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Not really that complex, China can build things cheaper because of less regulation and litigation,...

 

Yeah because fuck the environment and fuck the American worker. Business should be able to poision our waters because business, and if Johnny loses a hand OTJ because his job was so far negligent in maintaining their machines that he has action outiside workers comp - fuck him too because business. :dumb:

 

 

...the us government is willing to pay people not to work, people would rather do nothing and get paid by the taxpayers than work, because they can.

Last I checked 1) unemployment is temporary - you don't collect it for life, and 2) social programs like welfare don't pay enough for someone to survive and the majority of people on public assistance have jobs but are underpaid.

 

What's the social program that pays enough to live on and I don't have to work? because I want some of that...oh wait it doesn't fucking exist except in your own mind.

 

Most of the skill involved requires determination and effort and much less skill. The US has been attempting to keep what assets they had in the country, little by little it has depleted leaving it difficult to sustain the lifestyle. Keeping the money rolling inside the US without producing things is a downward slope. You have to make money in order to spend money, someone has to produce goods to make money, the US has a difficult time doing that,

 

This is literally gibberish. who in the US has been attempting to keep what assets they had in country?

 

Not US businesses because last I checked even GM was building factories outside the US as a cost saving measure (see their venture in China). The Only jobs it is bringing back from overseas are IT Jobs, because it just can't get the quality it needs. Fun fact both the Nissan Frontier and Toyota Tacoma are assembled in the US and use more US sourced parts than any trucks from the big three. I don't think you meant foreign companies are "the US" for the purposes of this conversation - and the big US companies are expanding overseas operations...so let's leave that there.

 

Did you mean American consumers? Because "buy American" makes a handy slogan but it just ain't happening in the marketplace. http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/13/news/economy/donald-trump-buy-american/index.html . So "the US" isn't the American marketplace or it's consumers.

 

Oh did you mean Obama? Because his administration actually helped create new mfg jobs after the previous administration handed over a huge loss of mfg jobs in 2009. So yeah, the previous president worked hard at growing mfg jobs during his tenure. Something tells me that isn't "the US" you are talking about - the former "liberal" government.

 

So who is "The US" you say is attempting to keep assets in the country? Inquiring minds would like to know....

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Since this is a "car forum" I think this is particularly relevant, The Newest tweet from the Commander in Chief:

 

When a car is sent to the United States from China, there is a Tariff to be paid of 2 1/2%. When a car is sent to China from the United States, there is a Tariff to be paid of 25%. Does that sound like free or fair trade. No, it sounds like STUPID TRADE - going on for years!

 

So, can anybody name the Car that is imported from China that he is referencing?

 

Seriously, who is this for? Who is dumb enough to believe that there is a car from china being sold in the US in large volumes that nobody has heard of?

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Since this is a "car forum" I think this is particularly relevant, The Newest tweet from the Commander in Chief:

 

 

 

So, can anybody name the Car that is imported from China that he is referencing?

 

Seriously, who is this for? Who is dumb enough to believe that there is a car from china being sold in the US in large volumes that nobody has heard of?

 

I was wondering the same thing, lol. People will believe it though. "Dat them there kias and hondas!" It's hard for us to believe, but most people don't know shit about cars. The other day someone asked what country Mercedes comes from, I couldn't believe it.

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Americans can't buy all of the great Chinese cars they're clamoring for because of a lack of free trade. It's a real travesty.

 

China famously forced any automaker wishing to produce cars in China to partner up with a Chinese manufacturer, so that those manufacturers could share in the capital produced there and not just have it all siphoned off by foreign investors. This has ultimately been a boon for Chinese car companies and a pain in the dick for foreign IP. But, you know, like not paying your taxes, "That makes them smart."

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I was wondering the same thing, lol. People will believe it though. "Dat them there kias and hondas!" It's hard for us to believe, but most people don't know shit about cars. The other day someone asked what country Mercedes comes from, I couldn't believe it.

