tax imports?

[rt green]

what do you guys think? if new imports were heavily taxed on purchase -making them very expensive- would that get Detroit rolling again? 

[FlatbackFanatic]

YES. Even on the imports that are made here, tax the parts imported to make them.

[Ghoste]

I think yes but rather than protectionism I'd rather see the countries like Japan forced to honor the same trade agreements they expect from North America.

[moparguy01]

YES. Even on the imports that are made here, tax the parts imported to make them.

hate to say this, because I love my American cars, but if you tax the parts imported to make them, your going to tax the ever living crap out of the American car companies. Most the parts in those are foreign now too. Just like everything else, all made in Taiwan or China or someother damn place which isn't here.

If you hurt the foreign car companies making cars in this country, you are directly hurting our economy, since that would mean they would have to pay their employees less, which means these employees at the US plants making foreign cars have less money or possibly get laid off.

so in short, No, I do not think taxing the import cars is a good idea. I think it will hurt our economy more than it could possibly save it. There is alot of things going into these decisions, and you really need to look at every aspect of what you are asking. When you look into everything you see its a piss poor idea.

[GN]

Does'nt Japan subsidize its industry. They can afford to do so. Its U.S. tax dollars that protect that country with our military forces. Which means that they do not have to spend thier GNP on a defense budget so they can put that money elsewhere(industry subsidizes). U.S. tax dollars help rebuild japan after the war. With the Soviet threat now gone maybe we should insist that Japan spend more on its own defense and the U.S. use that money elsewhere.

[Rolling_Thunder]

If you tax imported parts the US auto manufacturers will be boned more so than they are now...          why not get rid of NAFTA first and get jobs back to the US instead of taxing foreign autos ?  Honestly - if NAFTA was banned, us manufacturers will return production to the US - Toyota for example have helped the US economy by manufacturing their vehicles in Texas, Northern California, Etc...     

The overall feeling of this board seems to be "buy American" - but in the modern global economy my Toyota is more American then the GM driving down the road...     now comes the debate of money returning to Japan as oppose to the US...     now...    here's my take...    I would rather send $$$ to Japan. Why ? Well, companies like Toyota is on the the largest foreign investors in the US.

Money that goes to GM and Ford and other US auto companies does what? It goes to inflated CEO budgets and things OTHER than auto work. Line workers do not get raises and the average person does not benefit. The recent bailout proves that US auto companies can not manage money or production.



I say start here in North America before worrying about taxing over seas imports.

[Silver R/T]

companies are already taxed very high. That's why there's "tax breaks" for companies. Now that doesn't mean that employees are better off. Since some companies put up bigger building (expanding), buy new equipment etc. That doesn't mean that "tax break" money goes for employee's raises, etc.

[stripedelete]

Give Ross Pero credit with "that giant sucking sound".  Did he nail it or what?

As far as money going to the people on the line?  The auto bail out was a UNION BAILOUT.  It is KEEPING the guys on the line.   Until their votes are no longer needed.......

[aussiemuscle]

Same problem in australia. our local industry is in the toilet, but people still buy japanese/korean cars.
[quote-"Rolling_Thunder"]Money that goes to GM and Ford and other US auto companies does what? It goes to inflated CEO budgets and things OTHER than auto work. Line workers do not get raises and the average person does not benefit. The recent bailout proves that US auto companies can not manage money or production.[/quote]
like GM's arm here, Holden. used their money to buy the top Ford racing team.  no really, after being bailed out, they went and seduced a Ford team to sell their fords and use GM product. This apparently blew their entire year's racing budget.

[Mike DC]

Money that goes to GM and Ford and other US auto companies does what?  It goes to inflated CEO budgets and things OTHER than auto work.  Line workers do not get raises and the average person does not benefit.  The recent bailouts proves that US auto companies can not manage money or production.

Therefore, either Detroit really should be run with some influence from the govt, or else Detroit should have been allowed to fail last year.

[GN]

Why is the UAW being blamed? They did not say lets design and build a inferior product. The UAW does not run the company. We have 4 cars, 3 made in the U.S. and the Chrysler from Canada. All great cars with lots of miles on them and many more to come. Diamler ran Chrysler into the ground. All they wanted was the 20 billion cash asset that Chrysler had before the buy out.

[Mike DC]

Daimler didn't buy GM and Ford though. 



Detroit went bankrupt because they weren't selling enough product in proportion to the # of brands & models they were making. 

Other specific reasons that have contributed to Detroit's woes lately are just the last few straws on the camel's back.


       

[Bob]

I think yes but rather than protectionism I'd rather see the countries like Japan forced to honor the same trade agreements they expect from North America.

and China.

