American Made
MuleyMadness
2/17/09 11:19am
Since Chevy is a support of the outdoors and MuleyMadness I thought this would be appropriate and good read...(not my words)
But I do support Chevy!
A time to be American
I am a guy that grew up in a household w nothing but American vehicles in my garage, mostly GM cars to be specific. I was taught as a kid that driving foreign vehicles were not even an option. Watching these last 4 months in the Automotive sector has made my stomach turn. I shed a tear the minute I heard John Rich sing that awesome song that captivated my heart. He really brought his life and deepest feelings into that song “Shutting Detroit Down”.
About 4 years ago I bought a foreign car, and it just never felt right. I made that mistake one time and took our American automotive heritage for granted. I repeat, 1 time. The best part about making a mistake is learning from it. It doesn’t matter if its hunting season, fishing season, or just heading to work, I drive American. In today’s climate, I can only imagine the discomfort and embarrassment in someone that loves this country and its heritage must feel when they pull up at a traffic light, or go to park and they are driving a foreign car. That is one type of shame that I will NEVER FEEL again, I drive American!
Nobody can build trucks like the Big 3. Personally, I roll around in a Silverado and my wife drives a Tahoe, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Whether you are driving a Ford, Dodge, or a Chevy you should be proud to be driving American. I like feeling good about the truck I drive, and I like knowing that no matter if its 20 degrees and snowing, pouring rain, or a bright sunny day, my American truck gets me where I want to go every time.
The last thing we can afford is anymore long term damage to our economy. A healthier Auto industry equates to a healthier country. A healthier country is a safer country, a happier country, and a stronger country. It is okay to make mistakes from time to time, heck I owned one of those “other” vehicles like I admitted, however admitting your mistake and accepting it is the start to a better day! Outdoorsmen, non outdoorsmen, it is time to be patriots of this great country, it is time to be American baby!
- A Concerned Sportsman
But I do support Chevy!
A time to be American
I am a guy that grew up in a household w nothing but American vehicles in my garage, mostly GM cars to be specific. I was taught as a kid that driving foreign vehicles were not even an option. Watching these last 4 months in the Automotive sector has made my stomach turn. I shed a tear the minute I heard John Rich sing that awesome song that captivated my heart. He really brought his life and deepest feelings into that song “Shutting Detroit Down”.
About 4 years ago I bought a foreign car, and it just never felt right. I made that mistake one time and took our American automotive heritage for granted. I repeat, 1 time. The best part about making a mistake is learning from it. It doesn’t matter if its hunting season, fishing season, or just heading to work, I drive American. In today’s climate, I can only imagine the discomfort and embarrassment in someone that loves this country and its heritage must feel when they pull up at a traffic light, or go to park and they are driving a foreign car. That is one type of shame that I will NEVER FEEL again, I drive American!
Nobody can build trucks like the Big 3. Personally, I roll around in a Silverado and my wife drives a Tahoe, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Whether you are driving a Ford, Dodge, or a Chevy you should be proud to be driving American. I like feeling good about the truck I drive, and I like knowing that no matter if its 20 degrees and snowing, pouring rain, or a bright sunny day, my American truck gets me where I want to go every time.
The last thing we can afford is anymore long term damage to our economy. A healthier Auto industry equates to a healthier country. A healthier country is a safer country, a happier country, and a stronger country. It is okay to make mistakes from time to time, heck I owned one of those “other” vehicles like I admitted, however admitting your mistake and accepting it is the start to a better day! Outdoorsmen, non outdoorsmen, it is time to be patriots of this great country, it is time to be American baby!
- A Concerned Sportsman
13,703
NONYA: i will put a DVD of the winners choice, from muley madness store, that says that statment is false???
i am 100% guessing that it is. GUESSING. but what do you say??? deal ?
deal or no deal :))
What is an American Automobile? LFI's retiree supporters believe that determination is up to you. But if you want the car you buy to support jobs and investment in your community, you need to have the facts. Here is some information worth considering.
Automaker Jobs.
