In the late 1960’s there was a new auto company in town. It was called Datsun. In Japan they were known as Nissan but they were afraid to use their real name here because they felt that their car importation plan might fail because of quality issues. In those days the label “Made in Japan” was laughed at all over the US. The quality was horrendous on every item. But Nissan went ahead and signed up car dealers and plunged into the market for inexpensive transportation. As their quality improved so did their reputation. Thus began the gutting of the US auto industry that has continued until todays’ carcasses of GM and Ford rot in the sun.
As the wealth of the middle class was sucked into Tokyo changes began to occur in our society. Our politicians that were paid to adjust our import tariffs to benefit our old enemies and assumed that the wealth created by our own industries would continue forever. The socialist programs to save the world began expanding exponentially with unfortunately little or no financial base for support. The Japanese of course left their own tariff barriers in place so that their own industry would not have to compete with the solid front of Detroit. No politicians took the time to imagine the effects on our own citizens.
Over time the standard of living in Japan rose significantly making labor much more expensive than before as ours was lowered, thereby significantly reducing profits. The Koreans stepped to the plate to replace the Japanese as low cost manufacturer of heavy industries. The cycle was repeated again with the same result of more high paying US jobs disappearing. The Koreans have gotten a nice piece of the pie from both Japan and the US. The next step in the cycle has been China. The trillions of dollars that have been sucked from the US over 50 years have changed history again. I do not see how labor cost can become less than in China as slave labor is the bottom but I am sure something will turn up.
Enter India. The last economy that is available for financial construction by the American consumer is India and of course they have tariffs. They are outgrowing China population wise and have plenty of room to improve. This will leave us with choices of whom to support with our sweat and dollars. We certainly have very few American options remaining.
The same results from a different program occurred in Europe after WW2. The Marshall Plan provided funds to begin rebuilding the piles of concrete that were left of industry and civilization after another series of their border wars. In the 1970s’ Mercedes Benz used AC/Delco air conditioners and GM automatic transmissions for their top of the line models. This of course gave them excellent information on how to build their own and ship the results to the US for a nice bit of cash.
The only thing that has allowed this drain on our society is of course the bribery of our politicians. In the 1990s’ the Clinton and Bush administrations created NAFTA at the behest of their wallets. As the prescient Ross Perot stated “the sucking sound you hear will be American jobs heading to Mexico.” Even then some Americans realized that the government was very corrupt. About 19% voted for Mr. Perot in his two presidential campaigns. We of course did not understand that there was actually only one political party and voting made no difference.
As the jobs that require assembling many industrial products have been shipped overseas, the ability of underemployed Americans to be consumers has been eliminated. An iPhone costs Apple around $550 and sells for around $1,000. The unit could be assembled here for an extra $100 and provide a good job for ex-textile workers for example. I can hear the cries of “that’s socialism” yap, yap, yap! I refer back to the Henry Ford model of raising his workers’ pay. By doing so he created a new series of possible customers for the Model T. I know for sure that a slave laborer in China will not be able to afford an iPhone on his wage.
The cry of socialism also disguises any simple analysis of the true cost of foreign access to our markets. We will assume that Mr. Smith works for Ford. If Ford closes a plant the following happens. Mr. Smith has no job. He needs welfare for his survival which adds to our debt burden. He pays no taxes to fund the Deep State. He also buys no trucks to support his and other jobs in the community. Lastly, the money for all of this is shipped overseas to reverse the process in China which enriches our enemies and the Fed prints more to cover the shortfalls.
The last part is that Mr. Clinton was paid handsomely to allow the Chinese into the WTO. Three of his group were sentenced to jail. The corruption of Joe Bribe’em and his ilk has existed for decades but we all were asleep except for Mr. Perot. Is his 19% vote still in play or capable of self defense? The US has enough resources and knowledge to close the doors and rebuild as both the Japanese and Germans did. We only need to throw out our parasite criminal class.
Let this cesspool of fucking freaks burn
Bud Lite thinks they’ll not go broke for going woke:
Dotgov pays companies to pull this woke shit. Despite their best efforts I’d say 5% of American people think woke is legit. Very fringe types. Media would have us think a much larger percentage of people agree with it.
the reaction has not been good, so now they are pushing the lie it was a hoax.
I should get a bunch of people to go to the MO state fair. They always have the Budweiser Clydesdales there to do a run around the fairgrounds twice a day. We could turn our backs on them.
How appropriate and legal. You’re making us all look small this morning, MC.
;o)
It’s easy to blame the Dems/Reps, but they’re all laughing at us, fellow Goyim.
The Uniparty works for the (((usual suspects))).