 

You wanna know what cars actually get imported from China?

 

Buick Envision

Cadillac CT6

Ford Focus (starting 2019)

Volvo S60

 

None of these are Chinese based companies, and the Focus is replacing an American Factory.

 

Why is the Tariff so low? The US based auto manufacturers lobbied for them. It allows them to penetrate the Chinese market and get around that 25% tariff and subsidize that penetration by selling the same product here. So in a way it's helping US companies to bring foreign money back to the US. And it's working since Buick is one of the top selling car brands in china. They aren't getting into the Chinese market without building the cars there, so those jobs aren't coming back to the US whether we like it or not, but at least this way the government makes a little money that it can use to...i dunno...rebuild infrastructure or something.

 

The Chinese auto manufacturers have lots of interest but no ability to sell cars here yet. Their product just isn't up to the same standards as US consumers expect and won't be for several more years.

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So in a way it's helping US companies to bring foreign money back to the US. And it's working since Buick is one of the top selling car brands in china

 

Yeah, but that only helps GM shareholders, not the blokes who want to turn wrenches in shuttered Detroit factories. This is Trump's strange brand of nonsensical populism.

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hat's the social program that pays enough to live on and I don't have to work? because I want some of that...oh wait it doesn't fucking exist except in your own mind.

Being a lawyer gets pretty close, and you were the one who said that China was struggling to keep up with the US, I just stated they didn’t give a shit. I’m glad you finally realized this is a car forum, or can’t you argue on a political forum. I guess it’s just your little world, But like a cancer you get an A for effort.

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So Greg what would you suggest? The US is mostly a consumer, but as any consumer if you keep consuming without generating revenue to consume, that revenue will deplete, then you can’t consume. Most jobs here are directed to keep the dollar rolling around within the country, but we are buying most of our products from elsewhere.

 

How do we keep generating revenue to consume without actually being a producer of goods, and better yet how does an American company compete with overseas countries such as China that can produce product at a much lower cost? At some point the We must generate more income than we spend, and producing products to sell is the way to do that.

Most jobs that are in the US are directed to maintain the US consumer, while most of the products purchased by these companies are imported. That leaves quite a bit of subtracting for the US as a whole.

How would you go about producing products in the US more cost effectively, or making Chinese products more evenly priced with the US market? Keeping on the path we have been is. Sry good for cheap products, but as again with any consumer you must generate outside revenue in order to keep consuming, as well as take care of the rest of the family that decides to keep conuming and not generate.

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Did everyone here get their $4000 raises yet?

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/10/donald-trump-gop-tax-cuts-wont-deliver-big-raise-column/471188002/

 

Take it from someone who has helped run three dozen companies: Businesses don’t give raises because they can. Businesses give raises when they have to. They give raises when they fear losing employees to a competitor, or when the government requires them to through minimum wage laws. But businesses don’t give raises just because they got a tax cut. Businesses pay you what you can negotiate. And few employees in today’s economy have the leverage to negotiate.

 

So true. It's amazing when you put in your notice how an extra $20k will all of a sudden show up.

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Did everyone here get their $4000 raises yet?

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/10/donald-trump-gop-tax-cuts-wont-deliver-big-raise-column/471188002/

 

 

So true. It's amazing when you put in your notice how an extra $20k will all of a sudden show up.

 

Is it amazing though? In most big companies I have worked with or for the employees call their CoL raises the 2% drip and it's pretty much a well known thing that if they want a raise they have to come with an offer from somewhere else in the amount of the raise. It's only when you get into mom and pop operations and small businesses that it seems to be an unknown thing.

 

They should just rename "trickle down" economics to "Piss on the working man" economics - at least then it would be honest.

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Did everyone here get their $4000 raises yet?

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/10/donald-trump-gop-tax-cuts-wont-deliver-big-raise-column/471188002/

 

 

 

So true. It's amazing when you put in your notice how an extra $20k will all of a sudden show up.

