Buy American?

[rquintero]

Curious here - we are entering a new stage in our economy starting next week.

How significant is the old adage of "buy american" when it comes to new vehicles?

How significant when dealing with the Acura or BMW models from the US based factories?

Are these domestic plants just assembling foreign parts, or what is their extent?

Given that domestic brands still use foreign parts, how does that compare?

Does it really matter in this global economy?

No flames please, genuinely wanting to learn.

 

[JohnC]

I've thought about the same thing the last few days. Life's perspectives can sure change in a hurry.

I think foreign car's 'assembled' in the US do contribute more to our economy. The workers who build the cars are part of our economy. In the case of our domestic manufactures it helps even more, as a larger percentage of the profits stay in the US.

As you said it's a world economy. However, we live in a time of high trade deficit. This can't go on forever. So, think twice about any big purchases. Get the best value for your money, but all things being equal, strongly consider US manufactured products.

 

[nicholas421]

i had a deposit down for a 2002 honda odyssey, but after more consideration i bought a ford windstar instead. any import sticks out like a sore thumb in michigan.

 

[mdoan300]

Originally posted by nicholas421:
i had a deposit down for a 2002 honda odyssey, but after more consideration i bought a ford windstar instead. any import sticks out like a sore thumb in michigan.

If I'm not mistaken:

Ford Windstar = Mercury Villager = Nissan Quest

Michael.

 

[Ojas]

One factor that may be worth considering is the the domestic content percentage. This is (more-or-less) the percent of parts (based on cost) that is assembled in the US.

For example: Windstar is 95%, Odyssey is 70%.

It is just one of many factors, but pretty easy-to-find and has some value in determining the overall contribution a sale of a vehicle makes to our economy.

(Not that I should know this, but: I think Windstar is different platform than Quest/Villager.

)

[This message has been edited by Ojas (edited 17 September 2001).]

 

[skim83]

Buying American doesn't nessecarily(sp) help the US economy. Think back to time of the Great Depression. US put tariffs on a whole lot of imports thinking it would encourage Americans to buy less expensive homemade items. This would raise the demand of American products in America thus creating more jobs in American factories. Of course as we now know the outcome wasn't what they hoped for. Unemployment remained stagnant because of retaliation. Retaliation being (for example I use Japan) If America is gonna put tariffs on Japan products then Japan will do the same to US products, which they and most other countries did. This of course decreased the demand for American products overseas and so American factory production levels remained about the same as before the tariffs. If America were to launch some kind of campaign encouraging people to "Buy American" then we would see other countries do the same.

I think free trade laws, and in this case mentality, helps the US and world as a whole. Look at how much we trade with Mexico and Canada ever sinec NAFTA came into effect. And it's not the bad kind of trade where we buy Canada/Mexico products but they don't buy America...the imports and exports that go in and out of Canada/US, Mexico/US and Mexico/Canada are about the same.

 

[steveny]

There should be a new labeling system put in place. It would signify if the product or parts of it were made in this country or a country that is backing us in our effort to rid the world of terrorism. We as a country pump a lot of cash into the world economy. If we did not buy products from a country for a period of time I think they might change their stance. It seems to me we do an extreme amount of business with several countries that have not even bothered to speak up yet. I think its time we speak up for ourselves.

 

[hejo]

honesty I think spending any cash in today's economy is going to help whether the product is made in the US or not. We live in a global economy so just getting business rolling again will help a lot.