“Let me control a Nations money, and I care not who makes it’s laws” – Mayer Amschel Rothschild.
Go after the right Enemy, it’s been done at least 109 times before in other countries….
Every.
Single.
Time….
Used to be a time, not that long ago, where you could graduate high school and get a job and work it til you retired with a pension. Maybe not the most glamorous job, but you could feed your family and mom could stay home and take care of the kids. People had a sense of family and community. The world was not perfect, but there seemed to be a sense of order. People had a sense of right and wrong. People took care of their own.
That scared the shit out of Them.
They had to stop it.
What better way than to ship out the jobs and freeze or gut the pensions.
The greedy CEOs would be the Useful Idiots needed to divert attention away from the assholes really responsible.
My old man, who was as Republican as they come, said it is too bad that Clinton and the democrats abandoned the working man and became stooges for the New World Order.
It began way before Clinton … it was LBJ who opened our borders to the invasion by many tens of millions of wetbacks from mexico — plus all the rest south of there …
Whether they knew the consequences of their actions or not, they should be held accountable as if they did.
Don’t be fooled, they all KNEW
Two takeaways.
1. In 1968 a freind’s father became the Datsun dealer in Jackson, MS. His son was given a Datsun 1600 2-seat convertible to drive. Rode with him, it was smooth and powerful. Frat bro in 1971 had a 240Z. Fast as sh*t. Great ride. Married the mother of my children in ’76, I inherited her ’73 Corolla. Drove it 130K, didn’t burn oil. Dependable, knew Detroit was f*ed.
2. I thought that Getrag made all MB, Audi & BMW trannys? Please educate. They built a huge factory in Newton, NC in the mid-80s. I sold them oodles of cutting oils & lubricants.
All the East Asian cars and trucks Auntie has had since 1974, beginning with a Toyota Corona, have all performed excellently and with only regular maintenance; with the exception of a Mazda 626 that was simply a dud. On the other hand Mazda’s 1981 wankel -engined RX-7 was an absolute blast to drive. The Nissan 240Z car was a great ride indeed.
Had a blast driving my 84 RX7 GS. A little light in the rear, had to be careful.
I had an 1980 RX-7 in that exact same color, stick shift! Fun to drive, but had problems with the ignition system (two coils, two spark plugs per combustion chamber… can’t say cylinder here). When you think about it, 1.1 liter engine that cranked out 100 hp was not bad
My first Japanese car… 72 Toyota Celica. I actually owned three of them over the course of my life.
I had a Celica, I think about a 74, till I backed into a telephone pole at slow speed. From then on it was mostly GM cars and trucks till about 2017 when I got a Hyundai.
Modesty forbids my sharing just how much that first Celica meant to me, but I had such a good time in the first one I bought two more!
Had me a 260Z 2+2, the faster you drove it the better it felt on the road. Only 4 wheel independent I’ve ever driven, very unique experience.
When I was a kid, the first Datsun 240Z came out. Was really a sexy little car. Was only 15 and didn’t have my drivers license yet so I could only dream.
My first new car was a 200SX. I couldn’t afford a Z. But I loved that 200SX and drove it for 9 years until a high school kid rear ended me at a stoplight and totaled it. By then I had toddlers and it wasn’t a good car to haul kids in , anyway, since it was a 2 door. So the next car was a 1989 Honda Accord sedan that I also drove for 9 years.
Don’t understate or underestimate the effects that William Edwards Deming had on the massive improvements in Japanese products after WW2 — nor that GM and the other US companies refused to believe that they had either anything to learn from him or anything to fear from the Japanese.
Deming was later declared a ‘National Treasure’ by the Japanese government … and GM and the rest continued their descent into mediocrity.
The rest, as they say, is history …
To be fair to Japan, they unilaterally agreed to a five year quota on exports to allow Detroit to catch up on fuel efficiency. Detroit lobbyist carved out a truck exception instead and so now most people pay twice what they need to for a vehicle.
Datsun, the good and the bad.
The hubcaps on the B210 were the best. LOL
Shouldn’t admit it, but I actually owned a 1977 Datsun B-210 (HoneyBee). Stick shift, of course, no radio, no a/c, and rubber ‘carpet.’ Can’t remember the actual cost, but it was around 2 grand off the dealer lot. A few years later after a minor accident, I had it painted black and added mag wheels and white lettered 60’s.
The 310 was a FWD auto preceded by the F-10, which was sort of an experiment by Datsun to test the FWD waters.