[Arthu®]

Uhm where to start... This is a much too complicated matter to be explained in a post on dodgecharger.com but I'll try to give my 2 cents.

First of all taxes are a very nice tool... for the public. For corporations however the tax system still has a lot of loop holes through which they can jump to minimize their taxable income and thereby lower their taxes paid. If you intent to tax them more, they are more willing to find the loop holes and therefore it might even have an adverse effect.

Secondly protectionism and taxes such as those proposed here will not benefit the U.S. economy in the long run. As I have said on other threads before we are moving towards globalisation and we are at a point of no return. The financial sectors and the markets are so closely related these days that such measures can have a slowing down effect on the entire global economy. Things that have been discussed here such as the defense of Japan or Japan not honoring the same trade agreements are issues that I'm not completely familiar with and will therefore not even try to comment on those as I'll most likely be wrong, but if anyone cares to explain I'm all ears.

Thirdly there are very small trade barriers between the U.S. and the E.E.C. and still U.S. car manufacturers have failed to even slightly penetrate the market. New U.S. cars are a status symbol in most of the E.E.C. but they only amount to a very small percentage of the total market. Why? In my opinion because of their build quality and their fuel economy. The U.S. car manufacturers have basically laughed at globalisation thinking they would be fine in their own corner of the earth. They have not tried to bring products that had been adapted to other markets or even establish a brand there, there are some examples but most have failed miserably. Ford is the only that for quite some time have had an offspring in the U.K. and later throughout the E.E.C., Chevy has just joined with the take-over of another company, but it was much too late. Chrysler? They have tried to sell their cars here virtually untouched, and the Voyager has been relatively successful due to its size, but still inefficient engines (except the diesel maybe but that was a steyr product I believe).

There was said here that the Japanese subsidize their auto industry. If there is one country on earth that has subsidized their car industry or more importantly the market (by keeping gas prices on an artificial low) it is the U.S.. In the end the U.S. car manufacturers should have had their eyes open, they should have sold adapted products to different markets, they should have shown innovation. They problem is just that they were stuck and really it would have been better if they had gone bankrupt. Not for the people that work there of course, but for the good of the company it would have been. That would have meant that they could have sold off all the good parts and just kill all the expensive parts that they could not get rid off due to the legal situation. I'm thinking of the dealer networks for example or agreements with Unions.

This would have also meant they would have been able to get rid of all those different brands. Of course we wouldn't really like it (although personally I don't care much) but for the good of the company Chrysler should have just continued with Chrysler. All these brands and models cost a lot of money and to be realistic their market share just doesn't allow them to have such a big repertoire.

The cost of management is a "problem" (I'm not sure whether to call it a problem or not, because to me it's not clear if these paychecks really are a significant burden to the company). It is however for damn certain that it is a problem with the public. In essence it is much like the prices of the muscle cars from a few years back, you get a lot of complaints that the prices are too high, that nobody could afford them anymore, and so on. However just as with the muscle cars there is a certain "worth" of the asset. In this case this management is paid as much because they believe they pay what management is "worth". If they become less desirable or there is a larger pool of managers (which we will see because of the amount of bankruptcies) the prices will come down eventually, this will take a while because they have these contracts so only after those periods they can be revised, but in the end they more or less get what the market believes they should get.

Whether this is reasonable in our minds doesn't really matter. However you do see a trend that as soon as companies get into trouble they attract more expensive management. This is of course because there is a certain believe that when someone is worth more he is almost automatically better than his predecessor and they need someone better because they need to get out of their troubles. Again this does not mean that he/she is actually better, it is just that they are perceived to be better.

Do I personally think that they put the right people in the right places and give them the "right" salary? No. Do I believe their salaries are conform the market and thereby "fair"? Yes. Could I or you do a better job? Probably not. However I do feel that management should be selected more critically and that they should not just pick individuals but more look at teams. It is a fairly commonly agreed upon suggestion that we do know more collectively than an individual and so maybe we could change the management structure and thereby get better results on decisions. But this could also slow down the decision making process enormously and cause the company to miss a lot of opportunities because of being indecisive.

In the end I think we have to accept that we live in an imperfect world. We are on a roller coaster ride towards globalisation and there is no emergency button to stop it, all these flaws in the market and policy design will be straightened out over time, this is going to cost us a lot. In the end and this is something that not a lot of people are willing to talk about just yet, but is in my opinion the biggest flaw that has yet to straightened out is that in order to have a true global market and perfect globablisation we will also need perfect migration. But that is something that the world is far from ready for.

Arthur