i understand the economical concept gardenforge but the fact is that here in michigan our minimum wage is already over $7.oo/hr and the prices are competitive with the rest of the nation. so the concept doesn't hold true in my state. to me the most important ideal about raising minimum wage is to provide a beterr living for the low income. a minimum wage at $5.15/hr places you at the poverty level and poverty level in this country does not mean that it is just enough for the essentials.

A "protective tariff" is intended to artificially inflate prices of imports and "protect" domestic industries from foreign competition (see also effective rate of protection). For example, a 50% tax on an imported machine that raises the price from $100 to $150. Without a tariff the local manufacturers could only charge $100 for the same machine; now they can charge $149 and make the sale.

Most of these tariffs were discontinued in the late 70's and early 80's. That is when the textile industries went out of business and all your clothes started coming with made in China labels sewn in them. There were other industries that lost out to this as well, Iron Auto, Televisions and electronics, etc., etc..
These tariffs if collected on goods keep your jobs from being outsourced by charging everyone, even American companies that move overseas.
The lack of them helps no one. Some people want you to believe they help you get cheaper products. At first it did, but the economics 101 kicked in and without good paying manufacturing jobs people soon had less money to buy. They do not help the foreign countries either, because it serves as an enabler for the companies in their countries to employ children and others at slave wage prices.
The US of America has the worlds largest market share, and every company in the world wants a piece of it. We are a self sustaining economy and without the greed of our major industries, whose profit margins grow astronomically from the lack of tariffs and the cheap labor made available by this practice are the only real long term winners.
As our, American workers, buying power is reduced little by little, and the largest market in the world shifts with the jobs, they will still be the only winners.
Its called Globalization and we are the losers.

it was suppossed to say
without the greed of our majoe industries we would stay the largest market in the world and the dollar would remain the strongest currency!

I would just about bet that the same men responsible for the decline of Automobile manufactureing jobs in Detroit are also major stock holders in companies like Nissan, and Toyota. These same Tycoons are also the ones who pay the funds to the major political parties and candidates in this country in return for favorable votes.
If you want to fix this country, you must make them distribute all political donations evenly amongst all candidates. No matter who runs, then maybe your son or daughter can be president, instead of these wealthy politicians that we have today. These men and women dont give a rats ass about your job. They have been duping and conning us for the last 50 yrs., thinking only of their interests, and their portfolios.

very well said.

Fanta I would just about bet that the reason for the decline of the U.S. Auto industry is the piece of fecal material that rolled off the production line at the hands of highly paid union workers who didn't give a damn about the quality of the product they were producing. Before you go off on me, I have never owned a foreign made vehicle. I just bought a new Dodge Pickup, Chrysler Corp is owned by Dahlmer which is German, that may have been made in Canada and I almost bought a Toyota that is made in El Paso, TX.

We usually buy the most inexpensive thing we can get and sacrafice quality in the process. Sales drive business. They stock what sells. There is only one objective to business and that is make profit. If there is no profit there is no business.

I am a knifemaker, I made a damn fine pattern welded damascus knife for around $400 give or take a little. Would you pay that much for one of my quality made in the U.S.A. knives, not hardly. Hell if I couldn't make them, I wouldn't spend that kind of money on a knife either. You would go down to the knife store and buy a shiny new made in Pakistan cutter for less than $20 and brag to your friends about how much money you saved. If we want to find the source of our problem we don't have to look at big business, their job is to make profit period. We only need to look in the mirror. As Pogo said "we have met the enemy and he is us".

ain't it funny how globalized economy seems to mean that all of our goods are taxed to hell and foreign goods are not. seems like a one way street to me.

i work for one of the big three garden forge and most of the workers give a damn about quality.

The American worker has a right to earn a comfortable living for his family and his self. American goods to me are the finest in the world. If they dont have to cut costs and limit quality to compete with foreign manufactured goods.
Tariffs balance this out, thats what they are designed to do and they work. We should not be forced to give up our lifestyles so the rich can get richer. If they would replace the tariffs it would not be such an economic temptation for American companies to move their operations to countries that basically have slave labor to produce the goods, while they live in squalor. Just look at the problems with the imports from China. Even in Mexico, thanks to NAFTA, GE moved jobs there, laid off men and women that made 15-20 dollars an hr, and hired Mexican workers for 15-20 dollars a week. That sucks, anyway you look at it. How can you expect an American to support their family on that. Plus, where is the price reduction? I haven't seen it. Tariffs would put our Pittsburgh mills back in operation, the big 3 could compete with Toyota and Nissan and go back to making good quality American cars, instead of the plastic ones today, and people would make enough money to buy your knifes, instead of the 10 dollar ones from Taiwan.
Americans fought and worked tooth and nail for the quality of life we have, only to give it all back in the last 20 yrs little by little. Tariffs would raise revenue if these foreign companies wished to have a piece of our market, and raise the price of their goods so that you could compete with Taiwan knife makers. What you believe is what you have been told, and that is the con, and the duping I was talking about.
Of course we can stay on our current path until our lifestyle drops and that of Mexico rises. Eventually it will level out, and then they (major Corporations/Tycoons) will come up with a strategy to **** the whole world.
I believe the key to it and many other problems in this country is the lobbyist and political donation system in our country. Remember growing up and they said you can to anything, even be President one day? HA<HA< not unless you were born rich, or do a whole lot of sucking up to the rich, you wont. Look at what these candidates are worth, and look at who there major campaign contributors are. If you could donate 20,000 dollars to 60 senators campaign funds to guarantee they would vote for legislation that would enable your company to make 1 billion dollars in profit in the next 4 years would it be worth it to you? Of course it would, and that is the status qua!