We bought a 310 in ’81 and never looked back until about ’89 when we moved I gave it to my subordinate at the construction company where I worked. It was the first car he’d ever owned in his 50+ years …
Guy in high school put a Buick 3.8 V6 in his B210.
Crazy fast for the day and the little tires and brakes.
Camaros and Mustangs were very surprised.
I had a 79 or 80 Datsun pickup 4×4 4 cylinder while stationed in Alaska in the army. That little truck never let me down. It crawled in 4 low over anything. Had some rust but was tough as nails. Had a block heater and battery blanket plugged both in on very cold nights.
The GOPe will provide the “Independent” or “real Republican” to try to torpedo the MAGA candidate in ’24. Karl Rove will be head cheerleader with lots of help from the folks preaching to the dupes from the captured media at FOX and the Murdoch print empire.
There are at least two MAGA candidates thus far with Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy. They would make a heck of a team from my perspective. 37 yr. old Ramaswamy is en fuego when he speaks and is Ultra MAGA, wanting to go full bore against DC shutting down numerous cabinet agencies like Education and fire most of the DOJ and start it over and pretty much everything that sends that tingle up the leg.
There is no way the 2024 “election” is fair. They have pushed all their chips into the pot.
Land of the Free I’m told.
And all of those ‘blue light’ LEDs are sooooooo good for our eyes and our sleep/wake cycle …
My father was in the car business and explained how the Japanese cars made American companies build better cars to compete. The vermin in Washington disgust me, it’s a shame we can’t get rid of them all and start with a clean slate.
Bought a ’70 Chevelle Malibu 350 … my last US car.
The 4-speed shifter was what was affectionately called the ‘Muncie meat grinder’ … and, after it locked up numerous times — and Chevrolet wouldn’t fix it properly — I replaced it with a high quality Hurst 4-speed shifter of excellent quality.
Chevrolet told me my warranty was no longer valid on the car since I had ‘modified’ it with unapproved parts.
Last time I even thought of buying a US automobile … have had multiple VW Golfs/Rabbits — a Saab 900s — a Datsun 310 — even a Toyota Corolla … every one of them light years better than any GM car or Ford Ranger I’ve ever owned …
iPhones are available (without the Apple branding) wholesale for under US$12/each.
Where? Do they work?
Asking for a friend.
link please —
Re shoring is happening.
Where I live factory workers are needed desperately. Even with interest rates skyrocketing in the last year.
High school kids are getting part time jobs while in high school making bank and not going to college after graduation.
Be a kind accountant and tell us where.
I used to blame Clinton for China, until I realized the buildup of China started with Kissinger in the 70s. Then I blamed Kissinger until I realized the turn toward China was engineered by the British for 20 years prior to the famous 1971 UN vote to replace the ROC with the PRC as China’s representative body at the UN. These days I view all such machinations as just part of a centuries-long tapestry that are sculpted by the few who actually write history, residing in Rome, City of London, and DC.
The older I get, the more resentful I become of boundaries, nations, dollars, restrictions, religion, and all such control mechanisms. There is God, and there is You. Reconcile that, and there may be a way to share the Earth.
Well … all of the First World Nations have had to totally ignore the enforcement of their National Borders for at least 15 years … and just how’s that working out?
Ask the English … or the Irish … or the Scots … or the Germans … or the Swedes … or the Dutch … or the Norwegians … or the Canadians … or anyone in the US who’s had to live within shooting distance of any of the thousands of barrios and such that have overtaken so many of our towns large and small …
That’s the one place where John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ was horribly wrong …
I love a good fairy tale, and boy was this a whopper.
1) US car makers screwed themselves by a) producing the worst cars imaginable, and 2) by giving benefits to autoworkers that were excessive and which are still being paid off.
2) the US is the world’s second largest manufacturer of cars. China is first. Not Japan.
3) if all those jobs were “sucked out” why hasn’t manufacturing as a percentage of GDP fallen? Jobs weren’t sucked out – Americans consumed more manufactured goods, paid for by credit. The US makes, more or less, the same amount of goods as ever. It just consumes a crapload more than before , especially of cheap, disposable goods, and it is paid for by credit.
4) the Henry Ford paying his employeees high wages so they could buy his cars is an old wives’ tale. He did it as otherwise he couldn’t get employees to work on his assembly lines, as they were mind numbing and soul destroying.
5) the US manufactures 20% of all the world’s goods. 20%! And it is just 5% of the world’s population. It is a mighty manufacturer. It just does it without many employees. Automation is why.
6) sure, they can make Apple products in the US. If they do so, the new factories would be so automated that they would almost have no workers. The company would not incur the extra labor costs – it would automate the labor component out of existence. Apple doesn’t want to spend the untold billions in capital to do that. So will keep making the goods in China. The idea that they would pay more to make their product, even if people were willing to pay more, isn’t realistic.