U.S. automakers (Ford, GM and Chrysler) employ twice as many U.S. workers (per car) as foreign automakers (including all the cars they make here). Even with recent buyouts, GM employs about as many Americans as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Subaru, Mercedes, BMW and VW combined. Ford and Chrysler each employ more U.S. workers at a single manufacturing facility than Hyundai and VW employ nationwide. Honda, the largest, longest operating "transplant" manufacturer in the U.S., employs significantly more workers, per car, than rivals Hyundai, Nissan and VW. But even Honda employs only 25,000 Americans, less than half of Ford’s employee count, and about a third of GM’s current total.
Supplier Jobs.
"Made in America" matters even more when you look at the men and women working for the auto parts suppliers that serve automakers. These companies employ twice as many Americans as the automakers themselves, and they conduct approximately 40% of automotive R&D.
Ford, GM and Chrysler use twice the “domestic content,” per car, that foreign automakers use, on average. As a result, even though Ford, GM and Chrysler sold less than half the vehicles purchased in the U.S. last year, they purchased two-thirds of the parts made here.
Research & Development.
Tomorrow's jobs will depend, in part, on today's R&D, particularly in fuel efficiency and safety. The Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), an association of 14 Japanese automakers doing business in America, notes that they collectively employ 3,600 R&D workers at 36 facilities nationwide. Honda operates 10 facilities employing 1,300 R&D professionals. Level Field welcomes these jobs, but more than 65,000 Americans (nearly 20 times JAMA's total) work in 215 automotive R&D facilities in Michigan alone.
that was the statement,dont edit it.
Dont know who wrote your article but its not even close to being accurate,probably someone asking for a BAILOUT,AKA ford,chevy and dodge,dont see any of the jap car makers begging for money.If they want free money they should have to move their plants back into the US and employ americans to build them,right now Chevy has Canadians and Mexicans building their pickups,they may advertise in the US and Sell in the USA but they dont pay any americans to make them.
Wanted to clarify that by truck i mean FULLSIZE trucks.Not all honda and toyota plants are UAW but they employ more AMERICANS than the big three combined,you want an american made truck go buy a Tacoma or a Ridgeline.
Honda is building close to 1.3 million cars and trucks in North America for the fiscal year. That’s about 80 percent of the company’s sales volume, which makes the term “import brand” outdated, said Honda spokesman Ed Miller.
"2" replys up i quoted the WHOLE text. no editing. no mixing up YOUR words. so dont try and puul that one. the edit was to claify word for word what you said. which is
so now are you changing that comment or what? i surley dont want to mix up YOUR words
And the “import” tag fits less and less these days. For example, more than 80% of the 900,000 vehicles Honda Motor Co. has sold in the United States this year were made in the U.S.
Ford, which suffered an overall sales decline of 20% according to AutoData, was displaced by Toyota Motor Corp. as No. 2 in U.S. sales. That has happened five times in recent months, but Toprak said Toyota might have now permanently surpassed Ford. Like GM and Chrysler, Ford is closing plants and cutting production in an effort to regain financial stability.
still wanna bet?
so what do you think, we'll put AGCHAWK up to it[ since how this whole forum knows he can get the REAL facts and post them. then if you try and weasle your words to where you still cant loose, then we'll have a poll. seems fare?
is that the bet-- for a muleymadness video?
i believe this was the original bet before word editing.... i have my video picked out lol
but I COULD VERY WELL BE WRONG. but i dont think so. and i hope not.
whats a video, $20.00.? i'm in if your game?
i know how much it will kill you to have to buy that video lol lol
all in good fun of course :thumb
I have my thoughts on this subject but I will let you all argue about it...LOL. I am more concerned about which country profits more in the end. You can make your own assessment.
Good luck on this one guys!
_______________________________________________________________________________
The ambiguity creates a quandary for the many who consider "Made in the USA" a badge of honor. To them, the label means putting fellow countrymen to work at decent wages and supporting the U.S. economy in wartime. Some domestic-brand dealers use patriotic appeals to try to rev up the Buy American spirit.
But many consumers are increasingly confused. The world is no longer as simple as us vs. them, Detroit against the Asians and Europeans.