It is always easy to blame someone else for our lot in life, the state of the economy and what is going on in this country but as I said the root of our problems can be found by looking in the mirror. If enough people say "not only no, but Hell No!" then things are going to change. As long as people take the I can't do anything anyway so why bother attitude then they have no right to complain about what they get.

As for the quality of American Automobiles, mostly they can't hold a candle to the imports. When the President of the UAW testifies before congress that "passing laws to make American cars more fuel efficient will cost American Jobs" when the Japanese are already making theirs more efficient is absurd but that is exactly what he did a few months ago. The quality of American autos has improved in the past few years but only after they lost a major portion of their market. I could go into a long tirade about my 30 years of experience with the inferior quality of American Manufactured Tractor Trailer Rigs but I will save that for another rant. Suffice to say that Volvo made a better truck on their worst day than Freightliner or International made on their best day. Oh and by the way they were the two largest manufacturers of trucks in the U.S. at the time.

sorry to hear about the ****ty quality that you have experienced in the past gardenforge. i myself have never had any problems with american vehicles and most of the people that i know that have them have very limited problems with them. our factories are always getting quality assurance awards and we have measures in place to make sure that the quality is top notch before it leaves the factory. as for foreign autos i cannot say much. i know they build a good product but i have never owned one myself and don't ever plan on owning one. we vote on our union leaders and most of them are very good. it's not the part about making them more efficient that the union is against but the way that the company wants to do it that they are against.

I've owned in excess of 250 vehicles, the majority being built here in North America by the big three. It's sad to say but they don't compare to imports any more. Haven't for years.
I'm a mechanic and I'd sooner work on imports than domestic cars or trucks any day. The domestic vehicles have far too many engineered flaws designed to keep the dealerships afloat with repairs and warranty work. This is a BS way of making money. They sell cars more on emotion and advertising rather than quality.
As far as big trucks go, I'd sooner have a Mann or a Volvo any day. I'm just waiting until Hino has a four wheel drive 2 ton available here like they build for every other market around the globe and I'll be rid of the Ford and GM one ton's that I have now.
Do you think raising the minimum wage would help to insure better quality vehicles from the big three? Or hurt the bottom line and make it easier for a foriegn company like Daimler to buy them. Funny how it being a capitalist system and all that when Chrysler was on it's way out 35 years ago it took the government to bail them out with the forced help of GM and Ford. Sounds kinda like socialist thinking doesn't it? I wonder who's going to rescue them this time.

No offense kid, but you aren't American, are you?

American autos have never had a quality issue until they had to compete with cheaper prices from foreign autos allowed to bring their vehicles in without tariffs. The foreign manufacturers were allowed to do this, and Chrysler was the big loser, because of the gas crises of the early 70's. Not because of quality, and the government owed it to them for screwing them by their policies.
Why should American workers be required to give up their health care and comfortable lifestyles, because the government dropped the protective tariffs.
Did we make poor quality clothes too? Is that why textile mills closed?
Oh that's right, they wanted good health care, and wages too. Shame on the greedy American workers, slap, slap.
They should live in cardboard boxes and shipping crates stacked 4 stories high so you can buy cheap tee shirts and cars.
Protective tariffs are the balance, that keeps your jobs and your benefits.

After a meeting in Washington with Bush, the big three executives then talked to Hillary Clinton, and other law makers about the problems they face.
This is what she said, and notice that quality is not mentioned as one of them.

Clearly, the growing cost of health care and pensions for retirees and workers is one of the most significant challenges facing the domestic auto industry today," she added. "But as we work to address this problem, any solution must not become a zero-sum game in which wages and benefits to workers are slashed to the bone in order to keep competitive."

Health care a key issue
Health care costs are one area where the automakers say they can't compete with overseas automakers, who have much of their employees' medical costs covered by their governments. By comparison, the Big Three expect to pay more than $12 billion this year to cover medical expenses of more than 2 million employees, retirees and their dependents.

Don't we all want good health care? Is it wrong to want good health care? I don't think so, and who in the world do you think buys the most automobiles? Americans, that's who, we are the largest market in the world in all goods purchased. We used to say that about goods manufactured, but not anymore.

