Loss of US brands :(

[trey]

Thinking of the formerly great American companies which are now in foreign hands or have been axed, like Atari which is French owned (Infogrammes) and Jeep has become Italian (Fiat). And all Obama wants to do is help the banks, it's sad.

[ame]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k259/tlake_2006/AMCJeepCherokee1985.jpg[/ame]

Pontiac

 

[yaz96]

yeah, Obama should've saved the Atari brand name from the French guy back in 1983.

and the US government is saving GM, what more do you want? Should they have saved Plymouth? Should they have saved American Motors (original Jeep)?

What about all those electronics brands like, IBM, Sylvania, Magnavox, RCA, etc., which are now owned by the Chinese or Koreans.

And then you have the appliance brands. There are fewer and fewer appliance companies anymore, but still so many brands. A couple of years ago, Whirlpool bought up the Maytag Corp. In that acquisition, Whirlpool Corp. - already with Whirlpool, Kitchen Aid, Gladiator, Roper and Estate brands - added Maytag, Amana, Admiral, and Jenn-Air.

Frigidaire is owned by Electrolux, who also has quite the stable of brands, though most are not sold in the US.

GE owns Hotpoint.

And on and on.................

 

[kb7oeb]

Hummer brand sold to a Chinese company today.

Atari isn't alone in the American brands sold of to foreigners, Zenith, Magnavox, RCA, Polaroid are gone also and have been for a long time.

 

[HD MM]

Two of the main reasons...

1. For far too long there have been corporate tax-loopholes given to companies who move their operations overseas.

2. There is cheaper labor overseas, China for instance over the US.

 

[durl]

Two of the main reasons...

1. For far too long there have been corporate tax-loopholes given to companies who move their operations overseas.

2. There is cheaper labor overseas, China for instance over the US.

1. Companies move out of the US to avoid the excessive taxation. The pattern is to give tax breaks, or subsidies, to foster the growth of an industry (see the recent push for "green" technology) . Increasing taxation stifles growth; lowering taxation fosters growth.

2. Very true. Labor costs are way lower overseas, mainly because the standard of living is lower.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

We build less and less, every day. Some day it will be our downfall. If were not building it, who's going to have money to buy it?

 

[HD MM]

We build less and less, every day. Some day it will be our downfall. If were not building it, who's going to have money to buy it?

Good question. We're in a viscous cycle right now.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how down sizing the car companies will result in more sales for them. The more people layed off, results in a domino effect of lay offs. All the way down to the mom and pop stores.

 

[db2]

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how down sizing the car companies will result in more sales for them.

The U.S. auto companies are operating in a way that is not profitable. The thinking is that downsizing will make the companies more lean and efficient, and maybe even profitable.

IMHO it won't work. One of the many reasons U.S. auto companies weren't profitable in the first place was because of the United Auto Workers Union. In short, it isn't profitable to build a car when you're paying the workers an exorbitant salary AND paying all of the retired UAW employee pensions and benefits. The current "restructuring" still gives too much to the UAW and therefore will not be profitable IMHO.

And by the way, if this were any other industry the government would have let the companies go under a long time ago. The UAW has a lot of power in Washington.

 

[Ira Lacher]

The pattern is to give tax breaks, or subsidies, to foster the growth of an industry

Do you then believe that there is absolutely no relationship between the proliferation of excessive tax breaks and the Grand Canyon that exists between executive salaries and worker salaries?

 

[Van]

It's more than whats been stated, theres also us to blame for wanting everything cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and also these same companies fighting to keep wage growth as stagnant as possible and these same companies inflating prices on their products leaving consumers no choice but to pay the prices such as with companies like Harley Davidson and General Motor's just to name two American companies.

 

[bhelms]

Price is NOT set by the companies but in the (relatively) free marketplace, and companies - ALL companies - are 100% correct in charging the max. price the traffic will bear. Anything less is fiscally irresponsible and a disservice to the owners and employees.

Price and demand have an inverse relationship in an elastic (competitive) market, so a company can certainly increase sales by reducing prices. But there are cost considerations involved. Profit has to be maximized and there is generally only one volume point where that occurs, and that is where the manufacturer chooses to operate as much as possible. He may then have to adjust the price of cars to sell that volume, but he has no incentive to lower his prices until his competitor does so as well, and neither will do that until supply outpaces demand.

To be sure there are costs buried in the price that are unrelated to free market dynamics, but you get my point...