 

 

I did. Actually a little over $4k. Closer to $6k

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So Greg what would you suggest?

 

I don't have a degree in macroeconomics, nor do I read the WSJ for fun, so all I can do is regurgitate what writers have said that makes sense to me.

 

Are you asking me how we bring back the job that someone in China or Bangladesh or Cambodia is currently getting paid $3000 a year to do? It seems to me that that those jobs are gone forever, because if the US suddenly found itself in an position where it needed to start manufacturing most of the crap that we import, we'd get machines to do it. Automation is what kills manufacturing jobs, and it's going to kill those same jobs overseas if and when the Chinese and Bengalis and Cambodians can raise their standard of living to the point where they expect middle class pay for a full day's labor.

 

Tariffs don't work, this isn't some ideological argument I have, it's just what economists tell me. Since steel tariffs have been in the news lately, I've heard interviews with several of Bush's former economic advisers who were involved the last time we tried them who regret their decision. There are going to be winners and losers in any trade deal, and tariffs seem to simply pick a few winners at the expense of a lot of losers. In this case, US consumers, otherwise known as taxpayers, all end up paying more for products in order to create a few jobs that we otherwise don't need done. Using taxpayer dollars for make-work jobs sounds a lot like socialism, eh? If you're willing to pay more for your necessities in order to create jobs, but unwilling to pay taxes for something like the CCC because socialism, I think you're putting ideology over practicality. (Not that I'm advocating for the CCC, but it's an apt example)

 

On the bright side, this notion that the US doesn't manufacture anything is overblown. We make spacecraft, cars, airplanes, top notch robotics, machining, and medical equipment. High end stuff that other countries are willing to pay for. We just don't have a lot of jobs in those industries that are unskilled, meaning the future is an educated, skilled workforce. Eventually automation on a global scale will get to a point where it's cheaper to have robots make stuff in the US than robots making stuff in China, because it'll be the same robots either way. Improve or die, but low skilled manufacturing jobs are gone and aren't coming back.

 

Beyond that, things get somewhat philosophical. If robots are doing everything, and we only need so many people designing, building, and maintaining those robots, then how do we keep everyone employed? And that's where people are starting to experiment with universal basic income. I don't think we're there yet, I work in IT where good jobs are easy to find, pay well, and generally staffed with dullards, so there's probably 20-30 years before we have to worry about hordes of people who can't find work because the robots have taken over. And if anyone proposes tariffs at that point, I don't imagine they'll get much traction.

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You wanna know what cars actually get imported from China?

 

Buick Envision

Cadillac CT6

Ford Focus (starting 2019)

Volvo S60

 

None of these are Chinese based companies, and the Focus is replacing an American Factory.

 

Why is the Tariff so low? The US based auto manufacturers lobbied for them. It allows them to penetrate the Chinese market and get around that 25% tariff and subsidize that penetration by selling the same product here. So in a way it's helping US companies to bring foreign money back to the US. And it's working since Buick is one of the top selling car brands in china. They aren't getting into the Chinese market without building the cars there, so those jobs aren't coming back to the US whether we like it or not, but at least this way the government makes a little money that it can use to...i dunno...rebuild infrastructure or something.

 

The Chinese auto manufacturers have lots of interest but no ability to sell cars here yet. Their product just isn't up to the same standards as US consumers expect and won't be for several more years.

Th CT6 is also made in Hamtramick (Detroit). Only the PHEV is imported from China.
Not really that complex, China can build things cheaper because of less regulation and litigation, the us government is willing to pay people not to work, people would rather do nothing and get paid by the taxpayers than work, because they can. Most of the skill involved requires determination and effort and much less skill. The US has been attempting to keep what assets they had in the country, little by little it has depleted leaving it difficult to sustain the lifestyle. Keeping the money rolling inside the US without producing things is a downward slope. You have to make money in order to spend money, someone has to produce goods to make money, the US has a difficult time doing that,
You are completely delusional if you think you can have large manufacturing facilities with only unskilled labor. This takes tool and die makers, machinists, programmers, engineers, etc. These are not exactly people who are standing in bread lines these days. There is a shortage of these skills in the market that is not fixed overnight.