Wake up people and quit being duped. What is the major concerns affecting you and your family? Mine is a health care and a comfortable retirement after a life time of hard work. The executives of these companies don't worry about that why should we?

Oh I forgot this. The big three asked for help on:

The three executives were looking for help on currency exchange rates with Japan, since they say the dollar's strength against the yen gives Japanese automakers such as Toyota Motor (Charts), Honda Motor (Charts) and Nissan Motors (Charts) additional profits on vehicles they export to the United States.


Tariffs, Tariffs, Tariffs.......Protective Tariffs!!!!

I won't turn this into a rant on the auto industry but, American Autos have always had a quality problem the but the American public didn't know it till there was a better vehicle available. If price alone drove purchase, we would all be driving Yugos.

Fanta, it happened here in Canada too. I have friends of the family that were laid off from the Ford plant in Oakville and a GM plant elsewhere. European cars have a pretty stiff price tag and it's not because of the overall better quality, tariffs. The Japanese product is just as expensive as the domestic is now. Actually the Japanese vehicles are domestic built now too. There are more plants all the time. I think the biggest reason more people turned to imports was because of quality rather than price. Although price may have had something to do with it in the beginning.

Gas! kid, in the early 70's we had a gas crises. You could only buy gas on odd or even days, according to the # on your tag, and still the lines were miles long at times. The price of a gal. went from about 30 cents to 1 dollar quick. They even shortened the length of a school day for awhile to save on energy. Nissan at the time was called Datsun (I think thats right) and they were the most popular after that. It wasnt quality, believe me, it was gas cost, and the quality compared to the chevelles, Barricudas, and mustangs didnt even compare. Those cars were all metal with cast iron engines that could be rebuilt over, and over. Compared with the cheap alumunim blocks of todays engines. I call them throw aways, disposable. There is nothing like a muscle car from the sixtys and seventys, and many were such poor quality they are still on the road! Lets see Toyota do that!

rethink your last statement you forgot you will be paying more taxes with the increse so how much are you going to be ahead in reality???

Your right about the price, now being closer. The big three have caught up with that, and the quality is equal too today, but peoples mind set is stuck in believeing it hasnt. Also Cheverolet, today has over 30 models that get more than 30 mpg. That is more models than any manufacturer in the business getting that gas mileage.

American ingenuity will bring it back. We are already thinking in the future with Hydrogen and E-85 fuel vehicles while European and Asian Automakers arent, but the government needs to get off their ass.

Less than 1,000 stations now offer the 85-percent ethanol blend fuel known as E85. There are about 7 million GM, Ford and Chrysler vehicles already on the road. The Japanese and European automakers have not made a commitment to "flex-fuel" vehicles that can run on regular gasoline or E85.

Build fueling stations and put the protective tariffs back in place. Do you realize how many textile jobs with good benefits were lost to China, and other countries?

Of course that would mean, less money to the oil companies, maybe the government is waiting until they can take control of the future fuel requirements of these vehicles too. OR, maybe they are hoping they can steal what they can from Iraq and Iran!


I threw that in there for you forge! LMAO, We cant let a thread go by on here without blameing it on the war in Iraq, and Bush!

As far as the Fed min wage Hike, 2 doz states had already passed legislation increasing the min wage above the Fed rate. Once again the Feds are behind the needs and wishes of the people. Its getting to be a habit, isnt it! Dam Neocons!

I agree that gas was a contributing factor. There's no arguement there. Who out of the big 3 other than Ford built a 4 cylinder (2.3litre) that was worth its weight in sawdust though. Do you remember the Pinto, Vega and such fine quality auto mobiles? Big 3's answer to an economy car.
The small 6 cyl engines weren't all that bad but yeah, the V8's were horrendous on fuel. Why do they still build them today! The rest of the planet has been running diesels for a century already for bigger power applications. Efficiently too, not like what's in the domestic trucks now.
It was Datsun which was a North American name for Nissan. The one thing people forget is the Japanese were just getting in to the North American market at that time. Their cars were built for warmer, drier climates like Australia, Africa and Asia not here. I had a '76 Toyota Corolla with 350,000 miles on it. What domestic went that far without a few engines back then. The number of vehicles that were actually imported was fairly insignificant compared to what the big 3 cranked out. That's also a reason why you don't see many around anymore. They are out there though and more than you might expect percentage wise.
I still have a number of vehicles right from '23 through to the 90's, domestic and imports and still say the imports were usually a better engineered and better built product. I love some of that old American iron but I won't even try to delude myself that they were high quality. The big 3 didn't do anything they didn't have to as far as improvements until the imports were taking a serious portion of the market away from them. Even then they came out with some real winners like the K car. When was the last time you saw one of those beauties.
Most of the technology that the big 3 has that is of any real value was through either racing or foreign manufaturers that they bought or partnered with for that technology. Sad thing is that they still don't get it right because they're always trying to cheapen it up for the bottom line.