Before the critics say anything, this is not a mass e-mail yet. This is a clip taken out of the Brevard Business News and I thought it was worthy to share with everyone.
Written by Ed O’Donnell, President of O’Donnells Quality Pontiac Buick GMC truck.
"It seems to me that North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and most of our foreign Nations trade agreements have resulted in out sourcing many of our countrys jobs and importing most of their products. My profession is selling Pontiac buick and GMC Trucks at a dealership that employs approximately 50 people. As a practical matter, I cant sell cars in India or China and I cant sell cars to people in this country that dont have jobs. It is unbelievable taht in our country, free trade means that they can protect their own markets from our goods while they invade our markets with theirs.
Why do we do this? Whether you buy a car from me our not, think about whats going on in our world and insist on buying American products. The money you will save will go into your pocket and the money you spend will go into Americas pocket. Between our foreign nations treaties and NAFTA we have helped a lot of economies in the world except ours. What can we do? For now you can help get Americas economy back in the right direction with smart decisions regarding your purchase of any product. check the label before you buy. That will keep the money in this country and bring back the jobs.
A lot of people ask me, "how can you tell a foreign car, you guys get parts from all over the world and my foreign car was built in Indiana." Well heres how I tell. Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, world head quarters, Germany. Thats foreign. Kia, Hynudai world headquarters, Seoul, South Korea, thats foreign. Toyota, Honda, Nissan world headquarters, Tokyo, Japan, thats foreign. Then there are these, Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, world headquarters, Detroit Mi, USA. THATS American. It doesn't matter where they screw the parts together, the business, the cash and the jobs go out of our country and into theirs. The money goes back to Japan, Korea, Germany and other counties to pay for their health care, education, parks and playgrounds.
The imports would lead you to believe that they make cars and trucks in the US. This is not true. They assemble cars from parts made mostly in Japan, Korea and other foeign countries. there is a big difference in assembling vehicles and making vehicles. Conversely, 85% of all Fm parts used to build cars and trucks come from the US. Only a small percentage of parts used to assemble import cars come from the Us. ex Lexus #%, Kia 4%, BMW 11% and Hyundai 1%.
In closing, right now our American automobiles rank among the best in the world in styling, quality and fuel mileage. Why not buy American? This country wouldn't be what it is today if it was'nt for our forefathers and manufacturing. Lets not lose sight of that. Lets all help get the economy back where it needs to be. We are one f the most powerful nations in the world. Wouldn't we be better off if we protected American businesses and bought American products?"
Most of us agree with what is printed above. I own ‘NO’ foreign Cars or trucks. 2 Fords, 2 Chevy/GMC, and one Harley. However all the other crap like TV, radios, dis here ‘puter is Jap Crap. When we gonna’ beat them at that game? :grinser010:
----JIM----
My wife and I have had excellent vehicles that are both high quality and made in America. We are on our 3’rd Chyrsler mini man (the most comfortable way to travel), and I am above 125k miles on my Ford truck that still looks and drives like new. If you hear “American cars are junk”, don’t believe it!
FIrst of all, I am with you 100% on the buy american. However, it is pretty much impossible to buy most of the things you need on a daily basis that are made in America. I worked for an American company and 90% of what we sold was manufactured outside the US. An educated guess says that 80-90% of everything sold at Walmart or Target or Home Depot and Lowes is made outside the US.
The biggest issues manufacturing wise in this country are labor costs and corporate taxes. THe unions have killed the US car manufacturers and the US has the 2nd or 3rd HIGHEST corporate taxes in the world. Most of the price you and I pay for products made in the US is to cover labor and taxes.
I wasn’t going to go in this direction but…If we would implement the Fair tax or consumption tax and get rid of all of the layers of taxes and corporate taxes and payroll taxes, our economy would flourish once again and all of the jobs and money that have gone over seas would come back and then some.
I will have to say that I was absolutely amazed when I went to buy plywood from Home Depot and found out that it was made in China. Whoever heard of such a thing?
Heres a better example . Chickens raised in California are sent to China to be cut up and then shipped back to America to be sold in stores . The labor in China is so cheap that sending the chickens there , even after freight , is cheaper than cutting them up in the US .
The other side of the coin is , while labor costs are much higher in the US than many other countries , i don’t know of any American worker who would want to , or be able to work for the same wages as the Chinese , or the Japenese , or the Koreans , or the Mexicans .
The article by the car dealer is just a little bit slanted i’d say , as you would expect . A GM dealer isn’t going to tell you that a rival car make is a better buy . And while the money from the imports goes back to the respective countries , the wages stay in the US with the workers who earned them . And the local , county , state , and federal taxes paid by the import manufacturing plants in the US stay here as well . Maybe not the best trade off , but a trade off .
To add to AJ’s and others comments, let’s not leave out the government regulations for industry in the US.
Clean air, water and so on.
the fees for these are so high it is cheaper for a company in the US to ship overseas to manufacture so only distribution takes place state side.
My company just built a new shop and office on a 5 ac site…it cost 300k for the construction and over 150k in state, county, city fees along with the regulations we have to go by from here on out, and took over 2 years for approvals.
The worst i see is the power company will charge us a 40-60% higher kilowatt hour rate because of being a commercial business.
Before long asia and mexico will manufacture everything.