It's a global industry now, in which all manufacturers are touching their automaking toes on the shores of just about every industrialized nation. Even GM, long the icon of American industry, hedges its bets. "We're very proud for the economic role we play in this country," says GM spokesman Greg Martin. "However, we're a global car company that happens to be based in the United States."
The contradictions of a borderless automotive economy are borne out by government figures that track where vehicles are made and their domestic parts content. The search for the American car leads to:
· Foreign cars made in the USA: Honda's Ohio-built Accord is 70 percent domestic parts. Toyota's Corolla is made in a California plant alongside General Motors models.
· American cars made abroad: Ford's hit Fusion sedan is made in Mexico; only half its parts are from the USA or Canada. GM pitches its small HHR sport utility and giant Suburban straight at the American market, but they, too, are built in Mexico. HHR has only 41 percent American and Canadian parts.
· Famous American names and foreign owners: More than three-quarters of the parts in Dodge's new Nitro SUV, which is assembled in Toledo, Ohio, are American or Canadian. But the profits go to Germany because Dodge is part of DaimlerChrysler. Chrysler Group, meanwhile, just became the first major automaker to announce it's going to make small cars for the U.S. market in China.
Despite the confusion, about half of Americans surveyed say they still try to buy products made in the USA, says Britt Beemer of America's Research Group.
The government makes it easy for buyers wandering sales lots to figure out which vehicles are most American. The location of the plant where a vehicle was assembled and its amount of U.S. or Canadian parts -- they aren't separated out -- are pasted on the window sticker.
Arguably, the most American of all vehicles right now is Ford's hulking 2007 Ford Expedition, a USA TODAY check of government listings, manufacturers and dealer sales lots reveals. The SUV is composed of 95 percent U.S. or Canadian parts, and it was made in Michigan. Ford's new Edge crossover and the Crown Victoria sedan also have 95 percent components, but both they and their corporate cousins are assembled in Canada.
Even though individual models vary widely, Detroit automakers overall still had more domestic parts in their vehicles when weighted according to sales, says an analysis from a pro-Detroit trade group.
Detroit's Big 3 derived about 77 percent of its parts from U.S. and Canadian factories from domestic sources. That compares with slightly less than half for Japanese brands overall, according to the Automotive Trade Policy Council, which represents the domestic manufacturers in trade issues. Among Japanese brands, Honda had the most domestic content at 59 percent.
"The data is clear: Domestic auto plants create more jobs in this country than overseas producers who locate here," says United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger in a statement to USA TODAY. But he was quick to note that foreign automakers have created more jobs in the USA by opening plants here, and he respects their workers.
Many auto dealers selling domestic brands are playing to the patriotism theme.
In Tampa FL., Bill Currie Ford credits pro-USA ad themes for contributing to fast growth. A billboard posted along Interstate 275 shows an American flag and outlines of Japan and South Korea. The message: "Whose country are you supporting?"
"We've had some compliments," says Currie's community relations director, Danny Lewis. And, he adds, "very little criticism."
In Roseville, Minn., Cadillac dealer Wally McCarthy runs radio ads on WCCO-AM in Minneapolis that say, "Buying a vehicle from GM, quite simply, helps support Americans."
What Do You Think?
Manufacturers -- and not just those in Detroit -- have picked up on the patriotism theme lately, especially when it comes to pickups.
To crack the full-size pickup market with its new Tundra, Toyota doesn't hold back in promoting how American it has become. The new Texas truck plant where the Tundra is built "is just one more example of our commitment to America," Toyota touts in colorful newspaper ads that mention lots of new jobs and a $15 billion U.S. investment.
GM counters with its Our Country campaign, filled with images of vintage Americana, for its Chevy Silverado pickups.
Consumers who care the most about patriotism when it comes to purchases are usually working-class white men; thus the emphasis on the pickup market, says Dana Frank, a history professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Buy American: The Untold story of Economic Nationalism.
Pickup buyers also are notoriously loyal, another reason the campaigns are targeting them. They'll wear a Chevy belt buckle with pride, notes Honda Senior Vice President John Mendel, adding, "Not a lot of Lexus owners have an 'L' tattooed on their arm."