7) the author of this doesn’t understand manufacturing, doesn’t understand how relatively few jobs have in fact been shipped overseas, doesn’t understand that in no reality will jobs be coming back to manufacturing as automation will/ would kill them faster than they can be brought back.
I repeat – the US manufactures as much, more or less, as it ever did. Automation took the jobs. We used to have say 75 million people manufacturing, assuming today’s population was constant. We now have 10 or 12 million in manufacturing. That 10 million makes as much as 75 million used to in 1960. The equivalent of 65 million jobs disappeared – and they sure as hell didn’t all go overseas.
Here is an exercise – take 75 million, reduce it 2.5% a year for 65 years, and tell me what number you end up with. That is what happened to manufacturing in the US,
That Henry Ford wives’ tale is ridiculous on its face. Ford’s universe of potential customers was the entire US population. He couldn’t increase his sales by paying more to the .1% of the population that he employed. He also couldn’t raise aggregate wages for the whole population by paying his employees more. It is possible he engendered good will by paying his employees well. If he paid them more than he had to, the excess was basically a PR expense – which would explain why he bragged about it.
Iska – exactly right. Wish I had a dollar for every time I had heard that whopper. The fact is really simple – he couldn’t keep workers because the work was so horrible. People weren’t accustomed to factories, much less factories where a person stood in one place putting in a bolt over and over and over all day. They left the jobs in droves. So he finally decided he had to pay a lot more than the going rate. That stopped the enormous employee turnover he was having.
People that think the middle class collapsed due to manufacturing shipped overseas are not understanding that it was automation that was the real culprit. The equivalent of 65 million manufacturing jobs, at today’s population, have disappeared. The balance of trade is like negative $750 billion, and if you assume that it is all manufactured goods, and it isn’t, at say 25% wage cost, that means around $200 billion a year in wages. That would be around 2.5 million jobs if every single cent of the trade imbalance was shifted to the US. Out of the equivalent of 65 million jobs that have disappeared. It is a spit in the ocean.
Further, if that theoretical $750 billion in manufacturing all came back to the US, those factories would be new, and highly, highly automated. My estimate is you would be lucky to get more than a million or so jobs created if the entire trade deficit was wiped out and everything was made in the US. That would take the entire manufacturing sector from say 10 million employees to maybe, maybe 11 or 12 million. But then that 2.5% kicks in – you will lose 250,000 jobs a year to automation, and in a few years you are right back where you started, and it will continue to fall.
Manufacturing is never going to be a source of middle class stability, never again. The numbers of people working in manufacturing will continue to fall.
And let’s not forget that of the trade deficit, a great deal of it is being supported by debt. We are consuming more, not making less. And we finance it by debt.
And of course, let’s not forget the trade wars that would occur. The US exports a lot very high dollar goods, and imports a lot of cheap shit like shoes and cheap electronics. So, we would get to make more shoes, but less high end gear.
If people want to help manufacturing in the US, but US made. I don’t know how many times I have posted it, including links, but almost anything you want can be found made in the USA. The author of the article says that they would be happy to pay more – but fact is, Americans won’t pay more. Because if yo want US made goods, almost all are available.
So if the author wants a USA made mobile phone, it is available! Quit crying about Apple, and buy a Librem 5! Seriously.
Llpoh, you are right about those 60,70,and 80 cars. The American cars of that vintage were exceeded in crap only by British cars.
>why hasn’t manufacturing as a percentage of GDP fallen?
You mean it hasn’t?
Look at this bullshit you’re probably referring to: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/april/us-manufacturing-really-declining
According to them, manufacturing didn’t change much since 1947, meaning… wait for it… the percentage today (11.7% in 2015) is about the same as in 1947 (~13%), in goal-seeked made-up “real” GDP.
I say that again slowly: manufacturing was ostensibly 13% in 1947.
Now riddle me this: what were the other 87% earned from, in 1947?
I call screaming bullshite.
>The US makes, more or less, the same amount of goods as ever.
While the US population has increased 50%.
Well, that’s probably good news, as it makes the US acting more ecologically responsible. /s
Call it all you like, fanboy. It is what it is. Always the same – when you can’t produce an argument with data, you say other data is false, because of that winning argument “bullshite”.
So what you are saying is I am right. This stuff is my area of expertise, having spent a lifetime of study and work in it.
Display your expertise to us, and provide an answer:
what were the other 87% [of US GDP] earned from, in 1947?
You are the one claiming it. How about you show us the stats. But here is a hint: start with 50% of all gdp being service in 1947. Toss in at, mining, forestry, fishing, etc. Stir briskly. Come on fanboy, you know you can figure it out. Oh, and you need to look up nominal versus real gdp and get a grip on what that stuff means. Just calling bullshite doesn’t make it so. You wouldn’t know it if you stepped in it. Oh, and you are the one who pulled 1947 out of thin air. If you want to use that date, do your own research.
In this field I am an expert – my peers wouldn’t include you. I repeat – I spent my entire adult life in this field, studying and working. I have run small, medium and large manufacturing businesses world wide. How about you? Got an advanced degree in manufacturing? Got any operational experience at all? Logistics? Purchasing? Engineering? Planning? Quality? Robotics? Get serious. When I talk about this shit, I know what I am talking about. You, not so much.
You’re just tossing bullshite around.
You could have a Nobel price in economics, and that wouldn’t turn your turds into nuggets.
50+% service sector in 1947?
When the GI bill led to a boom in construction and family starting??
And what were those well-paid, large-scale used services back then? Typewriting?
Tell us about all the other jobs those manufacturing jobs would create / support: specialty manufacturing, transport, dining, entertainment and travel, HR, medical, energy, mining, finance?
What part of “there ain’t no manufacturing jobs” don’t you understand? They will keep dwindling and dwindling and dwindling. If you want to maximise the time before they go extinct, buy American made.
The only thing ‘Made In USA’ these days is children … and most of them have 100% foreign content … and are often ‘imported’ here by their mothers dropping them off on US Soil in violation of our laws …
The Japanese sold affordable quality goods to the US? How evil is that!
And you mean just shower any populous country with enough starting money, and it will grow quickly into an absolute economic powerhouse?
Well, then India -after quickly overtaking China- will soon after be replaced by Africa, according to your theory
Not gonna happen. Niggers don’t want to work.
africa will be overtaken by the chinese BRI … and the new overlords from china will treat the africans like the (((worst))) of the Whites did — and then some …
OK……..faggot/pedophile beer………….whats next…………….faggot bread………..faggot milk ?
Fear for what they might do with hot dogs.
Memory spark
Had a 68 Toyota Corona which I bought for $400 when I needed a cheap get me there car. Ended up keeping it for years because it turned out to be a great little car. Had an RT43 cast iron block 4 cylinder putter and I drove that thing flat out at 70mph between Prince George and Kelowna. Hood latch was busted so the hood would float.
Named my lil car Humble Annie. Didn’t look great but she always got me there. Same color as the picture too.
aaahh the good ol days
Whats left out, is the collaboration between the politicals and the corporations. Recall that places like Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong etc were all dirt poor countries after WW2. Remember labels like Made in USA Taiwan?
Corporations were the ones lobbying and bribing the dirtbag politicals to allow them to set up in asian countries and ship their products back home under favourable conditions. At the time these countries had what amounted to slave labour. But as wages were paid, and raised over time, so living conditions rose. There are no sweat shops in Singapore any more, why? Because the work became beneath them when their standard of living became excessive. Companies merely packed up and moved to a new sweatshop country.
Its corporatism that drives the industry moves, politicals just take the cash and payments to keep the public stupid and distracted. China today, with the abundant help of the politicals and corporations has done what an opportunist would do. You let the companies build factories, bring their tech and basically hand it to you and establish dominance in manufacturing products as cheaply as possible, crappy but people still buy it.
Should all things continue then when china’s standard of living is to high and profits are eaten, then the companies will uproot to another slave market. There are never any shortages of slave market countries available. Thats the murikan way, slaves are good for business.
I have a friend who was the head accountant for a local manufacturer most here have heard of and may have a couple of their gadgets. They did the China thing and it reached the point where they must consider bringing that department back or relocate to another country, presumably in Asia. He said that at least for them it started out low cost but wages were increasing at a rate of 18% per year over the time they have been there.
We will have to work and produce things when foreigners will not take our worthless dollars anymore.
Too late. Negritude is now our state religion, with the attendant ‘value’ of indolence as its highest sacrament.
Haiti, here we come.
haiti, here we come? The haitians are already here …
DiFi was the final one to put china onto MFN status … and her (now deceased) husband was there on that trip and lined up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business deals with the same chinese … and DiFi and spouse continued to benefit enormously from her US Senate seat not only in his dealings with china, but with the original Northwest Orient Airlines that he and his shyster buddies bought for a song and looted of more than $8.5 billion …
And, yet, DiFi has never been questioned about the ethics of his use of her Senate position … likely never will be.
Why?