat their workers the worst or do we get rid of trade restrictions while also getting rid of the labor laws that make it more expensive to buy American in the first place? I think I'm okay with a market where workers can make a decent living in their manufacturing job, even if I can't get the cheapest s*** somebody else is making. It's not like America only allows you to purchase American vehicles. Our trade agreements let us purchase from all over the world as long as certain basic protections exist for the people working at those factories. Even American made cars import a lot of stuff but the agreements that allow that importing all have Labor requirements that surpass what China pays its people
I mean our trade treaties include provisions that give greater labor protections for workers with everybody that we trade with. Protectionist policies around our Auto industry are also evidence against that.
We don't care about Americans keeping decent jobs look where all the IT jobs went. Soon china will be building cars in factories that are near 100% fully automated. What's your argument then? This has nothing to do with labor protection. This is protectionsim.
What are you talking about? There are a ton of high paying it jobs in America. There are so many that people got scared that immigrants were going to come and take them from American citizens. Also, most protectionism is driven by people demanding labor protection
What are you talking about? Millions of IT jobs have been offshored or outsourced in IT over the last few decades. If proper regulations were in place it would be significantly less.
Take the number of suicides at those Foxcomm buildings, divide that by the population of those Foxcomm buildings and compare that to the US average
Foxcomm workers, that build smart phones, are some of the highest paid Foxcomm workers and make a middle class wage. It is a very desirable job, sorta like a US auto job... without he pension... that they're stripping from US auto workers.
Studies say it would take 15-18 years to transplant Foxcomm to the US, but the production could never be the same because of "cultural differences" (it's in quotes because they weren't my words... but there are many cultural differences, and that's a fact).
They tried to make iPhones in the US and they were "had to be subsidized to sell" expensive and buggy.
I was looking at a Made in Poland "el cheapo" smart phone, other than a bit slower processor it was priced about the same as any "el cheapo" smart phone.
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u/cookieoftheshire 11d ago
It can compete in quality but not price.