Half the domestic pickup buyers surveyed by J.D. Power and Associates cited not wanting to own a foreign-made truck as the chief reason for their purchase decision, even more than the one out of three who said they didn't like foreign-truck styling.
Autos Forums Pickup buyers "tend to be flag wavers, and they aren't convinced that Toyota is an American company," says Art Spinella of CNW Marketing Research. Consumers may be a little predisposed against Toyota, with 61 percent of those participating in CNW focus group panels in five cities saying they don't consider Toyota to be a U.S. company despite efforts to tint its image more red, white and blue.
"It does bother me that they have a series of ads showing they are part of the heartland of America, yet their imports increased," says building contractor Jim Urbano, 53, of Woodbridge, Conn., who also researches car-buying options on Edmunds.com. He says he prefers American-made vehicles, because, "It troubled me to see so many U.S. autoworkers being laid off."
Besides its flag-waving Tundra ads, Toyota has been running a public relations campaign in greater Washington, D.C., to cultivate an apple pie, not sushi, image among policymakers.
It helps that Toyota announced that a new assembly plant will be built in Tupelo, Miss., its fifth in the USA, with a goal of increasing production by 600,000 vehicles by 2010. Honda is also building a new assembly plant in Indiana.
Toyota Fears No. 1
Toyota's pushes foward but being number one has its complications:
Why Toyota Is Afraid Of Being Number One "We are committed to building where we sell," says Toyota spokeswoman Martha Voss. "No one is adding more capacity than we are."
Voss cites demand for small cars last year as the reason Toyota's Japanese imports rose by so much. Altogether, Toyota imported close to half of all the vehicles it sold in the USA last year from Japan, including all its gas-electric hybrids and most of its luxury Lexus division vehicles.
Honda's imports soared 30 percent last year, Mazda's rose 19 percent, and Suzuki's were up 23 percent, the Congressional Research Service finds in a new report. It says Japanese makers are simply trying to meet customer demand while running their U.S. plants at full tilt.
Japanese automakers encountered "capacity restraints in their existing U.S. plants as a sharp increase in the price of gasoline sparked greater consumer demand for fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles," says William Duncan, general director of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association's office in Washington, D.C.
All told, each of the Detroit automakers supports two and a half times more U.S. jobs than Toyota, says Jim Doyle, president of the Level Field Institute, a Washington research group. He acknowledges, however, that "people are trying to define what an American car is, and they are having a tough time."
The confusion pains Luehrmann, 48. Hoping to reach a decision soon about his next car, he's looking at everything.
He's a believer in American cars, but, says with a tinge of regret, "I don't feel any great loyalty anymore."
Detroit's Big 3 derived about 77 percent of its parts from U.S. and Canadian factories from domestic sources. That compares with slightly less than half for Japanese brands overall, according to the Automotive Trade Policy Council, which represents the domestic manufacturers in trade issues. Among Japanese brands, Honda had the most domestic content at 59 percent.
i will say i didn't know toyota was as big into america as it says but still the fact is the big 3 employ more americans than toyota and honda. or did i missinterprete that?
NONYA, tell me when you would like my mailing address :thumb
your right, i'm haveing trouble with how clear your making yourself (???) seems all of these say something else. so since your obviously a fool of fools who changes his words until you can say your right. i let it be. it's not like i really expected YOU of all people to live up to his mouth.
if anything before you spout of next time " REALITY CHECK< TOYOTA AND HONDA EMPLOY MORE AMERICANS THAN THE BIG 3 COMBINED" maybe you should get you facts strait.
funny thing is i've never seen a mossback video, but you've watched all but 1??? funny how that pans out.. i did see Mysticle monarchs about 15 yrs ago that doyle was a guide on but it wasn't his video [ i believe, I COULD BE WRONG AND I WOULD BE THE FIRST TO ADMIT IT]
so your backing out on your bet or did you want to try the poll?? probably not. how bout one more comment from you saying " I'm done with this your wrong and i'm right-- i just know it]
:thumb :thumb
thanks for the comfirmation :thumb