Thom Hartmann: Guess who's building a car factory in China?

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 07:31 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swW171QUaRo   Posted on YouTube: August 09, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 303   Posted on DU: August 10, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 1766

 
With the economy once again in free-fall - President Obama is desperately trying to pivot the debate in Washington to jobs - where it should have been since the day he was sworn into office. As our economy tanks - more and more American CEOs are doing just that - shipping their operations overseas to economies that - unlike here in America - are actually booming and pay their workers far less. That’s exactly what former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe is doing - he's opening up a car factory in China.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[Mimosa]

1. Wow, a must watch from an honest great American.

Thanks! :D

I needed that schedule too!

[wtmusic]

2. Thom is out of his mind.

The U.S. hasn't had tariffs "since the 1990s"?

At the link below are thousands, upon thousands of tariffs. 99 Chapters worth.

http://hts.usitc.gov/

The reason we're building cars in China is the same reason Toyota and Nissan are building cars here. It has nothing to do with tariffs, but the 8,000 miles of ocean we'd have to ship across to sell our cars to the Chinese.

[kysrsoze]

3. Actually, in China, you almost exclusively MUST build a factory there and partner with the Chinese.

It really has nothing to do with the shipping. Japan, Korea and Germany still ship thousands of cars to the U.S. every year.

The Chinese import tariffs are, on average, a prohibitively high 20%. Combine that with the Yuan pegged to the U.S. dollar, and you have a 40% trade disadvantage before you even consider labor.

Of course, the whole point of their joint venture requirements is to steal the ideas and technology from their partner companies, hence the rampant Chinese car manufacturers' complete ripoff of American cars.

So while U.S. companies are partnering with them for higher profits, we're actually giving them all the technology and know-how to complete fuck us in the long run.

[wtmusic]

4. Nice thought, but there's little tech in American cars worth ripping off.

Kind of like Japan giving us their secrets in the 80s, isn't it? American automotive product of that era was some of the most embarrassing, laughable crap this country has ever made. Japan almost buried us, but by imitating Honda and Toyota America has been able to hang on a few more years.

We're still playing catchup, mostly by copying other countries.

[Populist_Prole]

5. So much for exporting our way out of the trade deficit

"Emerging markets for our products" blah blah blah.....

Build a wall. Isolationism good. Globalism bad.

Can't really blame the countries choosing mercantilism over open markets. I mean, why would they stop doing what works so well for them...and adopt a system that works so terribly for us?

[Amonester]

6. The answer is simple: because capitalist predators will make MORE

money MORE quickly with it, even AFTER the chunks they will gladly TRANSFER to some of your favorite politicians, AND to many of your most loathed politicians (IOW, politicians of BOTH parties).

What else is new? :shrug:

[AverageJoe90]

7. Disgusting.........

What else can I say?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

8. god bless the DLC

:mad: