China is now the world's largest automotive manurfacturer

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/world/140590/the_hummer%3A_america%27s_favorite_wasteful_toy_has_moved_to_the_land_of_mao/

It's a brave new car world we now live in. GM, a remnant of its former self, is essentially owned by the U.S. government, Chrysler is coming under Italian control, and both Jaguar and Land Rover are in the hands of India's Tata Motors.

So, who's going to be King of the Highway in the good ol' USA? Maybe Geely. Gee-who? Geely Automobile, one of China's largest auto manufacturers. Along with such other Chinese giants as BYD and Chery Automobile, Geely has big designs on the American market. Never heard of them? Well, get ready to greet the ascendant star in the vehicular universe: China.

Here's a surprising fact to ponder: This year, it's projected that China will overtake Japan as the world's largest automobile producer. It already tops U.S. carmakers in sales.

As the chairman of Daimler, Germany's top auto company, bluntly acknowledged in January, "The center of gravity is moving eastward." Well, the East is also moving westward, as some of China's largest companies expect to start putting their cars into the U.S. market as early as a year from now. Also, as the Hummer purchase shows, Chinese executives have been kicking the tires of Detroit's ailing companies, shopping for bargains.

China's sudden surge to the top is no accident. While American auto honchos and economic policymakers stayed mired for years in the old business model of ever-bigger, expensive, fuel-gulping, unreliable vehicles, China's industrial and political leaders have been planning for and investing in smaller, well-built, fuel-sipping cars.

Part of its plan was to lure such foreign makers as GM into joint ventures. The foreigners, seeking the short-term gain of China's cheap labor, willingly delivered their technology and managerial know-how to the Chinese, who used both to modernize their own industry and leapfrog into mass production for both domestic and export markets. Indeed, with the Hummer purchase, China gets all the technology, a Western dealership network and a developed brand.

[Dark]

1. It's all the union's fault. If only they'd work for 2 cents an hour, they'd still have their jobs.

But no, they want good wages and (gasp) BENEFITS!!!

WTF is their problem? It's like they think they live in one of the best countries in the world or something...

[ejpoeta]

3. I wonder how long it will be before we end up back to the rules

before we had unions. Where people were worked for long hours without any vacation or sick days... and they could fire you for no reason. I fear we are heading in that direction. People seem to not realize what people had to go through to get us those 8 hour days and all those benefits we take for granted. Just like with other things, we seem to just assume they are always going to be there because they are there now. But it seems that we are already slipping. Especially when the unions are so vilified as the reason businesses are failing, when it isn't the unions that's the problem. The burden of providing insurance to employees can't help. And some of the decisions that have been made by companies have not helped. THe workers could have worked for free and it wouldn't have helped the car companies. But they keep trying to peddle that as the reason. It's ridiculous.

I'll be the first to admit that there are some unions that have gone crazy overboard. But I don't blame people for trying to protect what they have earned. Once they give, then they lose.... and they'll keep having to give. If the company came to them and said, look.. times are really tough. and we are ALL going to sacrifice together. And when things get better, we'll all do better together. If the workers didn't have to watch the CEO get millions while they just took a pay cut, it might be easier to get some help from the workers. I know. Where my husband works, there is no union (not that they didn't try). they were told there would be no raise OR bonus even though they made a crapload of money last year. And the CEO got like 10 million dollars bonus. It is insane!!

[Suji to Seoul]

10. I live on 8000 RMB a month ($1100 USD). The uneducated Chinese person makes 1700

RMB a month and lives VERY comfortably.

Please do not take US cost of living into account when talking about China. Things here are inexpensive.

[AndyA]

2. China has such a long history of building quality products, too.

They'll make the world's first disposable car: pick your color and pay for it at the check out at Walmart. Drive the hell out of it and when it needs gas, you take it to a dump and buy another one on your next trip to Walmart.

Americans keep buying Chinese crap, which is what brought on this mess we're in now.

I know people who buy foreign cars, shop at Walmart, and complain because they might get laid off at work. If their own jobs aren't important enough to warrant supporting America, whose are?

Some Americans are really stupid, and deserve what they get. Some of us know better and should not have to put up with all these stupid people.

I'm sure the Chinese cars will be just dandy. Really. :eyes:

[thunder rising]

6. GM execs ran GM into the ground with their shit car offerings. Not Americans that bought quality.

[AndyA]

15. Bullshit.

Typical bullshit excuse for people trying to justify not supporting their fellow American workers.

I see plenty of Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Mitsubishi vehicles driving around spewing out blue smoke from their tailpipes, the sign of a seriously blown engine. And these cars are just a few years old. Foreign cars have their fair share of safety recalls and service recalls, they are not perfect.