Jockey undewear just closed a plant here in NC because they couldn’t afford to pay the fees for regulations anymore…they opened another plant overseas. i believe this was their last one in the US.
next time you stop at exon gas station leave and extra dollar and if you fill up leave 5 dollars — they only cleared 40.6 billion dollars for year of 2007 and this past year they only cleared 45.7 billion dollars and they call jessie james a crook .
if goverment wants. to do something why don’t they start there
pull into gas station fill your car up get you case of bud light loaf of bread some peanutbutter and jelly and some bolagna for races and drive off
heeeeeeeellllllllll you will get 10 years in state prison so just take 45.7 billion you could build a fine race car for that might even be able to out run some of them guys that ain’t cheating
i may not eat “fresh” chicken again. by the time we kill them and wrap them and ship them to china and china does what they do then sends them back to us… ARE THEY STILL “FRESH”??? yuck! thats alot of miles for a chicken to go to get cut… WE ARE LAZY!!! if we bought whole chickens and cut them ourselves just think how cheap they would be! and fresher…perish the thought we might even have to cook them… and clean the dishes… LAZY AMERICANS have caused alot of our problems…
OZZIE
I used to haul alot for Purdue and a few others. When I was waiting for my truck to get loaded with frozen chicken, I would see a lot of live chickens arrive. Next time you get passed by a big Peterbilt doing 100 on a country road in Tx, ask yourself, why? I have seen first hand how these poultry places work and if a chicken is dead when it arrives, it will not be processed for human consumption.
I have bought american cars for years, but in the late 80’s I had a Ford Mustang and I lost the clutch. I took the VIN # to the local Ford dealer and they Quickly layed a clutch on the counter. I took it to my Garage and laying on my back under my American muscle, I pulled the transmission and the old clutch. Well the clutch didn’t fit. After struggleing with it for some time I gathered the new hardware and the next day I took it back. This time they had to get it out of Jacksoville. 3 days later I picked up the new clutch and took it home and had the same experince. The next day I took it back agin. I ask to see the parts manager and he informed me that that model of Mustang had transmissions made in 3 different countrys. Austria, germany, and Brazil. I then decided the local ford dealer had to put my clutch in. Even though I was driving an American Car, the engine transmission and rear end and probably a lot of parts that I didn’t know about were from all over the world. All the big 3 have large interests in foreign car companies. I still own Fords, two. I don’t think any of my F-250 is made over-seas, but who knows. Just my take Bob…
I will have to say that I am a devoted Dodge owner but I am a little disappointed with my Dodge parts as of late. 65,000 miles on my 04 2500 and the Sway bar links went bad. Ok, no prob, I’ll order new ones ONLY from Dodge, cause thats the way I roll. Grrr 3 weeks and $164 later the new ones arrive straight from KOREA. Isn’t that some Sh!!?
THEN I decide to change my tranny fluid and put new filters on. I get the filters from Dodge and Sunday afternoon I realize the main filter doesnt fit. Turns out my 2wd 2500 somehow has a 4WD 3500 tranny w/o the transfer case. Dodge says some came that way from the factory. Even though they have the vin on file, I still need it when ordering parts.
On the upside, I still love my truck and its been extremely reliable this far.
only thing i know you can buy in usa is at yard sale that maybee some little old lady sewed with material from china . i got a ford i push a chevy i pull a new caddy i tow a harley it starts . don’t take it to a shop . all my tow trucks don’t know were they were made at they ain’t worth what i paid for them got honda we use to go get parts for race car we never work on it never change oil or service it i guess it is our experimental car
Regrettably part of this problem in the last bunch of years comes from the NAFTA and the damn Most Favored Nation thing (as a trade partner…)… WE must thank our former President Bill “the idiot” Clinton for pushing those through so hard and quickly… If you look at the demise of things, you will find that alot of our current difficulties started about those times… Although American Unions need to take their own credit for helping out in the creation of Cheap labor overseas…
I have kept myself an American Purchaser all but once in my life, even though I have been tempted to look at Toyota and Nissan and all the rest before… I bought one BMW, (assembled in South Carolina, and yes I checked the Parts % before I purchased the damn thing, it read 65% of the parts made in USA right on the Invoice).
As for trucks, thank God I like big trucks, because No one makes a 3/4 or
1-ton like us…
[QUOTE=ronabneysr;21492]only thing i know you can buy in usa is at yard sale that maybee some little old lady sewed with material from china . i got a ford i push a chevy i pull a new caddy i tow a harley it starts . don’t take it to a shop . all my tow trucks don’t know were they were made at they ain’t worth what i paid for them got honda we use to go get parts for race car we never work on it never change oil or service it i guess it is our experimental car
i think our bottle water is from china also[/QUOTE]
I don’t know if this is true or not but I received it via email and thought I’d share.
When I think of the job situation in this country, I can’t help but think this helps in some small way.
I don’t know how many households there are in the U.S. but if these were the only things we bought think of the impact…
(She wrote:)
This past weekend I was at Kroger. I needed 60 W light bulbs and Bounce dryer sheets. I was in the light bulb aisle and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off brand labeled “Everyday Value.” I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats - they were the same except for the price. The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in - get ready for this - the USA .
So throw out the myth that you cannot find products you use every day that are made right here - from a company in Cleveland OH !
So on to another aisle - Bounce Dryer Sheets…yep you guessed it Bounce was more money and made in Canada, the Everyday Value brand was less money and MADE IN THE USA! I did laundry yesterday and the dryer sheets performed just like the Bounce Free I have been using for years and at almost half the price!
So my challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in the USA - the job you save may be your own or your neighbors!
If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying American, one light bulb at a time!
Besides, you might save a little green in the process.
Stop buying from China …
We should have awakened a decade ago…
lets get with the program… help our fellow Americans keep their jobs … and create more jobs here in the U.S.A.
Real Racin' USA (C) 1997-2023 KARNAC Media LLC, All Rights Reserved
…stupid me.