 

Also, I don't think safety and environmental regulations should be bypassed/repealed in order to bring some of this plants back to the US.

 

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

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Fun fact both the Nissan Frontier and Toyota Tacoma are assembled in the US and use more US sourced parts than any trucks from the big three. I don't think you meant foreign companies are "the US" for the purposes of this conversation - and the big US companies are expanding overseas operations...so let's leave that there.

 

Please cite a source for this. Ford F150 is above these on several lists of "Most American," and many other models rank higher. As usual, judging how American a product is also a disputed index.

 

http://www.american.edu/kogod/research/autoindex/index.cfm

 

http://www.cars.com/articles/the-carscom-2017-american-made-index-1420695680673

 

http://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/2017_aala_percent_year.pdf

 

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

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Please cite a source for this. Ford F150 is above these on several lists of "Most American," and many other models rank higher. As usual, judging how American a product is also a disputed index.

 

http://www.american.edu/kogod/research/autoindex/index.cfm

 

http://www.cars.com/articles/the-carscom-2017-american-made-index-1420695680673

 

http://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/2017_aala_percent_year.pdf

 

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

 

You are right, I was looking at an old list (2015).

 

this list:

http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/list-top-10-american-trucks-gallery-1.2695780

 

has the F150 on top and the Honda Ridgeline and Toyota Tundra at 2 and 3. However, the problem I have with these lists are that they consider Canadian content as "american", and I wonder how it would shake out if they removed the Canadian part of it. Looking back over several years (2016, 2015, 2012) there are many years where the Toyota or Honda products are tied with the Ford for percentage of content.

 

Something else to think about though - when it comes to trucks in class, since 2011 and the exit of the Dakota from the market, the sole domestic competitor to the Tacoma and Frontier has been the Colorado. And there have been years, like 2014, where the Tacoma and Frontier, had more American Content than the Colorado.

 

Still when it comes to content - the Japanese are right up there at the top of the list all day every day, and not just with trucks but cars like the Camry and a lot of Honda's SUV product line.

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Anyone else been laughing at this shit show?

 

 

It's sad. People are losing their freedoms in "free" countries like crazy lately.

 

Journalist being denied entry into the UK, a citizen in South Africa being sentenced to 3 years jail time for saying a racial slur and now this.

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It's sad. People are losing their freedoms in "free" countries like crazy lately.

 

Journalist being denied entry into the UK, a citizen in South Africa being sentenced to 3 years jail time for saying a racial slur and now this.

 

Kerry and Greg are cheering

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a citizen in South Africa being sentenced to 3 years jail time for saying a racial slur and now this.

 

Can we be a little more fair about this? She said the most widley recognized in South Africa most offensive racial slur at two police officers approx 48 times, and it was caught on video and the video went viral in South Africa.

 

The US has the least regulated hate speech laws comparative to the rest of the world (including South Africa), has had them since the 1940's, and this same event in the US wouldn't have been tolerated in this day and age. There are plenty of state and local laws that have been on the books longer than either of us have been alive that covers aggressive use of racial slurs as a form of assault - and that is before we even get into the fact that the slurs were aimed at police officers.

 

Trevor Noah had probably the best take on this on the daily show last week. His point was that the word in question wasn't like the N word in this country because the SA black community did not take ownership of it like the American Black Community has taken ownership of the N word. It is universally understood by every SA that it is an offensive racial slur with no single redeeming quality. This makes the line a lot clearer.