 

[db2]

I agree with bhelms, prices are most definitely set by the market. The last time I checked no one was forced to buy a Harley Davidson. My guess is that if Harley priced their bikes at $1M per bike they probably wouldn't sell too many and the company would fold.

With that being said i do agree with Van's comment about consumers demanding cheaper and cheaper products. There is a price to pay (so to speak) for cheaper products. In order to make products cheaper companies may cut back on quality of materials, labor costs and/or customer service.

Take Home Depot for example. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people complain about the (lack of) service at Home Depot. "I can never find anyone to help me." The reason for this is Home Depot is trying to cut back on costs (employees) in order to sell you their products at a cheaper price. If people really hated the Home Depot experience that much they would go to a small hardware store, pay more for the products and get better service. If enough people did that Home Depot would be forced to increase their level of customer service and raise their prices. But they won't because people would rather pay a cheaper price and then complain about the service.

Consumers in this country are getting what they want, cheaper prices. But at a cost.

 

[trey]

It's more than whats been stated, theres also us to blame for wanting everything cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and also these same companies fighting to keep wage growth as stagnant as possible and these same companies inflating prices on their products leaving consumers no choice but to pay the prices such as with companies like Harley Davidson and General Motor's just to name two American companies.

Are products really that much cheaper though? I suspect for many things, inflation adjusted, companies use the saved labor costs to increase their profit and the product is no cheaper to the consumer.

There is a yuppified section of society who think they can latte their way to utopia on the service sector alone. Let's steal their Blackberries before they achieve a state of universal consciousness.

I honestly don't believe a developed country can survive with just salesmen, software writers and Starbucks workers...but let's see.:

 

[wallypa]

If you think military/aerospace, we still have a strong manufacturing base. Outside of that, we have almost a totally service oriented economy. Sad but true.

 

[Van]

Are products really that much cheaper though? I suspect for many things, inflation adjusted, companies use the saved labor costs to increase their profit and the product is no cheaper to the consumer.

There is a yuppified section of society who think they can latte their way to utopia on the service sector alone. Let's steal their Blackberries before they achieve a state of universal consciousness.

I honestly don't believe a developed country can survive with just salesmen, software writers and Starbucks workers...but let's see.:

Most everything that's electronic that goes in your home and you can carry and that is allot if you think about it.

 

[trey]

If you think military/aerospace, we still have a strong manufacturing base. Outside of that, we have almost a totally service oriented economy. Sad but true.

Seems to be the sad fate of many developed countries. I was just reading that after selling iron ore and coal a country like Australia's biggest money earner is educating foreign students, lol. So much for manufacturing.

Hey, if Sarah Palin brings back Pontiac I will vote for her. Let's do it! In the words of Ross Perot, have we got a deal?

 

[Ramy]

Trey,

Is that your 67 Firebird in the link?

 

[Van]

Yea lets talk more about lost brands and jobs, the San Fran bay bridge project currently under way has much of the prefab welding being done in China and as a result of the Chinese record in production quality the schedule has been pushed back repeatedly due to cracks being found in the welds and as a result this is setting back not only the schedule but also adding money onto the overall cost of the project along with several government officials having to fly out to China on our dime to bust some balls over their crappy work.

 

[The Insider]

Currently the US is still the largest manufacturer in the world. Estimates say we soon will not be, however as early as 2008 we still were the number one manufacturer in the world in almost every category, from volume to income.


The below information is a bit dated but its the best I could find aside from some blogs.. This from 2005

According to the Department of Labor (sourcing the United Nations United Nations, National Accounts Main Aggregates Database, http://unstats.un.org/) citing 2005 data the U.S. accounts for 20.6% of the worlds manufacturing nearly 1.5 times that of the 2nd largest (Japan 13.3%) and over twice 3rd largest (Germany 8.2%). The aggregate combination of the EU-15 This link has an explanation of the calculation methods and links to the charts showing the worlds top manufactures: http://www.dol.gov/asp/media/reports/chartbook/2007-06/appendixa_manufacturing.htm

--

Of course while China may make most of the cheap plastic consumer goods we still make the high end stuff. Like Air liners, heavy construction equipment etc..

We manufactured about 2.7trillion worth of stuff in 2008 compared to chinas 1.21 trillion.. They were in third behind Japan at 1.25 trillion.. Now if you count all of the EU as a country we got beat they had over 3 trillion. However no individual country comes close to us. We are at least a trillion higher then the next country.

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