The typical American wants to buy cheap crap from another country, which means they don't support America. They drive their foreign cars to Walmart to buy cheap foreign crap that's of questionable quality and safety, yet they also want good paying American jobs with benefits.

Guess what? You can't have both. Take a look outside and see the results this selfishness has brought on. And then all of the blame is placed on American quality being poor as an excuse.

America will never be an economic leader without American jobs that pay taxes. We need to make things here. And that means SOMEONE will need to buy them. If you aren't going to support your own country and its workers, you have no business complaining about anything.

You cannot have a robust economy with good jobs, a strong housing market, decent roads, health care, and all the other things Americans want without SOMEONE investing in America. That foreign car in your driveway and that imported crap from China in your house isn't going to do that, obviously. If it were good for America, things would be just dandy right now. They aren't, in case you haven't noticed.

Americans are literally shopping themselves out of jobs, and they're too f*cking stupid to realize it.

:eyes:

Edit to add:

1. Some predict that China will surpass the United States as the largest consumer market before 2020.

2. Wal Mart is China’s seventh largest export market. It bought $18 billion in goods from China in 2005 and $22 billion in 2006. More than 12 percent of China’s exports to the United States end up at Wal Mart stores and trade with retailers accounts for 1 percent of China’s GNP.

3. Wal-Mart buying and selling power is so strong its can dictate the price that manufacturers in China get for producing goods and what American customers will pay. Wal-Mart has been accused of putting so much pressure on Chinese companies to cut costs they have no choice but to provide poor working conditions for workers. Wal-Mart has been able to reduce the prices of things like portable DVD players and make them affordable and drive competitors to bankruptcy that can’t keep up.

4. Economic theory predicts increased trade will lower wages for lesser-skilled occupations, and thus increase income inequality. Though economists’ estimates vary, increased trade is likely responsible for about 20 percent of the recent increase in income inequality in the U.S. This translates into a decrease in real wages for the majority of American workers—roughly a 6 percent loss for the two-thirds of workers who lack a college degree.

Recent wage trends confirm what economic theory would predict. Real wages have stagnated since 1973, even though productivity has grown rapidly. For the majority of the American workforce, real wages have stagnated since 1973 and have actually fallen in the last year. Since real wages are adjusted for inflation, they take into account any benefits workers enjoy from lower costs resulting from increased imports.

The Economic Policy Institute reports wages in the industries in which jobs are being created are, on average, 21 percent lower than wages in those industries in which jobs are disappearing. In addition, expanding industries are less likely to provide workers with health insurance than industries cutting jobs.

Keep buying foreign crap, America. It's doing so much for our economy and overall quality of life.

[SoCalDem]

12. Cost is everything. People cannot continue to pay the high prices that cars now cost

The manufacturer that makes a decent car for a resonable price will "win".

[tom_paine]

4. Now THERE'S a signpost to our future!

Best not to think about where that future is leading.

[thunder rising]

5. American corporate execs ... fat, dumb, over paid, and happy... till their ignorance kills the corp.

Then whine.

[Mudoria]

7. The Chinese may be the only automakers in the world

that the consumer not only has to be wary of other drivers killing him/her but also the added worry that your own vehicle may do it even sooner.

[Ganja Ninja]

8. Thanks again President Reagan! n/t

[tabasco]

9. Oh! How the US car companies wailed when Jimmy Carter told them they had to make better cars!!

In chorus with their good buddies in the oil industry.

If the dumbasses had listened to Carter, they would not be bankrupt and the US would have been independent of foreign oil 18 years ago.

[flvegan]

11. Meh. Choice remains to not buy one. Just because they now own a shitty brand like Hummer

doesn't mean that there's going to be a Dongfeng Junkabox in every driveway anytime soon.

[SoCalDem]

13. People laughed at Honda when they first showed up..and at Datsun, & Toyota too.

They just kept improving their cars and now they "own" the market share.

Unfortunately our manufacturers did not see the handwriting on the wall.

Of course the siren-song of the south created a lot of our current misery. Instead of revamping the factories they already had, they padlocked them, left the union workers behind, and headed for the sunbelt where cheap labor, almost-free land and low or no taxes awaited them, but it was also land of opportunity for foreign carmakers as well.

We planted the seeds for the destruction of our car-making enterprise, a long time ago, and now it's borne a bitter fruit.

[BeFree]

14. Good news?

Does this mean China thinks the US will continue to be able to survive economically and buy a bunch of cars from them?

[bridgit]

16. Americans are too fickle, we don't want it as badly as the Chinese...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjNaUHA2KrY

[blue_onyx]

17. Chinese car companies will do well here

As much as people complain about Chinese produced goods, consumers keep buying them.