 

Journalist being denied entry into the UK

 

"Journalist" is being kind to the person in question. Calling Canadian pundit "Lauren Southern" a journalist is like calling Tomi Lahren a journalist - even Fox won't do it (they call her a political commentator which is news speak for opinionated pundit). And they banned her for a pretty specific reason - she was distributing a poster that violated the UK's hate speech laws in February. Distributing hate material doesn't really sound like "Journalistic activity" to me. And let's be clear - they denied her entry because she committed a crime in that country, just because she presents herself as a "journalist" doesn't excuse prior behavior.

 

Now, if you want to have a discussion about whether the poster she distributed in the UK in Feb is actually hate speech - that's a different conversation.

 

It's really easy to say everything is going to "shit" and "everyone is loosing their freedom" based on these two cases when you conveniently ignore the actual facts of both cases.

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Can we be a little more fair about this? She said the most widley recognized in South Africa most offensive racial slur at two police officers approx 48 times, and it was caught on video and the video went viral in South Africa.

 

It's the N word equivalent. If she said it once or 1000 times, does it make any difference at all?

 

The US has the least regulated hate speech laws comparative to the rest of the world (including South Africa), has had them since the 1940's, and this same event in the US wouldn't have been tolerated in this day and age. There are plenty of state and local laws that have been on the books longer than either of us have been alive that covers aggressive use of racial slurs as a form of assault - and that is before we even get into the fact that the slurs were aimed at police officers.

 

Least regulated hate speech laws or fantastic rights to freedom of speech? Has anyone ever been sentenced to jail/prison in the US for saying the N word? For 3 years? You believe this is how it should be? Ridiculous.

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Trevor Noah had probably the best take on this on the daily show last week. His point was that the word in question wasn't like the N word in this country because the SA black community did not take ownership of it like the American Black Community has taken ownership of the N word. It is universally understood by every SA that it is an offensive racial slur with no single redeeming quality. This makes the line a lot clearer.

 

I was surprised when I didn't see you bring up Trevor Noah.

 

First of all, in a similar video clip a few months ago, before Winnie Mandela died, he was praising her, just like how a bunch of uneducated fucking fools like Common did when she died last week. She was a horrific murderer, she killed her fellow black people (over 600 a month at some point). Don't ask me, ask Stompie. She was the one that made "necklacing" famous. A lot of things he says is simply untrue, and these are the people he praises. He's a funny comedian, I drove to Pittsburgh to go see him, but politically, he cannot be taken serious.

 

Now it may be true that the word Kaffir hasn't been used like the N word here by the black community, at least not to the same extent. I've heard with my own ears one black man referring to another as a kaffir, similarly to how nigga would be used here.

 

Does that make any difference though? The words both are derogatory to black people, and there are black Americans who are against using the N word AT ALL.

 

"Journalist" is being kind to the person in question. Calling Canadian pundit "Lauren Southern" a journalist is like calling Tomi Lahren a journalist - even Fox won't do it (they call her a political commentator which is news speak for opinionated pundit). And they banned her for a pretty specific reason - she was distributing a poster that violated the UK's hate speech laws in February. Distributing hate material doesn't really sound like "Journalistic activity" to me. And let's be clear - they denied her entry because she committed a crime in that country, just because she presents herself as a "journalist" doesn't excuse prior behavior.

 

You can find the footage of her "hate speech" on YouTube. I'd find it for you but YouTube is blocked where I'm at :rolleyes:. She set up a table saying that Allah is a gay god, in response to a Vice piece saying that Jesus is gay. The offended Christians didn't make the scene the Muslims did when she did that. I call her a journalist now. I was skeptic at first, but she has proven to be a journalist to me.

 

Now, if you want to have a discussion about whether the poster she distributed in the UK in Feb is actually hate speech - that's a different conversation.

 

I guess I already went there.

 

It's really easy to say everything is going to "shit" and "everyone is loosing their freedom" based on these two cases when you conveniently ignore the actual facts of both cases.

 

The facts are up there.

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